Independence Day

Flash Facts: Galactic Dispersal

"Every galaxy in the universe is rushing away from our own Milky Way Galaxy--with the speed of recession increasing in proportion to the distance from us. The most distant galaxies are racing away at fantastic 60,000-miles-a-second speeds."

Issue: Superman vs. The Flash (1976)

Classic Covers: Flash Comics #54

Ad Run: The Flash #173 (1967)

Onomatopoeia: CRASH!

CRASH!: It's common these days to regard Modern Age comics as more intensely violent or senselessly extreme than their esteemed predecessors, and not without cause. Anyone who thinks that modern superhero stories were the first to revel in violent imagery, however, clearly hasn't taken the time to familiarize themselves with the Golden Age adventures of Jay Garrick! Yes, the man we now regard as the elder statesman of speedsters was once a cruel, rambunctious, hotheaded bully. I offer this jaw-dropping scene--punctuated by a CRASH! and a YEEEEEOW!--as Exhibit A. Look how he delights in each imaginatively mean-spirited attack. That's not to say that these low-life crooks didn't deserve a bit of rough treatment but classic comics reveal how dramatically the tone of our action and our comedy have changed over the passing decades, and thankfully so has the original scarlet speedster!

Issue: Comic Cavalcade #9 (Winter 1994)

Upcoming: The Flash #6

"The Dastardly Deaths of the Rogues!," the first story arc of the scarlet speedster's latest series, concludes with The Flash #6, due in late September. And, as comic fans everywhere have noted, DC is continuing to do their very best to hype the mysterious Flashpoint. What might this potential big-time crossover event entail? Time, and future promotions, will tell. Visit DC Comics's The Source for a look at this and other Brightest Day issues--All-new Aqualad! Martian Manhunter! Deadman! The Justice League!--coming this fall.

Written by Geoff Johns; Art and cover by Francis Manapul; Variant cover by Ale Garza & Sandra Hope. Brightest Day dashes on with the stunning conclusion of “The Dastardly Deaths of the Rogues!” With Barry caught between the Rogues and the Renegades, the resurrected Captain Boomerang’s role in the adventure is revealed! You won’t believe how this leads to the upcoming Flashpoint. On sale September 22, 2010. 32 pg. FC. $2.99 US.

Flash Facts: Gaseous Envelopes

"Recent experiments indicate that a gaseous envelope (such as the one shown below around a torpedo) can double the speed of underwater missiles. The vapor envelope eliminates much of the skin-friction drag of a hydrodynamic body."

Issue: The Flash #128 (May 1962)

Classic Covers: Impulse #12

Ad Run: Flash Comics #50 (1944)

Busy Day

Rogue Spotlight: Abra Kadabra

With Memorial Day behind us, it's time for everyone's favorite sixty-fourth century sorcerer to take a bow. Crimson Lightning's Rogue Spotlight dedicated to the unforgettable, the irrepressible Abra Kadabra is at an end. (And, hocus pocus, it looks as if that wicked magician has made the last week of blog entries... disappear!) Gone is the oddly disturbing parade of puppet imagery. Gone is the seemingly endless presentation of sadistic magic tricks. The Flash has defeated his spellbinding foe time and again, and now the fastest man alive will reclaim our regular blog features as summertime begins.


Abra Kadabra has always been obsessed with applause, craving acclaim and endless attention from the very men and women he ultimately victimizes. The vainglorious villain's peak in popularity, no doubt, was attained during the aforementioned Mark Waid era, in which he served as a recurring arch-nemesis for Wally West. For those looking for a thrilling first-time encounter with Kadabra, reach for a copy of The Flash (v.2) #67, or immerse yourself in the convoluted but mesmerizing "Dark Flash Saga." (Beyond the works of Mark Waid, DC First: Superman/Flash, by Geoff Johns and Rick Burchett, provides and even more accessible introduction to the character.) Never was this singular supervillain more demented, more dangerous, more wonderfully engaging.

Kadabra is as charismatic as he is insane and it's clear he'll remain a mainstay of our hero's illustrious Rogues Gallery far into the future. Blink and you'll miss his fleeting off-screen appearances in The Flash: Rebirth, but that shadowy back-stage puppetry is nonetheless truly foreboding. No one spins a myth-arc like Geoff Johns, and a decisive conflict involving the mad magician speedily approaches. Johns has made it clear that he regards the Flash as a superhero who is integrally associated with time, and a clash between the crimson comet's time-traveling foes seems a tantalizing inevitability. We haven't seen the last of Abra Kadabra...


I chose to transform Crimson Lightning for the month of May, dedicating most of our regular features to my personal favorite of the Flash's Rogues, to pick up the pace a little, so to speak, to change things up. And, after a month of amusing ourselves with panels and pages from Abra Kadabra's memorable appearances throughout the years, it seems as if our first Rogue Spotlight was a success. Considering the size, diversity, and sheer success of the crimson comet's all-but unrivaled Rogues Gallery, it's only natural that the Rogue Spotlight be adopted as a regular feature. Don't be surprised if you see another infamous supervillain taking over the blog someday soon.

The question is, which of the Rogues should seize the spotlight next?

Flash Facts: Hypersonic Speed

"When an object travels at a speed greater than Mach 5, it is said to move at hypersonic speed."

Editor's Note: "Mach is a unit of speed measurement for an object moving through a medium, equal to the speed of sound in the same medium--760 mi/hr at sea level."

Issue: The Flash #124 (November 1961)

Classic Covers: The Flash (v.2) #23

Fast Talk: Radioactive M-Metal

Radioactive M-Metal: We couldn't wrap-up our month-long tribute to the supervillain Abra Kadabra without resurrecting the old Fast Talk feature, for though the character is built from a concept that cleverly allows for the conflation of science and magic, even Kadabra's Silver Age origin is utterly dependent upon senseless scientific technobabble. Desperate to escape the year 6363 A.D. and its society's obsession with scientific achievement, the mad magician Abra Kadabra decides to seize control of a groundbreaking experiment in time travel. The means to traverse centuries is granted by a jury-rigged two-part apparatus: a "time-vehicle" driven through a corresponding portal by the "propulsive force" granted by "radioactive M-metal," a mysterious element harvested from a fallen meteorite. (What happens when you create an alloy of M-metal and Nth metal? Presumably, it would allow you to fly through time whilst knocking out any ghosts or monsters encountered along the way!) If this explanation sounds a little too convenient, it's because it is. Given the questionable terminology spouted by these so-called scientists--who, we are told in a wonderfully over-descriptive narrative, spend their days working in "a building dedicated to science"--it's a miracle that Kadabra survived his trip through time! This, of course, is just one of countless science fiction stories that utilize the broad, widely-misunderstood label "radiation" as a storytelling shortcut. (Kadabra should dose-up on some neo-magnetic radiation while he's at it!) Is it at all conceivable that any form of radiation could provide what is being described here as a propulsive force, let alone propel one through time? Can you imagine what the Periodic Table must look like in the DC Universe?

Issue: The Flash #128 (May 1962)

Onomatopoeia: KRRT

KRRT: Though the mustache-twirling Abra Kadabra might appear at first glance to be a mere comic caricature, this fugitive from the future is easily the match for some of the DC Universe's darkest villains. Beneath that showman's smile, behind tricks designed to dazzle and distract, seethes a twisted and terrifying psyche. In the hands of Abra Kadabra, even the most childish of magic tricks is made unforgettably macabre. Never was this more true than in tales such as "On the Run" by Mark Waid and Mike Wieringo, one of a chain of stories during which Kadabra took a starring role among Wally West's recurring arch-enemies. Infuriated by repeated defeats, obssessed by the desire to reclaim perceived past glories, the perverse prestidigitator makes his sentiments and intentions clear to a captive Flash by adding grisly punctuation to that old, familiar sleight-of-hand involving a rabbit and a top hat. (Kadabra's diatribe, finishing with a slight but nonetheless sickening sound effect, is presented here in full for its full effect.) What happens to that poor little bunny is better left unspecified--indeed, it cannot even be illustrated! Suffice it to say, this is certainly the most troubling--and, perhaps, dramatically effective--of the onomatopoeia we've seen thus far. Abra Kadabra's is an ego to be reckoned with.

Issue: The Flash (v.2) #90 (May 1994)

Amazing World of Puzzles

Flash Facts: Swordfish and Sailfish

"Sharing the honors of the fastest fish are the swordfish and sailfish, which skim through water with 68 miles-per-hour speeds."

Issue: The Flash #156 (November 1965)

Classic Covers: The Flash (v.2) #158

Ad Run: The Flash (2007)

Onomatopoeia: THWOK

THWOK: It's hard to believe that a technological magician possessing almost limitless power could be defeated with a simple left-hook to the jaw and yet, time and again, this is how the sultan of speed is able to topple his futuristic foe. With a swift blow--represented here but briefly by one of the myriad onomatopoeia variations used to represent hard-hitting punches--Abra Kadabra and his bag of dirty magic tricks are rendered inert. Of course, what makes the Flash such an exceptional superhero is the fact that he cares enough to speedily catch and cradle his nemesis following that blow, sparing Kadabra from an otherwise nasty fall. Again I ask you, is there a more kindhearted hero than Barry Allen?

Issue: The Flash #182 (September 1968)