Category: Flash

By John Broome, Gardner Fox, Carmine Infantino, Joe Giella & Murphy Anderson (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1805-8

The second Flash triggered the Silver Age of comics, and for the first ten years or so, in terms of artistic quality and story originality, it was always the book to watch. Following his debut in Showcase #4 (cover-dated October 1956) police scientist Barry Allen was characteristically slow in winning his own title but finally after three more trial issues stood on his own wing-tipped feet in The Flash #105 ( a February-March 1959 cover-date so it was out for Christmas 1958).

He never looked back and his first experimental endeavours can – and should – be economically yours by purchasing the previous volume of this series (ISBN13: 978-1-4012-1327-5, covering Showcase #4, 8, 13 and 14 and Flash #105-119).

The comic-book had gelled into a comfortable pattern of two tales per issue alternating with semi-regular book-length thrillers and this volume begins with a glorious example of the latter from Flash #120 (May 1961). The majority of adventures were produced by peripatetic scripter John Broome and the slickly innovative art-team of Carmine Infantino and Joe Giella, and ‘Land of Golden Giants!’ saw them at their very best in a fanciful science fiction drama where a small expedition of explorers including Barry and his protégé Wally West – AKA Kid Flash – were catapulted back millennia to the very moment when the primal super-continent (or at least the parts that would become Africa and South America) was splitting apart.

Flash stories always found a way to make cutting-edge science integral and interesting. A regular filler-feature was the speed-themed “Flash-Facts” which became a component of the stories themselves via quirky little footnotes. How many fan-boys turned a “C” to a “B” by dint of their recreational reading? I know I certainly impressed the heck out of a few nuns at the convent school I attended! (But let’s not visualise; simply move on…)

Issue #121 saw the return of a novel old foe as ‘The Trickster Strikes Back!’. The costumed criminality was balanced by Cold War skulduggery in the gripping ‘Secret of the Stolen Blueprint!’ (guest inked by the brilliant Murphy Anderson). Another contemporary zeitgeist undoubtedly led to ‘Beware the Atomic Grenade!’, a witty yarn that introduced a new member to Flash’s burgeoning Rogues Gallery when The Top turned from second-rate thief to global extortionist by means of a rather baroque thermonuclear device.

In counterpoint Kid Flash dealt with smaller scale catastrophe in ‘The Face Behind the Mask’ wherein a pop-star with a secret identity (based, I believe, on a young David Soul who began his showbiz career as a folk singer known as “the Covered Man” because he performed wearing a mask) was blackmailed by a villainous gang of old school friends.

Gardner Fox didn’t write many Flash scripts at this time, but those few he did were all dynamite. None more so than the full-length epic that literally changed the scope of American comics forever. ‘Flash of Two Worlds’ introduced the theory of alternate Earths to the continuity and by extension resulted in the pivotal multiversal structure of the DCU, Crisis on Infinite Earths and all the succeeding cosmos-shaking crossover sagas that grew from it. And of course where DC led, others followed…

During a benefit gig Flash accidentally slips into another dimension where he finds that the comic-book hero he based his own superhero identity upon actually exists. Every adventure he had absorbed as an eager child was grim reality to Jay Garrick and his mystery men comrades on the controversially named Earth-2. Locating his idol Barry convinces the elder to come out of retirement just as three Golden Age villains, Shade, Thinker and the Fiddler make their own wicked comeback. And above all else, Flash #123 is a great read that still stands up today.

Utterly unaware of the stir that was brewing in fandom’s ranks, it was business as usual with #124’s alien invasion thriller ‘Space Boomerang Trap!’ which featured an uneasy alliance between the Scarlet Speedster, Elongated Man and the sinister Captain Boomerang whilst the back-up ‘Vengeance Via Television!’ tested our hero’s wits when a mad scientist used TV waves to expose his secret identity.

‘The Conquerors of Time!’ (Flash #125 December 1961) was another mind-boggling classic as time-travelling aliens attempted to subjugate Earth in 2287AD by preventing fissionable elements from forming in 100,842,246BC. Antediluvian lost races, another pivotal role for Kid Flash (easily the most trusted and responsible sidekick of the Silver Age), the introduction of the insanely cool Cosmic Treadmill plus spectacular action make this a benchmark of quality graphic narrative.

The drama continued unabated in the next issue when Mirror Master resurfaced in ‘The Doom of the Mirror Flash!’ whilst the second story looked into Barry Allen’s past in ‘Snare of the Headline Huntress!’ wherein childhood sweetheart Daphne Dean tries to rekindle Barry’s love to boost her Hollywood profile. In #127 ‘Reign of the Super-Gorilla!’ saw Grodd return, using his telepathy to run for Governor (not as daft as it sounds, honest!) whilst Kid Flash resolved parental problems in ‘The Mystery of the Troubled Boy!’ Flash #128 introduced time-travelling magician and psychotic egotist Abra Kadabra in ‘The Case of the Real-Gone Flash!’ but still had room for the intriguing vignette ‘The Origin of Flash’s Masked Identity!’

Fox and Earth-2 returned in #129’s ‘Double Danger on Earth!’ as Jay Garrick ventured to Earth-1 to save his own world from a doom comet, only to fall foul of Captain Cold and the Trickster. As well as double Flash action, this tale pictorially reintroduced Justice Society stalwarts Wonder Woman, Atom, Hawkman, Green Lantern, Doctor Mid-Nite and Black Canary. Clearly Editor Schwartz had something in mind…

For the meantime though it was back to basics with ‘Who Doomed the Flash?’; an intriguing mystery that seemingly pooled the threats of Trickster, Captain Cold, the Top, Captain Boomerang and the Mirror Master in a superb conundrum, brilliantly solved by the Vizier of Velocity whilst his junior partner had problems enough with the Weather Wizard when ‘Kid Flash Meets the Elongated Man!’

RSVP-ing to a landmark guest-shot in Green Lantern #13 (‘Duel of the Super-Heroes!’ – see Showcase Presents Green Lantern vol. 1, ISBN13: 978-1-4012-0759-5) the Emerald Crusader again joined with our hero to defeat alien invaders in the engrossing feature-length ‘Captives of the Cosmic Ray!’ whilst #132’s lead ‘The Heaviest Man Alive!’ returned the speedster to the dimension of Gobdor (‘The Man Who Stole Central City’ from #116 and the previous volume) for another tense, super-scientific puzzle that was also a sly poke at the new Television generation. The second tale featured ‘The Farewell Appearance of Daphne Dean’ as the starlet returned to make amends in a quirky little tearjerker.

Abra Kadabra stole a rather silly encore in ‘The Plight of the Puppet Flash!’ in #133, but this was more than compensated for by the witty and sensitive Kid Flash back-up ‘The Secret of the Handicapped Boys!’ as deaf, blind and mute classmates (one disability per boy, ok?) each discovered the young hero’s secret identity.

In Flash #134, Captain Cold was ‘The Man who Mastered Absolute Zero!’ in a flamboyant thriller that co-starred Elongated Man, whilst Iris West’s father (and Flash’s prospective father-in-law) paid an unwelcome call in the cleverly comedic ‘The Threat of the Absent Minded Professor!’, whilst Kid Flash got a beautiful new costume in the invasion thriller ‘Secret of the Three Super-Weapons!’ in #135.

‘The Mirror Master’s Invincible Bodyguards!’ actually weren’t but the scarlet Speedster had a lot more trouble when a seedy blackmailer claimed ‘Barry Allen – You’re the Flash – and I Can Prove It!’ This type of clever human-scaled story was slowly disappearing in favour of the more colourful costume epics – none more so than the wonderful ‘Vengeance of the Immortal Villain!’ Another incredible Earth-2 crossover, this saw the two Flashes unite to defeat 50,000 year old Vandal Savage and save the Justice Society of America: a tale which directly led into the veteran team’s first meeting with the Justice League of America and the start of all those aforementioned “Crisis” epics.

Garner Fox scripted ‘The Pied Piper’s Double Doom!’, a mesmeric team-up with Elongated Man, but once more the Kid Flash back-up stole the show, introducing the singular thespian Dexter Myles to the steadily growing cast in a charming comedy of errors ‘Mystery of the Matinee Idol!’

Flash #139 introduced the hero’s ultimate nemesis in Professor Zoom, a 25^th century criminal who duplicated his super-speed to become the ‘Menace of the Reverse-Flash!’ a taut thriller that even found time to include a cunning sub-plot about nuclear Armageddon, and this volume closes with the contents of #140 (November 1963) which debuts the super arsonist Heat Wave in the stylish ‘The Heat is on for Captain Cold!’ and finally pitted the Monarch of Motion against ‘The Metal-Eater from Beyond the Stars!’ a bizarre energy being that could nullify the speedster’s powers.

As always the emphasis was on brains and learning, not gimmicks or abilities, which is why these tales still work nearly half-a-century later. Coupled with the astounding art of Infantino these tales are a captivating snap-shot of when science was our friend and the universe(s) was a place of infinite possibility.

These tales were crucial to the development of our art-form, but, more importantly they are brilliant, awe-inspiring, beautifully realised thrillers that amuse, amaze and enthral both new readers and old lags. This lovely collection is another must-read item for anybody in love with the world of words-in-pictures.

© 1961, 1962, 1963, 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

By various (DC Comics)
ISBN13: 978-1-4012-1327-5

No matter which way you look at it, the Silver Age of the American comic book began with The Flash. It’s an unjust but true fact that being first is not enough; it also helps to be best and people have to notice. The Shield beat Captain America to the news-stands by over a year yet the former is all but forgotten today.

The industry had never really stopped trying to revive the superhero genre when Showcase #4 was released in late summer of 1956, with such precursors as The Avenger (February-September 1955), Captain Flash (November 1954-July 1955), Marvel’s Human Torch, Sub-Mariner and the aforementioned Sentinel of Liberty (December 1953 – October 1955) and even DC’s own Captain Comet (December 1953 – October 1955) and Manhunter from Mars (November 1955 until the end of the 1960’s and almost the end of superheroes again!) still turning up in second-hand-stores and “Five-and-Dime” half-price bins. What made the new Fastest Man Alive stand out and stick was … well, everything!

Once the DC powers-that-be decided to try superheroes once more, they moved pretty fast themselves. Editor Julie Schwartz asked office partner and Golden-Age Flash scripter Robert Kanigher to recreate a speedster for the Space Age, aided and abetted by Carmine Infantino and Joe Kubert, who had also worked on the previous incarnation. The new Flash was Barry Allen, a forensic scientist simultaneously struck by lightning and bathed in the exploding chemicals of his lab. Supercharged by the accident, Barry took his superhero identity from a comic book featuring his predecessor (a scientist named Jay Garrick who was exposed to the mutagenic fumes of “Hard Water”). Designing a sleek, streamlined bodysuit (courtesy of Infantino – a major talent who was approaching his artistic and creative pinnacle) Barry Allen became the point man for the spectacular revival of a genre and an entire industry.

This gloriously economical, vast black and white tome superbly compliments Infantino’s talents, collecting not only all four Showcase tryout issues and the first full fifteen issues of his own title, but also kicks off with the very last Golden Age adventure from Flash Comics #104 (February 1949). In ‘The Rival Flash’ Kanigher, Infantino and inker Frank Giacoia re-examine the first Flash’s origin when an evil scientist recreates the secret of his speed. Exuberant, avuncular and hugely entertaining in its own right, it’s nonetheless a dated, clunky tale in comparison to what follows.

In sharp counter-point ‘Mystery of the Human Thunderbolt’ (scripted by Kanigher) and ‘The Man Who Broke the Time Barrier’ (written by the superb John Broome) are polished, coolly sophisticated short stories that introduce the comfortingly suburban new superhero and firmly establish the broad parameters of his universe. Whether defeating bizarre criminal masterminds such as The Turtle or returning the criminal exile Mazdan to his own century the new Flash was a protagonist of keen insight and sharp wits as well as overwhelming power.

Showcase #8 (June 1957) led with another Kanigher tale. ‘The Secret of the Empty Box’, a perplexing but pedestrian mystery, saw Frank Giacoia return as inker, but the real landmark is the Broome thriller ‘The Coldest Man on Earth’. With this yarn the author confirmed and consolidated the new phenomenon by introducing the first of a Rogues Gallery of outlandish super-villains. Unlike the Golden Age the new super-heroes would face predominantly costumed foes rather than thugs and spies. Bad guys would henceforth be as memorable as the champions of justice. Captain Cold would return time and again. Broome would go on to create every single member of Flash’s pantheon of super-foes.

Joe Giella inked the two adventures in Showcase #13 (April 1958) ‘Around the World in 80 Minutes’, written by Kanigher and Broome’s ‘Master of the Elements’ which introduced the outlandish Mr. Element, who returned in Showcase#14 (June 1958) with a new M.O. and identity – Doctor Alchemy. ‘The Man who Changed the Earth!’ is a great crime-caper, but Kanigher’s eerie ‘Giants of the Time-World!’ is a masterful fantasy thriller and a worthy effort to bow out on. When the Scarlet Speedster graduated to his own title John Broome was the lead writer, supplemented eventually by Gardner Fox. Kanigher would return briefly in the mid-1960s and would later write a number of tales during DC’s ‘Relevancy’ period.

The Flash #105 launched with a February-March 1959 cover-date (so it was out for Christmas 1958) and featured Broome, Infantino and Giella’s sci-fi chiller ‘Conqueror From 8 Million B.C.!’ and introduced yet another super-villain in ‘The Master of Mirrors!’. ‘The Pied Piper of Peril!’ in #106 introduced another criminal menace, whilst the second story introduced one of the most charismatic and memorable baddies in comics history. Gorilla Grodd and his hidden race of super-simians debuted in ‘Menace of the Super-Gorilla!’, promptly returning for the next two issues,

Presumably this early confidence was fuelled by DC’s inexplicable but commercially sound pro-Gorilla editorial stance (for some reason any comic with a big monkey in it markedly outsold those that didn’t in those far-ago days) but these tales are also packed with tension, action and engagingly challenging fantasy concepts.

Issue #107 lead with the ‘Return of the Super-Gorilla!’ by the regular team of Broome Infantino and Giella, a multi-layered fantasy thriller that took our hero from the African (invisible) city of the Super-Gorillas to the subterranean citadel of antediluvian Ornitho-Men, and ‘The Amazing Race Against Time’ featured an amnesiac who could outrun the Fastest Man Alive in a desperate race against time to save creation. With every issue the stakes got higher and the quality and narrative ingenuity got better!

Frank Giacoia inked #108’s high-tech death-trap thriller ‘The Speed of Doom!’ featuring trans-dimensional raiders but Giella was back for ‘The Super-Gorilla’s Secret Identity!’ wherein Grodd devises a scheme to outwit evolution itself. The next issue brought ‘The Return of the Mirror-Master’ with the first in a series of bizarre physical transformations that would increasingly become a signature device for Flash stories, whilst the Space Race provided a evocative maguffin for a fantastic undersea adventure in the ‘Secret of the Sunken Satellite’.

The Flash #110 was a huge landmark, not so much for the debut of another worthy candidate to the burgeoning Rogues Gallery in ‘The Challenge of the Weather Wizard’ (inked by Schwartz’s artistic top-gun Murphy Anderson) but rather for the introduction of Wally West, who in a bizarre and suspicious replay of the lightning strike that created the Scarlet Speedster became a junior version of the Fastest Man Alive. Inked by Giella, ‘Meet Kid Flash!’ introduced the first sidekick of the Silver Age (cover dated December 1959-January 1960 and just pipping Aqualad who premiered in Adventure Comics #269 which had a February off-sale date).

Not only would Kid Flash begin his own series of back-up tales from the very next issue (a sure sign of the confidence the creators had in the character) but he would eventually inherit the mantle of the Flash himself – one of the few occasions in comics where the torch-passing actually stuck.

Anderson also inked ‘The Invasion of the Cloud Creatures’ in # 111, which successfully overcomes its frankly daft premise to produce a tense sci-fi thriller and nicely counterpoints the first solo outing for Kid Flash in ‘The Challenge of the Crimson Crows!’ This folksy parable has small-town kid Wally West use his new powers to rescue a bunch of kids on the slippery slope to juvenile delinquency. Perhaps a tad paternalistic and heavy-handed by today’s standards, in the opening months of 1960 this was a strip about a little boy heroically dealing with a kid’s real dilemmas, and the strip would remain concerned with human scaled problems, leaving super-menaces and world saving for team-ups with his mentor.

In #112 ‘The Mystery of the Elongated Man’ introduced that super stretchable character to the DC universe in an intriguing puzzler whilst Kid Flash tackled juvenile Go-Carters and corrupt school-contractors in the surprisingly gripping ‘Danger on Wheels!’ The Trickster launched his crime career in #113’s lead tale ‘Danger in the Air!’ and the Kid took a break so that his senior partner could defeat ‘The Man Who Claimed the Earth!’ a full-on cosmic epic wherein the alien Po-Siden attempts to bring the lost colony of our world back into the Empire of Zus.

Captain Cold and Murphy Anderson returned for ‘The Big Freeze’, where the smitten villain turns Central City into a glacier just to impress Flash’s girlfriend Iris West. Meanwhile her nephew Wally saved a boy unjustly accused of cheating from a life of crime when he falls under the influence of the ‘King of the Beatniks!’ The Flash #115 featured another bizarre transformation, courtesy of Gorilla Grodd in ‘The Day Flash Weighed 1000 Pounds!’, and when aliens attempted to conquer the Earth he needed ‘The Elongated Man’s Secret Weapon’ as well as the guest-star himself to save the day. Once again Murphy Anderson’s inking gave the over-taxed Joe Giella a breather whilst taking art-lovers’ breath away in this beautiful, pacy thriller.

‘The Man Who Stole Central City’ had a seemingly fool-proof way of killing the Flash in #116, which took some outwitting, and Kid Flash returned in ‘The Race to Thunder Hill’, a father-son tale of rally driving, but with car-stealing bandits and a young love interest for Wally to complicate the proceedings. ‘Here Comes Captain Boomerang’ by Broome, Infantino and Anderson introduced the Australian super-criminal in what is still one of the most original origin tales ever concocted, whilst ‘The Madcap Inventors of Central City’ saw Gardner Fox (creator of the Golden Age Flash) join the writing team with an ill-considered attempt to reintroduce the comedy relief trio of Winky, Blinky and Noddy to the modern Flash Fans. The fact that you’ve never heard of them should indicate how well that went, although the yarn, illustrated by Infantino and Giella is a fast, witty and enjoyably silly change of pace.

Issue #118 highlighted the period’s (and DC’s) fascination with Hollywood in ‘The Doomed Scarecrow!’ (inked by Anderson), a sharp thriller featuring a villain with a unique reason to get rid of our hero whilst Wally and a friend had to spend the night in a “haunted house” in the Kid Flash chiller ‘The Midnight Peril!’

This wonderful first volume ends with The Flash #119, in which Broome, Infantino and Anderson relate the adventure of ‘The Mirror-Master’s Magic Bullet’, which our hero narrowly evades only to join an old friend in ‘The Elongated Man’s Undersea Trap’ which introduced the vivacious Sue Dibny (as a newly wed “Mrs Elongated Man”) in a mysterious and stirring tale of sub-sea slavers.

These earliest tales were historically vital to the development of our industry, but, quite frankly, so what? The first exploits The Flash should be judged solely on their merit, and on those terms they are punchy, awe-inspiring, beautifully illustrated and captivating thrillers that amuse, amaze and enthral both new readers and old devotees. This lovely collection is a must-read item for anybody in love with our art-form

© 1949, 1956-1961, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.