Fallen Angel TPB #1 (DC) coverIt seems that there will be two Fallen Angel collections on the shelves this August. To coincide with IDW’s book collecting the first story arc of their series, DC is reprinting their TPB of the first few issues of the original series.

Fallen Angel started as a creator-owned book at DC and ran for 20 issues. DC published a TPB collection of the first 6 issues, but stopped there. As much as the cancellation rankled, DC gave it a lot of opportunities… it just wasn’t a good fit for the DC brand (it probably would have thrived at Vertigo) or the DC sales targets.

Fallen Angel TPB #1 (IDW) CoverAfter it was canceled, Peter David took the series to IDW, with J.K. Woodward taking over the art from David Lopez. The first arc set in place a new status quo, and finally answered two key questions: Was Lee really a fallen angel? And if so, how did she fall? Fallen Angel proved to be a better fit with IDW, who immediately extended it from a 5-issue mini to an ongoing series when sales figures started coming in.

I highly recommend reading DC’s trade, which Amazon still has in stock. If you like that, pick up the next issue of the monthly. (Keep in mind that the art style is vastly different, and twenty years have passed, story-wise, between the end of one series and beginning of the next.) I don’t know how easy it’ll be to pick up the back issues, but the IDW trade will be out soon.

And who knows? If capitalizing on IDW’s success works out for DC, maybe they’ll see the light and collect the remaining 14 issues!

Now that the election is done, here are some of the campaign signs we saw that elicited some unintended laughter.

Hunt Sherrif

I couldn’t decide between two captions: “But I did not hunt the deputy…” and “I didn’t think they were in season.”

Desmond

This isn’t funny on its own, but coming right off the Lost season finale, all I could think was, “Vote for me, brother!”

Go with Tan!

Uh… I hate to break it to you, but that’s green

Last night we went to see a screening of Twelve Monkeys, still one of my favorites. There was an odd moment in the middle, though. In the scene in which Bruce Willis and Madeline Stowe are attacked in the abandoned theater, just after Willis’ character kills the attacker, is this exchange:

“You killed him!”
“All I see are dead people.”

Nervous laughter cascaded around the theater as the audience flashed forward to The Sixth Sense and its signature catch-phrase.

Spam subject:

this going to expolad

It’s a stock spam, and what they’re trying to say is “This is going to explode.” But doesn’t “Expo-Lad” sound like a character from the Legion of Super-Heroes?

Just imagine:

“No one wants to come to our convention! What can we do?”
“Never fear! Expo-Lad will save us!”

Update: I can’t believe I didn’t think of this earlier, but maybe ExpoLad is related to TypoLad!

Cover: Flash Comics #90: Nine Empty UniformsSomething I’ve noticed as I read through various Golden-Age Flash Comics is a repeated subgenre in which the Flash plays an entire team. “Nine Empty Uniforms” (Flash Comics #90, 1947) is the first one I read, since it was reprinted in an 80-page Giant. The bad guys cause problems for a baseball team, so the Flash takes the place of every single player in the upcoming game.

flash-hockeyAs I’ve picked up comics from the 1940s, and the new Archive book, I’ve found more. In an untitled story from All-Flash Quarterly #1 (1941, reprinted in The Golden Age Flash Archive Volume 2), racketeers hassle a hockey team.The owner needs the money from the “Manley Cup” for an operation for his daughter, so when the racketeers force the players to sit the game out, the Flash steps in.

Flash Comics #39: stage rehearsal“Play of the Year” (Flash Comics #39, 1943) breaks with tradition a bit and instead of a sports team, the Flash replaces a troupe of actors. A rival producer tries to financially ruin one of Jay’s friends by preventing his play from opening, in this case faking a measles outbreak among the cast and putting them in quarantine. Once again, the Flash steps in and plays every single role, changing costumes and switching places faster than the eye can see.

The weird thing about these stories is that nowhere does anyone suggest that having a super-powered player—who isn’t even on your roster—just might be cheating. It goes all the way back to his first appearance in Flash Comics #1: Back in college, Jay Garrick was a football scrub. After the accident gave him super-speed, he convinced the coach to put him on the field so he could show off in front of his girlfriend, Joan.

Interestingly, later retellings of the Flash’s origin make it a point that he quit the team immediately afterward because staying would have given him an unfair advantage.

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