The Flash Writer Van Jensen Is Leaving
By Nick Tylwalk
One of the men who’s been guiding the comic book adventures of Barry Allen for several years will be wrapping up soon and moving on. Van Jensen, one half of the writing team on The Flash, took to Twitter today to announce that his time on the series is nearing an end.
Jensen came aboard The Flash with issue #30 and combined forces with Robert Venditti to have what by today’s standards is a lengthy run, primarily with artist Brett Booth. Their tenure included such notable events as the Flash being marooned in the Speed Force by a murderous future version of himself, the potential speedster origin of the current Wally West and the introduction of the New 52 version of Zoom.
The timing of his departure is interesting, simply because it’s expected that most current DC titles will wrap up at #52 and be relaunched as part of the DC Comics Rebirth that is reportedly on the way this summer. If that’s the case, we’ll get four more issues of Jensen’s work after The Flash #48, which is in stores this week.
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In subsequent tweets, Jensen revealed that he has no future DC projects currently in the works but does have multiple creator-owned titles that he will be working on. Venditti hasn’t made any comments as of the time of this post, but if Rebirth is the reason for Jensen leaving, it’s logical to expect that his co-writer will also be ending his time on the series as creative team shuffling is part and parcel of line-wide relaunches — meaning we should expect more of these farewells around the DC Universe.
The other possibility is that there might not be a series called The Flash after #52, but considering the character’s prominent profile on TV and upcoming movie appearances in the DC Extended Universe, that seems highly unlikely. Nothing lasts forever in superhero comics, especially in the current decade, but Jensen can move on secure in the knowledge that he helped define the Fastest Man Alive for the current generation of comic book readers, and there’s definitely something to be said for that.
(via Comic Book Resources)