DC's Hinting Bart Is Coming Back? Really?

Love Rich Johnston's column, Lying in the Gutters. L-O-V-E it. Seriously. I refresh CBR several time, starting around 4pm EST, until I see it pop up. When it is pushed to Tuesday without prior announcement, I think I've double-checked as late as 9pm EST to see if someone just forgot to make it available earlier.

Rich is a busy man that has so many different possibilities of things to cover. So, on occasion, something can seem like a bigger find than it is. For example:

FLASH TALKING

One San Diegoer tells me, "I was waiting at the Aspen booth at Comic-Con getting a sketch done by current Legion Artist Francis Manapul, when Geoff Johns came over and interrupted to talk to him for a second. Johns had a copy of the first trade from his first Teen Titans trade, and handed it to Manapul, which Manapul said, ‘I eventually did get my hands on a copy and read it last night.’ The two of them talked about Bart Allen for a couple of minutes, with Manapul being very complimentary of how he was written. Johns looked around, saw people were watching, and turned his back and the two of them continued to talk inaudibly for about 10 minutes about something before Johns left.

"Combine that with the vague question that Johns asked at one panel: ‘Does anyone miss Bart Allen?’ and there has to be something there."

I dunno. You can't spend ten minutes having a friendly chat without people reading something into it.

Yeah...but...well...

Will they bring back Bart Allen? "You have read the first issue of 'Legion of Three Worlds,' right?" Didio asked, and Johns hid his head in his hands.

"I haven't read it," Wayne said. "It hasn't come out."

"No plans at this time," Didio came back. "How did I cover, Geoff?

Mind you, Hannibal did leave out the "you'll read it now" uttered by Geoff, but the point is still there. Oh, and that was Wizard World Chicago coverage, almost a full month before the little convo the fan overheard at SDCCI.

Happens to the best of us. Thank God that goatse link got pulled down though. Here I stupidly thought it couldn't be too bad since there was no NSFW warning... ;)

(For the record: yes, I've heard of goatse before, but since it wasn't a plain link to the front page, I gave the benefit of the doubt.)