Short Story Week 2: The Flash

When I was young and discovering superheroes, the first thing I was captivated by was their visuals. I would see a character on TV, a comic cover, a toy, or a coloring book, and go “Who is that?” Hoping the character was as cool as I was making them out to be in my mind. So who was the red-suited man with the gold boots and the lightning bold emblazoned across his chest?

“He’s the Flash, he’s the fastest man alive.”

Before you learn about the lore, the speed force, the many people who have worn the suit, the menagerie of incredible supervillains who have called The Flash a foe, that the Flash is the guardian of not one but two major metropolitan cities, the many superhero teams who have proudly had a Flash as a member, or the many events labeled “Crisis” that have left the mythology forever changed that sentence gives you a great starting point.

When I got old enough to get into the comics, I happily fell into all the mythology and was very much in love. The comics by Mark Waid, Mike Wieringo, Greg Laroque, Geoff Johns, Scott Kolins, Howard Porter, Francis Manapul, Barry Kitson, and others just meant the world to me. In the last installment of this newsletter when I said I chose to write Superman instead of the Flash, it was not an easy decision. Fortunately for me, luck again broke my way, and I got the opportunity to pitch stories for the Flash Giant and what would become Flash: The Fastest Man Alive the digital series once I had finished my first three Superman short stories. I would get to write three stories about The Flash. All edited by the great Andrew Marino.

When I was growing up Wally West was the Flash, he once again is the lead Flash as I type this newsletter, but these stories were to be about Barry Allen. I had read a lot of great Barry comics, and I had also read Barry comics that were clearly meant to be Wally comics. My biggest goal was to reacquaint myself with this version of the character and give him stories befitting his stature in the DCU. Let’s get into the stories and see how I did.

Story 1: Rain On Your Own Parade

Art by David Lafuente, Colors by Luis Guerrero, and letters by Rob Leigh

Holyoke, Massachusetts is my hometown. The biggest event there is St. Patrick’s Day which we turn into almost a week-long festivity and ends in a large parade.

When I found out that Central City and Keystone City have both held Flash parades to celebrate their hero, I thought it was really novel, and it made so much sense. If a city had a superhero they loved? Of course, they would have a celebration for them. And I funneled a lot of my experience living in a city with a notable parade into this story.

When Wally West was the Flash he was fond of the Flash parade. Wally is not a terribly humble character but more importantly, he saw the parade as honoring his beloved mentor and predecessor Barry Allen. Barry on the other hand? I felt he would be less comfortable with it.

Barry is midwestern to a fault. He will always go out of his way to help someone else and treat them kindly, but it’s not in his nature to take a lot of praise in return and he’s a more quiet, interior character than Wally is.

In “Rain On Your Own Parade” Barry Allen walks around Central City during the Flash Parade, trying to get into the spirit of the event, but struggling with what he feels is unwarranted praise for his alter ego. Before he can get too glum about the parade it’s attacked by the rogue known as Tarpit, a creature made of hot tar, who destroys the parade root. Before Barry can suit up he sees how furious the people of Central City are that Tarpit has ruined their hard work, he suits up as the Flash to help the citizens take Tarpit down.

Tarpit was a character I loved from Geoff Johns and Scott Kolins’s time on The Flash. Really clever power set, and a great name. As soon as I knew I wanted to do a story about the Flash parade Tarpit quickly appeared as the villain. Tarpit hating the parade, and hating what the Flash represented also helped Barry see a much more negative and hostile version of his own opinions on the event. It was a great dynamic.

There is going to be a lot of boasting about the brilliance of Andrew Marino’s art choices for these stories. David Lafuente is an artist I have loved ever since I first saw his work in the late 00s on Runaways, he immediately became someone whose work I would always pick up. I love the energy of his work, how much personality his characters have, and how he can execute an action sequence and a quiet sequence with an equal amount of depth. As an editor, I got to work with him on a few projects and was delighted he was as kind as he was talented.

Andrew offered David the story and we were both overjoyed when he said yes. As a fan, I always wanted to see him draw the Flash and I had to pinch myself that I was the person who got to write said Flash adventure. David brought so much joy and dynamism to the pages. There was more than one panel that’s composition completely blew my mind. And his Tarpit? Phenomenal. David has drawn the Flash more since and I hope he continues to revisit the character in the future.

The colors on this story were terrifically handled by the great Luis Guerrero and letters by Rob Leigh, a legendary letterer who excels at titles & credits as well as SFX.

WHERE CAN I FIND THIS STORY? This story came out in print in Flash Giant #4. It was also released digitally in Flash: Fastest Man Alive #8 on Comixology/Amazon and on DC’s DCU Infinite App/Service.

Short Story 2: Cold Case

Art by Dan Mora, Colors by Tamra Bonvillain, and Letters by Rob Leigh

In Barry Allen’s updated origin, his father is falsely accused of murdering his mother. Barry becomes a forensic scientist to prove his father’s innocence. It gives Barry a compelling reason to have the career and drive for justice that he does. When I was reflecting on the question it made me ask, would Barry try to prove the innocence of someone he didn’t like with the same vigor?

One of the richest parts of the Flash’s mythology is his rogues gallery. Chief among those Rogues is Leonard Snart A.K.A Captain Cold. I pitched more than one story with Captain Cold, I couldn’t help myself, he was such a fun character to read and I had no doubt he would be fun to write. And putting Barry in a situation where he had to defend one of his greatest villains felt like a compelling story.

“Cold Case” opens with Captain Cold being arrested by the Central City police department for the murder of a group of drug dealers. The dealers were frozen to death and given that Captain Cold has a gun that freezes things, it seems like an open-and-shut case. A murder is solved and one of Central City’s biggest criminals is off the street. However, forensic scientist Barry Allen is not convinced. The crime does not line up with Captain Cold’s code and behavior. More than that there’s more than one person with a gun that freezes people in the DCU. The rest of the precinct is not encouraging of Barry trying to reopen the case. Barry has to don his Flash costume to find the real killer and free one of his greatest enemies.

Dan Mora is one of the best superhero comic artists working today. For years in DC editorial we crossed our fingers as tight as we could hoping he would draw interiors for us one day. He did covers for both DC and Marvel for a time and was always lovely to work with, but we knew eventually he would draw interiors for one of the big two. When Andrew suggested Dan draw this story I thought he was out of his mind. I couldn’t be the first person to write a story for Dan Mora at DC. It felt like his arrival deserved a red carpet and I was a welcome mat with character.

Andrew, in his great editorial wisdom, ignored the nonsense my imposter syndrome was generating and simply responded, “Why not?”

Dan could not have been more lovely to work with. He was kind, complimentary of the script, enthusiastic to get to draw the Flash, and he was a consummate professional in every sense of the word. He drew the story even more wonderfully than I thought he would. And like David Lafuente, he’s an artist I always thought would draw an amazing Flash, and I was not mistaken. To this day sometimes I still look at the pages he drew with the Flash on him and go “I wrote that,” with a big smile on my face.

Dan was joined by Tamra Bonvillain who always colors him brilliantly, as she does with everyone she works with. Tamra’s one of the finest colorists working today. This story is also lettered by the amazing Rob Leigh with another terrific title & credits sequence.

WHERE CAN I FIND THIS STORY? This story came out as Flash: Fastest Man Alive #8, available on Comixology/Amazon and on DC’s DCU Infinite App/Service. Digital only, not in print.

Short Story 3: Burnout

Art by Brad Walker, Colors by Nathan Fairbairn, and Letters by Rob Leigh

Barry Allen was not my Flash growing up. He was however a prominent character in two comics that were, and continue to be, very important to me. JLA: Year One written by Mark Waid & Brian Augustyn with art by Barry Kitson and Flash & Green Lantern: The Brave & The Bold written by Mark Waid & Tom Peyer with art by Barry Kitson. They were the first comics I read where Barry Allen was not the saint of the DC universe who sacrificed himself so others could live in Crisis on Infinite Earths. He was the soft-spoken hero of Central City. And in those comics, he was accompanied by Hal Jordan, The Green Lantern.

Their friendship was core to both of those stories. Hal was a hothead and Barry thought too much, they made a great pair. In both stories, I saw how their friendship had endured some of the worst moments of both of their lives. How they always found each other when times were tough. The friendship they shared made them real characters to me and I wanted to follow in the footsteps of those stories.

In “Burnout” The Flash has thrown his superhero career into overdrive, seemingly working morning, noon, and night to make the cities he protects safer than they have ever been. However, his friend Green Lantern comes to town trying to prevent the Flash from burning himself out and to get to the bottom of what has caused this increase in Flash activity. Something is wrong with the Flash, instead of being kind and quiet, he’s rude and removed. Not wanting help from his friend. But the two will need to team up to stop one of Flash’s most volatile rogues, The Top.

In revisiting all three of these stories, this one spoke to me much more than it did when I wrote it. Probably because I found the most of myself in here. Like Barry Allen, I like to help people, but I tend to push other people away when I’m the one who needs the help. I tend to need a Hal Jordan to go “What is going on and what can I do?” And I am fortunate to have many of those Hal Jordan types in my life. In a lot of ways, I think this is me writing about how much friendship means to me.

This story was drawn by the great Brad Walker. I was trying to put on the shoes of great people who came before me when writing this story, Brad made those shoes fit with his immense level of talent. There is not a character that Brad doesn’t draw perfectly. Like George Perez, Jose Luis-Garcia Lopez, Alan Davis, and an elite group of other superhero comic artists he taps into the spirit of all the characters he draws and makes them all look as great as their biggest fans think they are. It’s a true magic trick.

It doesn’t hurt that the story was colored by the brilliant Nathan Fairbairn and once again, for the third and final time, lettered by the great Rob Leigh.

WHERE CAN I FIND THIS STORY? This story came out as Flash: Fastest Man Alive #10, available on Comixology/Amazon and on DC’s DCU Infinite App/Service. Digital only, not in print.

And that is it for Short Story Week 2, gang. Thanks for coming back and reading. I hope you seek out all three of these stories and enjoy them. For the art alone…you can’t miss them.

Next week we will be talking about two Green Lantern short stories I wrote and two Green Arrow short stories I wrote. A week for DC’s emerald champions. Also, if you have heard the legend of how deeply I love Green Arrow, you are going to find out in a big bad way how true that is next week.

Stay safe!

—Dave Wielgosz