Tag: the flash

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The Flash Silver Age Volume Three

This is a review of The Flash Silver Age Volume Three, written by John Broome and drawn by Carmine Infantino. Read my reviews of Volumes One and Two here and here. The Flash is of course the Fastest Man on Earth. Mild-mannered police scientist Barry Allen is struck by lightning, which grants him super speed. He can outrun bullets, time travel, and control every atom in his body! He has a fiancée, hen reporter (not a typo, Google it!)  Iris Allen; a young protégé, Kid Flash; a weird friend, The Elongated Man; PLUS a bow-tie, and he’s ready to go!

Know that this volume contains many erudite rogues, the type of blue-collar supervillain who will haul beer crates during the day and invent a perpetual motion machine during lunch break. Instead of selling their inventions and living the rest of their lives in luxury, they use their inventions to rob jewelry stores. They’re all the same character in that they are doing it for the kicks and not the money. We have an episode with the Mirror Master – I think it was the Mirror Master – breaking out of jail because his rogue rating went down in the prison newspaper, which I’m guessing is put out by his fellow cons. His rogue rating goes up and then tanks when the Flash flattens him.

There are also a few science fiction stories. I respect the fact that Mr. Broome always invents an explanation for his ridiculous Silver Age stories. In one story, the Flash time travels to the future to videotape the end of the earth for his girlfriend. He touches something, which is stupid, and ends up with Hands of Death ™. Everything he touches withers and dies. How to cure this? Just eat grain and oats, which I guess is immune to aging but will absorb the toxins in his hands and thus create an antidote when consumed. Simple!

The Flash’s supporting cast continues to expand. We meet Iris Allen’s brilliant professor father, who I’m sure wanders around asking people what day of the week it is, but almost deduces Flash’s secret identity using Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. When Barry uses super speed, time slows down around him, and his watch slows down. That’s why he’s always late. He’s not a lazy bum after all! And we have The Reverse Flash, who hails from the 25th century and is destined to become the Flash’s greatest foe.

These comics were written in the 1960s for children and young teens, and now they are being made into TV shows and movies that make millions of dollars. How influential are these comics? Well, if the creative team wasn’t doing work-for-hire, they would’ve been millionaires before they died. The lesson: own your own intellectual property! If you are a fan of the Flash and Silver Age comics you will enjoy this.

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Flash Silver Age Volume One

This is a review of Flash: The Silver Age Volume One. I am behind on my reading, because last week I self-diagnosed with COVID. The good news is that after a miserable few days, I am ramping up my reading again. Anyway, The Flash is the first superhero comic I ever read. It wasn’t my first comic – I read a bunch of those Archie digests you used to be able to find at supermarkets – but I have a soft spot in my heart for the character.

The Flash is Barry Allen, police scientist. One night Barry is proudly examining his collection of chemicals (he’s that type of guy), when a bolt of lightning strikes, saturating him with a hodgepodge of those selfsame chemicals. Instead of being transported to the burn unit, Barry discovers that he has super speed. He dons a red costume with yellow lightning bolts, and the Flash is born!

 So far, so good. How are the stories? Well, they’re less stupid than the Batman & Superman stories of that time period, but that’s a low bar to hurdle. What we get is a heaping dose of junk science, wherein Barry’s speed allows him to do anything you can imagine. Forget faster than light travel; The Flash can break the time barrier!

 The Flash’s rogue gallery is a menagerie of bizarre characters. Thus far, the people’s champion is Gorilla Grodd, a super-intelligent talking gorilla with awesome mental powers. There’s also Captain Cold, The Pied Piper, The Weather Wizard, and Mr. Element. We have a fair number of invaders from outer space stories, along with tales that are plain weird. In one issue, the Flash fights a group of sentient thunderheads by cloud-skipping from cloud to cloud.

I’d be remiss in not mentioning Kid Flash, DC’s version of a teenager of the late 50’s. Wearing a bow-tie to school, calling every adult sir or ma’am, young Wally West is doomed to never have sex. I confess that I’m sort of surprised that Barry himself ever gets sex. When we first meet him, he’s in the police cafeteria drinking milk, which is as perfect a character moment as you will ever see. Barry is always late for his dinner dates with his girlfriend Iris, so she thinks he’s the slowest man on earth. Of course, she adores the Flash. The hero’s love interest disliking or being meh about him while adoring his alter ego is a tired trope, but to be fair, this was the 60’s.

A good read for Flash fans.