Mark [Waid] took it back to
"Here's a guy who runs fast, and he's really cool."

[T]hat really is all there is to say about the Flash
when you're a little kid.

Let’s see here. I have a few questions for you. I came a little bit early this morning and read FLASH. So I’ve kind of got a jump on you there, I hope.

[Laughs.] I didn’t realize that it was just out, ‘cause I got a copy of it about a week and a half ago. Is it just out in the stores today?

Just came out today, actually.

Right.

Great! We actually got a really nice boost up in sales. Like, sales went up by 15,000 for the book.

Whew.

Which is really good, you know, ‘cause we were terrified we were going to f-#*! up Mark’s book for him.

[Both laugh.]

You know, Mark said, "Look after this for a year," and we were terrified of giving him it back with 10,000 sales or something. [Laughs.]

O.K., let me ask you a couple of questions about FLASH.

Sure. Yeah.

Yeah.

Do you have any kind of attachments to the Flash like that, that go back a long way?

Well, I love the Flash ... I think for the same reason Grant had, that comics were very poorly distributed in Britain in the ‘70s, when we were growing up. I’m about ten years younger than Grant, you know, but we— Comics in Britain tend to be in stores for a very long time; you would maybe get an issue of a comic, and then you’d have to wait four years for the next part of it or something. The distribution was really bad before we had comics stores here.

And one of the few comics that you sort of got every month was SUPERMAN and THE FLASH, so we grew up with these guys being our favorite characters. I think for me, Superman actually is my favorite, and the Flash is, you know, a close second or third. I know Grant, that’s his number-one character, [the Flash], but I’ve always loved the Flash too. You know, just the fact he’s a Justice Leaguer and he and Superman shared Cary Bates as a writer through the whole time I was reading all of it. [I’ve] a real affinity for the Flash; I really enjoyed it.

And I’d lost that, really, post-CRISIS. But what I did was I started picking up Mark Waid’s FLASH about three years ago—well, actually, when I started getting them sent by DC—and I rediscovered my love for the Flash again. It’s like Mark’s job on it was so fantastic that I actually went to my local comics store and I bought every one he’d ever done—went back and got them all ‘cause they were so good. Mark did such a great job on it.

Mark’s FLASH has been very popular. What’s your favorite thing about Mark’s FLASH?

I think what’s really happening now is—

You know, I kind of split comics ages up, and it’s like there’s four categories. I think we’re now entering the Fourth Age of Comics. The Golden Age ran from ‘35 to ‘55 approximately. The Silver Age was ‘35 to ‘75, and I think ‘75 to ‘95 was really what could be called the Dark Age.

And, you know, it had its good and bad points. The peak of it was probably in the middle of it, where you had WATCHMEN and DARK KNIGHT and everything. And then the crap really came out as the comics recession happened. You know, the comics recession was caused really by the amount of terrible comics, where people [were] dwindling with ideas, exactly the same as what happened at the end of the Silver Age and the Golden Age—just people run[ning] out of ideas before the next big wave came along.

And I think KINGDOM COME precipitated the entire new wave of this one—you don’t know what an age is called until it’s finished, you know?—but this new one was entered about ‘95. For me, I think KINGDOM COME and THE FLASH were the kind of harbingers of it, and what really has happened in this age is the heroes have been stripped ... back to what makes you like them in the first place. So where you had all sorts of ridiculous storylines with top characters for so long, Mark took it back to "Here’s a guy who runs fast, and he’s really cool." You know? And [laughs]—that really is all there is to say about the Flash when you’re a little kid.

Exactly.

Mark just really gave you that wide-eyed wonder, that optimism that you had when you read these books. And I think Grant’s applied the same strategy to JLA. And I’ve tried to apply the same strategy to Superman. He’s the world’s greatest super-hero; JLA are the world’s greatest super-team, you know?

And I think, more than anything, Mark taught everyone that these guys are great. Don’t be embarrassed about it; just strip it back to what it is, and that is so cool in itself. You don’t have to give him a black costume; you don’t have to give him a grim expression: He runs fast. He’s cool.