GeekiN Extra #8 – Flash: Rebirth
Wednesday, June 9th, 2010
This week, we take a look at May’s book of the month, “The Flash: Rebirth”. Everything you ever wanted to know about The Flash. In addition, we answer an email about Civil War. Enjoy!
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Book of the Month
Y The Last Man Vol. 5In this final Deluxe Edition hardcover collecting Y #49-60, Yorick and Agent 355 prepare for their ultimate quest to reunite the last man with his lost love, while the person, people or thing behind the disaster that wiped out half of humanity is revealed. Then, Yorick Brown's long journey through an Earth populated only by women comes to its dramatic, unexpected conclusion.
Still in the middle of this episode, but it reminded me of a question I wanted to ask.
Have either of you guys read the comics Marvel has put out based on Stephen King’s Dark Tower?
I have the DT: Gunslinger Born trade paperback, and I liked it, mostly for the artwork depicting events I had already read about in the DT novels. The later comics were supposed to split off a bit more into telling stories that were only hinted at in the novels, but I haven’t seen them myself.
I never read the novels so I haven’t read the comics either. The artwork is definitely gorgeous though…
Well, the good thing about the comics is they are kind of “prequels” to the main story of the novels, and primarily exist to be an alternate entry point into the series. The Gunslinger Born run of the comics retells the stories that have the most detail from the novels, and then the other comics expand on other events of the gunslinger’s past that only got a few paragraphs in the novels.
Glancing through what has been released so far, it looks like the current run of the comics is almost to the beginning point of the first DT novel storywise. I have no idea if they plan on continuing with adaptations of the novels themselves or not.
Long story short, I believe the comics were made to be sort of an entry point into the story if you had never read the novels, but still work as a companion piece if you had read them. As far as I know, Stephen King is involved with the comics to some degree, so it’s not like somebody else is making up random stuff. Now SK is talking about writing another DT novel set in between the 4th and 5th books. Crazy!
Anyway, I highly recommend that you get into the Dark Tower series, whether you start with the comics or the novels. It is a fairly unique universe with many interesting characters. In fact, the comics would probably be an easier entry point, and would shed some light on events casually mentioned in the novels. I say this having only read the first run of Dark Tower comics (Gunslinger Born), but glancing at the descriptions for the later comics gives me a really good idea of the subject matter.
That said, I highly recommend the novels as well. The first novel is a little harder to get through than the rest and has a bit of a different narrative style (something King tried to remedy with a rewrite several years ago). Personally, once I got a couple chapters into the second book, the story grabbed me and wouldn’t let go. If you REALLY get into the universe like I did, there are several of King’s other books that are related to the Dark Tower universe in some way (most notably Salem’s Lot, It, Insomnia, The Talisman, Black House, and The Stand).
I am curious to see how the comics work for someone not familiar with the Dark Tower.
Hey, there you go. I did a little searching, and it appears that Stephen King is the Creative and Executive Director for the comics.
Also, according to a quote I found on Wikipedia that comes from the afterward of the second run of DT comics, “the series will detail Roland Deschain’s ‘progress from callow youth to gunslinger’ “.
This podcast made me realize that I would love to see a kick ass movie about The Flash. I know very little about the character (other than “he runs really fast”), but I think The Flash is at least enough of a recognizable superhero name to get people interested in a movie, especially if it is done well.
For example, I know nothing about Thor, but the recent photo of the costume and the talent involved in making the movie have me excited to see it.
Thanks for answering my question :)
Road to Civil War was really cheap so no worries there.
Will pick up Front Line if I like what I have :)