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FLASH ANNUAL NO.1 REPLICA EDITION #1
Mildly Recommended (6/10)
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DC Comics
"Conqueror from 8 Million B.C.!"
"Master of the Elements!"
"The Mystery of the Elongated Man!"
"Menace of the Super-Gorilla!"
"Meet Kid Flash!"
Writer: John Broome
Pencils: Carmine Infantino
Inks: Joe Giella & Frank Giacoia
"The Amazing Star Sapphire!"
Writer: Robert Kanigher
Pencils: Lee Elias
Inks: Moe Worthman
Reprint editor: Dale Crain
Price: $6.95 US/$11.50 CAN |
Recent books like Defenders, G.I.Joe and Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Comic Magazine have as their foundation and primary appeal nostalgia for comics and characters from days gone by, but there's little else to them. Nothing wrong with nostalgia, but new stories need to be tempered with something more for today's audiences. For simple fun and a trip back to a different creative time, books like this replica edition satisfy my need for nostalgia just fine.
John Broome and Carmine Infantino tell us a story of the Silver Age Flash's prevention of a conquest by an ancient man of metal, and of the origins of Mr. Element, the Elongated Man, Gorilla Grodd and Kid Flash. We also get a tale from the Golden Age, of the original Flash's encounter with an other-dimensional conqueror known only as Star Sapphire (not to be confused with the Silver Age Green Lantern's foe/lover).
I hadn't read the original introductory stories featuring Mr. Element, Grodd or Kid Flash before, and it was a real kick. Storytelling that today would put me off comes off as kitchy, bringing a smile to my face. I love the educational tone of Broome's scripts, especially the Mr. Element story.
As a kid, when I first saw Infantino's Flash art in the 1980s, I honestly didn't care for it all that much. But in the 1960s, he was at his strongest. It would seem Giella's inks softened his style a fair bit, giving Infantino's squat and sketchy figures a cleaner look.
Yes, checking these old stories out was a lot of fun, but sadly, DC is charging far too high a fare for this trip into yesteryear. These stories don't call out for a cardstock cover or high-grade paper. Marvel Comics has produced reprint books of similar length at half the price DC is asking for this book.
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