I know my way around Comic Books. I've had a Comic Book Store since 1992 and I've read since then around 15-20 issues per week, mostly to be able to sell those titles to my customers and to make them fall in love with the stories so they become avid readers and thus, avid buyers.
This is a new section of my blog where I'll make some comic book reviews and recommend some titles to anyone reading my entries.
Competitions and fights between superheroes will always generate some sort of morbo among readers and avid fans... Who's the strongest, The Hulk or The Thing? Who's would win in a fight, Wolverine or Spiderman? And it also comes when it's about competitions between editorial houses... Which excentric billionaire beat who, Iron Man or Batman? What group of gifted students would beat the other, Teen Titans or X-men?
This often ends up being a popularity contest, and that's fine, each fan has their own version and idealistic image of a character. The characters belong to all of us, to all the fans, and to nobody (sadly, nowadays the characters are owned by faceless and soulless conglomerates). But if we extrapolate this to the real world, it becomes a fair toleracnce excercise where we have to listen to other people's arguments about who would win and why, and this enriches the experience of comparing comic book heroes.
But we shouldn't get over our heads when it comes to comparing comic book characters...
One of the most iconic and probably classic competitions among DC heroes happens between Superman and Flash. If both should race each other, who would come out victorious? In modern times, we had a short example of this in the latest Justice League movie and, as it should be, the movie didn't leave any doubt of who's fastest.
If you ask me, Flash is the fastest only because each superhero is a grandmaster in their own are, and Flash's area is speed. Kal-el is the perfect being, the one we all aspire to be, but when it comes to speed it's all about Barry Allen (although I'm open to discussion).
In August, 1967 we enjoyed the first race between Superman and Flash, produced and written by a high quality team, from Carmine Infantino doing the cover, to interior drawin by Curt Swan, both true comic book world leyends, as well as Jim Shooter in charge of the story.
The result is one that could be predicted, in the end... I'm not gonna ruin it for you, but it has an ending that involves other superhero cameos.
If you have the chance, you should read it.
