I saw quite a few Flash T-shirts in San Diego this year (more than I’m used to seeing at Comic-Con, actually), but only two people dressed as the Flash. Interestingly, both were women.

Kelson meets the Flash Another Flash

While all four of the major Flashes have been men, DC has published a number of female speedsters, including several alternate-reality Flashes and two who have worn the Flash symbol in-continuity: Lady Flash and Jesse Quick.

I also found it interesting that both costume designs incorporated sunglasses, reminiscent of one of Jesse’s later costumes and of the Kingdom Come version of Iris West II.

Update August 3: Wallyoeste and West both pointed out CBR’s 3rd Photo Parade, which includes two pictures of a couple in Flash costumes. Part 4 has a picture of a DC group with a fifth. This brings it up to at least 5 Flashes at the convention: 3 women and 2 men.

Update 16 years later: the CBR photo galleries are long gone, and the Wayback Machine didn’t catch any of the images, so I’ve removed the links. But I still have that Nightmare Before Christmas T-shirt!

Last week, Mark Evanier wrote about media coverage of Comic-Con that exaggerated the number of people in costume.

I think it was Saturday afternoon that I noticed a huge cluster of people in really good hall costumes, all ringing the G4 TV booth. I noticed the words, “For the next two hours…” scrolling by on the teleprompter, and realized they were probably trying to film an intro to their con report with all the cosplayers in the background.

No wonder people get the impression that everyone dresses up!

For the record: Katie dressed as a pirate on Saturday. Ironically, she got more attention for the Serenity T-shirt she wore on Friday. I just wore a T-shirt and shorts all four days.

Katie as a pirate

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