Special Edition Podcast

Booksplode #18 – The Flash by Mark Waid, Book One

Show Notes

Thanks to our awesome Patrons, we’re proud to present another Booksplode!

The Flash_By Mark Waid_Book One

What’s a Booksplode you might ask? It’s a bi-monthly special edition show in which we take a look at a single graphic novel or collected edition, something we really just don’t have time to do on the regular show.

This month we are reviewing The Flash by Mark Waid, Book One.

Running Time: 00:29:44

Music:
“Run”
Vampire Weekend

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Comments

  1. Terrific episode, guys! I couldn’t be happier that you’re discussing this particular book as it is Waid’s Flash that properly got me into comics in the first place. I read odd issues before it (mostly Superman or Superboy) but this was the series that hooked me – and it all started with issue 68, that fairly throwaway but super fun Aquaman issue. I went back and hunted down the Waid issues that preceded it and then, of course, just a few issues later came the Return of Barry Allen and that was it for me. I couldn’t get enough.

    (And, yeah, I love Abra Kadabra. One of my favourite Flash villains, thanks to Mr Waid. Chillblaine, which Waid used repeatedly as well for some reason… not so much.)

    Obviously, it would be nuts to expect this but I would love to hear your full thoughts on this series up to at least the end of Dead Heat in future Booksplodes.

  2. The first dozen or so issues of the rebooted Flash, written by Mike Baron with excellent art by Jackson Guice, are well worth seeking out. I was working as a retailer back in those days and recall that it was both critically praised AND a best seller, right behind Byrne’s Superman and the Giffen/DeMatteis JLA. The Messner-Loebs run started out well, but lost steam somewhere along the line. By the time Waid came along, no one had much interest in the character. Sort of like Miller and Daredevil. Member back when that could happen?

    • Thanks for that recommendation​ for Baron’s short run. I’ve never read it but will definitely be seeking it out now.

  3. Conor, I’m glad to hear you liked Armageddon 2001. The internet tries to tell me that it was not good, but I loved it. That said, I thought Flash Annual #4 was pretty weak, and I hate that it precedes Born to Run in this collection. I’ve been looking forward to handing this book to people and saying “THIS is why Wally is the best Flash and Mark Waid is his best writer,” but I feel that including that annual so early in the book seriously waters down its impact on new readers.

  4. This run was the reason I spent a couple of years (and significant amounts of money) putting together a complete run of Flash comics from Crisis to the present day (trades and issues, bits and pieces). Ironic that, outside the now-affordably reprinted Waid and Johns runs, there’s not a great deal to be excited about, but there we go.

    The Waid stuff is so great, and really shows the way he begins to create his writing style, the smart re-interpretation of classic silver-age concepts for a modern audience. It drives me nuts that his relationship with DC isn’t good – the more I come across his work, the more I am just rabid for him to do more on the DCU properties. Nice that he’s getting lots of Marvel work (and with Weringo, his FF run is amongst his best), but like Millar, Morrison, Rucka etc he’s just made for DC.

  5. this podcast ‘Literally Blew My Mind’

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