Talk about being out of the loop. 

I've been around some comic stores recently but my April work schedule totally hindered my ability to make the last few Comic Book Club gatherings at Geoffrey's.

It's a shame too, because I missed our talk about writer Mark Waid's "FLASH: THE RETURN OF BARRY ALLEN."  Old school Mark Waid years before he became BOOM! Studios' Editor-in-Chief and and even longer before his recent step to the dark side as the writer of "Irredeemable."

This collection of "The Flash" issues #74-79 is a testament to the art of telling the monthly comic book story and carrying it into the next issue. This run not only illustrated Waid's ability to set up a world and character in a few sentences, it showed off his talent for starting a story at the best possible point. Once you're introduced to Wally West and know he's the fastest man alive (usually), it's time for some action.

Trade paperbacks of this kind run more than a hundred or so pages, so I usually expect to put it down and come back later.  Nope, didn't do that.  I read this in a single sitting because it's The Return of Barry Allen (the O.G. Flash before Wally West (Kid Flash) took over) and if you were traumatized like I was after Allen's death in Crisis on Infinite Earths, then you would also want to know what the deal was.

If something was on the stove let's just say your boy would've been calling the fire crews.

Obviously, this wasn't a story I read when it originally dropped in the early 1990s, so yeah, I missed out.

Note: Please don't confuse this work with the current return of Barry Allen to active DC Comics continuity. We'll discuss that another day.

Now, as per tradition... the casting of Flash: The Return of Barry Allen courtesy of the Comic Club M.C. Geoffrey Patterson Jr.:

Barry Allen - Guy Pearce

Jay Garrick - David Strathairn

Wally West - Ryan Reynolds (soon to play Deadpool again.)

Johnny Quick - Brad Pitt (Despite the expense, some believe if the role is good enough then Pitt would do it.)

Green Lantern - Adam Baldwin (alt. Matthew Fox "Lost")

Max Mercury - Christopher Lloyd ("Back to the Future")


Hold up... CHRISTOPHER LLOYD???

"You'll have to read a lot of 'Flash' comics to understand my answer to this," Patterson said. "He's exactly like Doc from 'Back to the Future' except he can run fast."

All right, I'm sold.


Next: On Tuesday at Geoffrey's Comics, the Comic Club discusses "Ex Machina, Vol. 1: The First Hundred Days."