Saturday, January 13, 2007
Comic Art
I'm growing a little bored with the lame Spidey villians because they are so, well, lame. But it is such excellent material that it just must be mined. So, I thought I'd start another series and then interweave the two so things stay a little more interesting.Few ideas have been more enduring in the history of comics than the idea of the speedster. You know, someone that can run really, really fast.
Far and away the preiminent speedster has been DC Comics Flash. But he is not a single character. Beginning in the Golden Age, the character has spanned four generations with the current alter ego Bart Allen. Spanning generations with classic heroes has become a bit of a DC specialty, never better done than with this character, matched perhaps by Hourman.But while Flash may be the most widely known such character, they are innumerable. DC owns many of the trademarks at the moment. As one of the surviviors from the Golden Age, they bought up all they could to reduce competition for the Scarlet Speedster.
And yet, now those characters show up in the title with great frequency; the affect being that the title character has become almost a brand for the speedy hero. Marvel too has its speed demons, most notable Quicksilver, but it has never used the type to the affect that DC has.As one of the quinessential memes of comics, I thought it might be fun to do a series on the various speedsters. We've looked at some before, but never really tackled it as theme, there is much to examine.
For one, why, like flight, does this particular "power," have such appeal? What does it say That the Flash has come out as the preeminent speedster? This and more will be examined as this series goes forward.
Related Tags: comics, comic books, comic art, speedsters, The Flash
