Superman vs The Flash

By Jim Shooter, E. Nelson Bridwell, Dennis O’Neil, Marty Pasko, Dan Jurgens, Geoff Johns, Curt Swan, Ross Andru, Dick Dillin, JosÃ© Luis GarcÃa-LÃ³pez, Rick Burchett & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0456-3

The comicbook experience is littered with eternal questions that can never really be satisfactorily answered. The most common and most passionately asked always begin â€œwho would win ifâ€¦â€ or â€œwho’s strongest/smartest/fastestâ€¦â€

Teenaged scripting wunderkind Jim Shooter knew that very well when he pitched and subsequently scripted a Superman story in 1967 that created a sub-genre of comic-plots and led inevitably and delightfully to the graphic compilation under review here.

DC Editors in the 1960s generally avoided such questions as who’s best for fear of upsetting some portion of their tenuous and supposed-transitory fan-base, but as the superhero boom slowed and the upstart Marvel Comics began to make genuine inroads into their market, the notion of a definitive race between the almighty Man of Steel and the Fastest Man Alive became an increasingly enticing and sales-worthy proposition.

This sporty trade paperback chronicle collects Superman #199, Flash #175, World’s Finest Comics #198-199, DC Comics Presents #1-2, Adventures of Superman #463 and DC First: Flash/Superman: spanning August 1967 through July 2002.

Long overdue for re-release and translation to digital formats, it gathers together that initial contest and numerous rematches between the heroic speed-demons, but if you’re seeking a definitive answer you won’t find it here. These are splendid costumed entertainments; adventures designed to catch your breath and quicken your pulse. It not about the winning: it’s all about the taking partâ€¦

‘Superman’s Race with the Flash’ (Superman #199, August 1967) gets the ball rolling in a stirring saga by Shooter, Curt Swan & George Klein, wherein the two speedy champions are asked to compete in an exhibition contest by the United Nations, thereby raising money to fight World Hunger.

Naturally they agree, but the clever global handicap, circling the planet three times, is secretly and insidiously subverted by rival criminal combines attempting to stage the greatest gambling coup in historyâ€¦

Of course, justice and charity triumph in the end, but the stakes are catastrophically raised in the inevitable rematch from Flash #175 (December 1967).

‘Race to the End of the Universe!’ sees the friendly rivals speeding across the cosmos after ruthless alien gamblers threaten to eradicate Central City and Metropolis unless the pair settle who was fastest.

Scripter E. Nelson Bridwell added an ingenious sting in the tale, whilst Ross Andru & Mike Esposito delivered a sterling illustration job in this yarn, but once more the actual winning was deliberately fudgedâ€¦

When World’s Finest Comics became briefly a team-up vehicle for Superman the first guest-star was the Flash who again found himself in speedy if contrived competition.

‘Race to Save the Universe!’ and its conclusion ‘Race to Save Time’ (WFC #198-199, November and December 1970, by Denny O’Neil, Dick Dillin & Joe Giella) once more upped the stakes as the high-speed heroes are conscripted by the Guardians of the Universe to circumnavigate the entire cosmos at their greatest velocities to undo the rampage of the mysterious Anachronids: faster-than-light creatures whose pell-mell course throughout the galaxies is actually unwinding time itself.

Little did anybody suspect that Superman’s oldest enemies are behind the schemeâ€¦

‘Chase to the End of Time!’ and ‘Race to the End of Time!’ opened the new team-up series DC Comics Presents (#1-2, July-August and September-October 1978) as Marty Pasko and the utterly superb JosÃ© Luis GarcÃa-LÃ³pez & Dan Adkins rather reprised that World’s Finest tale with a brace of eternally-warring alien races tricking Superman and Flash into speeding through the time-stream to prevent Earth’s history from being corrupted and destroyed.

As if that wasn’t dangerous enough, nobody could predict the deadly intervention of the Scarlet Speedster’s most dangerous foe, Professor Zoom, the Reverse-Flashâ€¦

After the Crisis on Infinite Earths mega-event, DC heroes got a sound refitting, and the frankly colossal power levels of the heroic community were suitably downscaled to more believable levels. Some stalwarts even died, and so, when ‘Speed Kills!’ appeared in Adventures of Superman #463 (February 1990 by writer/artist Dan Jurgens and inker Art Thibert), the issue was touted as the first race between the fastest men on Earth.

There was a new kid in the Flash’s uniform: former sidekick Wally West had graduated to the role after his mentor Barry Allen perished saving the universes in that aforementioned epicâ€¦

The story itself is a delightfully whacky romp wherein 5^th dimensional gadfly Mr. Mxyzptlk coerces the pair into running a race everybody knew was fixed from the get-goâ€¦

This collection concludes with a spectacular saga unerringly aimed at older fans. ‘Speeding Bullets’ (from one-shot DC First: Flash/Superman July 2002) is by Geoff Johns, Rick Burchett & Prentis Rollins, and features futuristic villain Abra Kadabra who challenges the Man of Steel and 1940s Flash Jay Garrick to catch the current Vizier of Velocity – currently running amok at hyper-speed and rapid-aging with every step he takes. If they can’t catch him then the Fastest Man Alive won’t be for longâ€¦

With the inclusion to this book of some of the very best covers the company has ever produced – courtesy of Carmine Infantino, Murphy Anderson, Mike Esposito, Curt Swan, Neal Adams, GarcÃa-LÃ³pez, Jurgens & Brett Breeding and Kevin Nowlan – readers casual or deeply devoted alike are guaranteed a joyous thrill-ride from some of the most entertaining stand-alone stories in DC history.

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