13 COVERS: A KID FLASH Salute

Posted By Dan Greenfield on Jun 3, 2016 | 0 comments

I don’t feel like I’ve written enough about stuff I just plain love lately.

And you know what I love? The original Kid Flash costume. OK, let me amend that: Not the original original. I don’t mean the one that was a carbon copy of Barry Allen’s costume.

Flash #110, Cover-dated Dec. 1959/Jan. 1960.

I mean the revised one, the famous one. The costume that is to this very second one of the best comic-book costume designs ever. As in, ever.

Carmine Infantino’s 1963 redo is most definitely in the Top 13 of all time — hey, maybe there’s a column there! — and possibly even in the Top 5.

The inversion of colors up top, the unencumbered red lightning bolt, the angled midsection, the open cowl. It’s not only a perfect complement to the Flash’s straight scarlet suit, it may even exceed it in terms of giving you that sense of electric speed.

George Perez/From Who’s Who #12. Cover-dated Feb. 1986.

Love it.

So why do I bring this up now? Because in the DC Universe: Rebirth one-shot, we get to see Wally in his classic outfit for the first time in forever. And the key is that it’s that specific outfit, not one of the later versions, or the one we saw in Young Justice. (For one thing, that lightning bolt does not need the white circle behind it. It’s distracting and takes away from the pure simplicity of the original design.)