RIP Barry Allen? Not so fast...

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nitrah55 · #1 Post by **nitrah55** » Wed Apr 30, 2008 1:03 pm

DC Comics is resurrecting the second Flash.

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/0 ... ex.html?hp

gsabc · #2 Post by **gsabc** » Wed Apr 30, 2008 1:13 pm

I think this is part of why I'm not so interested in comic book collecting anymore. With all the special series, interconnected books and stories, and other attempts to get the collectors to buy more, I can't afford to keep up.

I'm reading DC's last "Crisis" series, "Infinite Crisis". So much has changed in 20 years that I barely know any of the characters. "Infinite Crisis" was done, in the words of one of DC's editors (or as near as I can recall them), because every twenty years or so, you need to give the DC Universe an enema. "Crisis on Infinite Earths", when Flash died, was about that long before it. Apparently it's still constipated, because "Infinite Crisis" was only three years ago.

T_Bone0806 · #3 Post by **T_Bone0806** » Wed Apr 30, 2008 3:48 pm

gsabc wrote:I think this is part of why I'm not so interested in comic book collecting anymore. With all the special series, interconnected books and stories, and other attempts to get the collectors to buy more, I can't afford to keep up.

I'm reading DC's last "Crisis" series, "Infinite Crisis". So much has changed in 20 years that I barely know any of the characters. "Infinite Crisis" was done, in the words of one of DC's editors (or as near as I can recall them), because every twenty years or so, you need to give the DC Universe an enema. "Crisis on Infinite Earths", when Flash died, was about that long before it. Apparently it's still constipated, because "Infinite Crisis" was only three years ago.

Marvel's "Civil Wars" crossover sounded intriguing, but not enough to fork over the huge amount of dough to buy all the books needed to get the whole enchilada. Last time I did that sort of thing, I think, was "Secret Wars II", which nearly bankrupted me! I stopped collecting when my favorite character, Spidey, jumped the shark (in my opinion), with the whole "the guy we thought was Peter Parker is actually the clone, and the guy we thought was the clone is actually Peter Parker" storyline. That was too much for me, so with the pric eper comic around 3 bucks (and "special issues" even more), I had had enough. Every now and then I get to wondering what Spidey, the FF, Daredevil, Hulk, Batman, and so on are up to..but I'm sure that if I tried to revisit some of my old favorites I wouldn't even know 'em anymore.

T_Bone0806 · #4 Post by **T_Bone0806** » Wed Apr 30, 2008 3:51 pm

And actually, I don't even recall having heard that Barry Allen had died. I never saw the obit!

I did hear about Steve Rogers' passing.

gsabc · #5 Post by **gsabc** » Wed Apr 30, 2008 5:04 pm

T_Bone0806 wrote:And actually, I don't even recall having heard that Barry Allen had died. I never saw the obit!

I did hear about Steve Rogers' passing.

Barry died in 1985, saving the universe (actually, a couple of universes) in "Crisis on Infinite Earths". He has stayed dead, while Supergirl, also killed in that series, has been brought back in several forms since then. It is rare that a comics character stays dead (Francisco Franco notwithstanding), so he was always the poster boy for saying "See? You CAN kill off a major character!"

While Steve Rogers is dead, Captain America lives again, as Bucky Barnes, Cap's sidekick who was supposedly killed back in the '40's ('50's?) by the same bomb that "killed" the Golden Age Captain/Steve. As the cannibal said to his friend who threw up after eating the missionary, "You can't keep a good man down."