Tag: The Flash

Los Angeles Times business writer Ben Fritz and I wrote a cover story that ran Wednesday in the paper’s Calendar section and this is a much longer verison of that article. The premiere for Marvel Studios’ “Iron Man 2” shut down Hollywood Boulevard in May with the year’s most bombastic red-carpet event, featuring fireworks, a heavy-metal soundtrack, go-go dancers and a parade of celebrities that included Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson, Mickey Rourke and Hugh Hefner. Walking through it all were two outsiders of a sort: Diane Nelson and Geoff Johns. The industry odd couple — she previously managed the Harry Potter brand for Warner Bros. but had no experience in comics, he’s a fan-favorite comic-book writer who had never worked at a studio — are the president and chief creative officer, respectively, of DC Entertainment, main comic-book rival to Marvel. Their task ...

These are big-time days for comic-book writers, and right now no one is bigger than Geoff Johns, the scribe who had the surreal experience this year of walking on the same stage as Keith Richards, Johnny Depp and the cast of “The Twilight Saga: New Moon“  at the Scream Awards. The 36-year-old Detroit native picked up the Scream trophy for best comic-book writer. This year, Johns wrote the six-issue miniseries “The Flash: Rebirth,” which chronicled the return of Barry Allen, the most famous Flash. Today, DC announced that Johns and artist Francis Manapul would take the mythology further in March with “The Flash: Secret Files and Origins.” It’s a one-shot that leads up to a creative team taking over “The Flash” series, which already looks like one of the most promising runs of 2010. I caught up with Johns to talk a bit about the Scarlett Speedster. ...

If you read DC Comics in the 1960s and ’70s you were probably looking at images drawn by Carmine Infantino or influenced by him. Just as Jack Kirby was the signature force at rival Marvel Comics, Infantino was an inescapable presence at DC, where the Space Age brought a new science-based, cerebral tone that fit his angular style and sleek, kinetic flair. Infantino was so adept at creating striking images that, after Marvel’s failed 1967 attempt to steal him away, the veteran went on to become DC’s artistic director … then editorial director … and then publisher. One of his first moves in the top post: luring Kirby away from the House of Ideas and onto the DC roster. Don’t think for a minute that talent doesn’t recognize talent.        Infantino is celebrating his 84th birthday today and here at the mighty Hero Complex we thought that would be a wonderful excuse to ...

Today’s handpicked headlines from the fanboy universe… Left-over Halloween treat: It was posted last week but I just came across a nifty photo gallery put together by Mandi Bierly, who got William Friedkin, the director “The Exorcist,” to make a list of the movies that scare him. The unlucky 13 that he came up with has the usual suspects (“Alien,” Psycho” and “Rosemary’s Baby,” all righteously scary if unsurprising) as well as some dark fare that casual movie fans won’t recognize. Here, for instance, is Freidkin’s appraisal of Kaneto Shindō’s “Onibaba,” the 1964 Japanese horror film with the title that translates to “Demon Woman”: “‘It’s a masterpiece of horror and suspense. It’s about an old woman, who has only her daughter-in-law to care for her in a remote village. She starts to see her daughter-in-law sneak out every night, and ...

David S. Goyer is headed to International Comic-Con in two weeks to promote “The Unborn,” the horror film due in 2009 that finds the “Batman Begins” screenwriter back in the director’s chair and working with Meagan Good, Carla Gugino, Jane Alexander and Gary Oldman. Goyer is a familiar name to comics and genre film fans, of course, and he hopes to solidify that stature in the next few years with two more heroic projects: “The Flash” and “Green Arrow.” Here’s Goyer’s approach on each: “The Flash”: “To me, Wally West as the Flash has always been the most-Marvel of all the major DC characters. He’s like Peter Parker. He’s screwed up a lot, he’s overwhelmed. He wasn’t born as the last son of Krypton or some Amazonian princess, he’s a person who just ends up with these powers. He’s not ...