Hey!

[TechnoAtheist]

Ok, confession time. I kinda like the Flash too, partly because of the same reasons.

I also liked the Green Arrow. Particularly for one scene. A bunch of heroes were doing brave battle against the foes when the scene cut to the Green Arrow sitting back watching what's going on. One of the heroines came by to yell at him for not continuing the fight. His reply, "I'm out of arrows. Let's face it, with out them, I'm just an idiot in a green suit."

There was a hero with resource issues, and the intellegence to recognize that.

I should go hunt around for Speed Force, I never heard of it up until now.
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[Shepherd]

Replying to both topics in this thread:

Speed Force is a Mark Waid idea, which means that like Hypertime, it's a great short-term solution for a lot of knotty problems, but if you think about it for five minutes you realize it actually makes everything much, much worse. Remember the "Elemental" craze at DC about ten years ago, starting with Swamp Thing and moving over to Red Tornado, Firestorm, and whoever else? Waid stops just shy of making Flash a "Speed Elemental" and creates the "Speed Force" instead.

I liked Faans back when it was younger, but mainly because of the "infinite canvas" and experimental layouts the artist took. Campbell has a severe case of Claremontitis that makes my nose itch, and I generally don't read it any more.
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[Zaxor]

Ok, I didn't claim it was a good idea, just that it was created to solve those problems. I suppose that if I was a regular reader, I'd probably have more problems with the Speed Force, but as it is it makes my brain happy.

TA, that is a great Green Arrow moment. I liked him a lot better when he was a carefree hero than when he found his serious side. I have a paperback collection called, "The Brave and the Bold" about the relationships between the previous incarnations of the Flash and the Green Lantern. There's one story with Green Arrow where they have to break into a room. Green Arrow says, "I'll just break out my time-bomb arrow. That'll get us in." Flash says, "Time-bomb arrow??" GA: "It's from back in the days when I had lots of money and free time."

Waaay back in the day, when RPGs were the big thing, there was the first incarnation of the DC RPG. In it, heroes had "motivations". Green Arrow's was Thrill of Adventure. In the 2nd version of that game, it had changed to Seeking Justice, or something dramatically more serious. His little story in that section was something like, there's nothing like getting in a fight with a bad guy, and finding yourself plummeting off the side of a building. Without blinking an eye, you grab the grapple arrow, fire off a shot at a ledge that looks solid, and feel the rope tighten around your wrist just before you end up a stain on the sidewalk. You loop back up onto the roof, dispatch the baddie with a well placed arrow and a witty remark, and go soak in the praise. I know I butchered it, but it was something to that effect.
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-- The All-Powerful Zaxor

[Shepherd]

The main problem with the Flash is that the more you think about him, the more he's God. There is nothing the Flash can't do when he has unfettered access to the Speed Force.

My favourite incarnation was the Mike Baron issues of the current Flash series...the early ones. Wally was a fast guy. Really, really, fast. But he couldn't even come close to a Mach, and he had to charge thousands of dollars for his services because he went through eight or nine pairs of high-quality shoes per "mission" and had to consume several times his body weight in food, to boot.

I like heroes with cool powers AND limitations, I guess. Green Arrow has never been a fave, because I've never been able to get behind the "archery" bit. But Daredevil? Cool power...but nowhere near godlike. Ditto Spider-Man, Captain America, etc.

About the only "mega-powerful" hero I really like is the Green Lantern, just cuz I really, REALLY think the ring is cool.
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