GUEST COLUMN: The Scarlet Speedster has been around for seven decades!
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THE FLASH, created by Robert Kanigher and Carmine Infantino at the behest of editor Julius Schwartz, debuted 70 years ago in the pages of DC’s Showcase #4, on July 3, 1956 — kicking off the Silver Age! To celebrate both landmarks, we’ve got a FOUR-PART celebration for you! Once you speed through this piece, run to the links below for the other three segments! — Dan
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By MARK WAID
I’m surprisingly torn here. You would think Wally West would be my favorite Flash — and he probably is — but Barry Allen was “my” Flash growing up. I’d begun reading at the precocious age of 4 in 1966. Consequently, Adam West’s Batman was my entrance point to comic books, but following Batman around meant meeting other DC heroes in short order (being that he teamed with Superman in World’s Finest and was regularly in Justice League of America). So while JLA was undoubtedly my first exposure to the Flash, the first issue of his series I ever bought was The Flash #163. How could I not? There he was on the cover, looking dead at me and shouting, “STOP! Don’t pass up this issue! My life depends on it!” That hooked me on Flash’s adventures, and I remain hooked to this day.
Knowing this, Dan Greenfield asked me — with this being the 70th anniversary of his debut in 1956’s Showcase #4 — to list my 13 favorite OG Barry stories, specifically from the pre-Crisis era, before he died that unique kind of “death” that comics characters specialize in (no one stays dead in comics). Some of my choices might be obvious, some might surprise you, and what terrifies me is that I’m such a fan that I’m able to assemble this list from memory, complete with story titles and issue numbers. Let’s go.
(In chronological order, by publication date.)
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Meet Kid Flash! — The Flash #110. Like everything on this list before Issue #163, I first read this in reprint form, when I was given a copy of The Flash Annual #1 for Christmas 1975 (best gift ever). So while I already knew of Wally West and the peculiarity of his beginnings — duplicating his mentor’s one-in-a-billion-chances origin perfectly, somehow — enough of this original story stuck with me, where it made a great kickoff to my own Flash run as we retold it. (Dec. 1959/Jan. 1960)
By John Broome, Carmine Infantino and Joe Giella
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Land of Golden Giants! — The Flash #120. This was Barry’s first book-length adventure, a blockbuster time-travel story that threw Wally and him back to prehistoric times to battle conquering aliens — at the exact time that the North American and European continents were dividing, causing fantastic tsunamis and earthquakes. Bonus: Wally’s still wearing his miniature adult-Flash costume. Grant Morrison and I both contend that the red-and-yellow open-cowl Kid Flash costume is the greatest superhero costume ever, but I dig the mini-me look, too. (May 1961.)
By Broome, Infantino, Giella. Cover by Infantino and Giella.
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Flash of Two Worlds! — The Flash #123. While technically this wasn’t the DC Universe’s first encounter with the multiverse — that honor falls to 1951’s Wonder Woman #48 — it was by far the most consequential one. This was the formal introduction of the multiple-Earths trope that DC owned long before Marvel. (Sept. 1961.)
By Gardner Fox, Infantino and Giella. Cover by Infantino and Murphy Anderson.
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Plight of the Puppet Flash! — The Flash #133. Two of my great loves in one comic — super-heroes and magicians! True, this one’s Abra Kadabra, an evil magician, but giving Flash maybe his most memorable cover ever is quite some trick nonetheless. (Dec. 1962.)
By Broome, Infantino, Giella. Cover by Infantino and Anderson.
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The Mightiest Punch of All Time! — The Flash #153. Another “book-length novel,” this one pits Flash against both his arch-nemesis, the Reverse Flash, and Mr. Element as well! It was an oddball pairing (the second of two, the first being in Flash #147), but the whole story’s wall-to-wall action and fun. (June 1965.)
By Broome, Infantino, Giella. Cover by Infantino and Anderson.
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The Gauntlet of Super-Villains! — The Flash #155. (Actually, the word is “gantlet,” don’t argue with me.) The Silver Age Flash is widely and rightfully regarded as having the best Rogues’ Gallery in all the DC line, and this was the first time the top six decided to drop their petty rivalries and team up against the Scarlet Speedster. (Sept. 1965.)
By Broome, Infantino, Giella. Cover by Infantino and Anderson.
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Alias Negative Man! — The Brave and the Bold #65. There was a brief period before it became exclusively a Batman team-up book when Brave and Bold went wild with its pairings — Atom and the Metal Men, Supergirl and Wonder Woman, Green Arrow and Martian Manhunter, etc. I’d give a month of my life if today’s audience was willing to support a book like that, but they keep telling us with their wallets that approach is passe, which is a pity. They’ll never know the fun of watching the Flash team up with the Doom Patrol! (April-May, 1966.)
By Bob Haney, Dick Giordano and Sal Trapani. Cover by Bruno Premiani.
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Superman’s Race With the Flash! — Superman #199. No need to synopsize; it’s pretty much what it says on the cover. Written and laid out by a teenage writer named Jim Shooter (who’d go on to do big things), the story moves like lightning with a race course inventive as hell, taking us over the ocean, past the Sphinx, the Himalayas, the Algerian Desert and more. What sticks with me most to this day is one specific panel, watching Flash and Superman literally run up the side, over, and down a moving train. I love that visual more than you can possibly imagine. (Aug. 1967.)
By Jim Shooter, Curt Swan and George Klein. Cover by Infantino/Anderson.
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Doomward Flight of the Flashes! — The Flash #173. A gem. Behind a terrific cover, the first triple-Flash team-up, starring Barry, Wally, and Barry’s Earth-2 counterpart, Jay Garrick. One of co-creator artist Carmine Infantino’s last Silver Age Flash jobs, it’s exquisitely inked by Sid Greene, a divisive penman who I contend was Carmine’s best inker after Murphy Anderson. (Sept. 1967.)
By Broome, Infantino and Sid Greene. Cover by Infantino/Anderson.
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Stupendous Triumph of the Six Super-Villains! — The Flash #174. False advertising, as you know, since the series didn’t end here. Another great Rogues team-up, but it’s on this list exclusively for that cover — perhaps my favorite comics cover of all time. I have a full-size, colored stat of the original art on my wall, one of my prized possessions.
By Broome, Infantino and Greene. Cover by Infantino/Anderson.
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The Flash — Fact or Fiction? — The Flash #179. The writing debut of the man who would go on to have the longest unbroken run of all time on any Flash, the hyper-inventive Cary Bates. Bates would take the reins of the series again beginning with Flash #216 and ride it to the end of the line, but his first effort here was very clever. Bates rationalized that if there were parallel Earths, then ours must be one of them — so he had Barry Allen accidentally catapulted here, and the Flash had to go to the DC offices and get help from editor Julius Schwartz in order to get home! (May 1968.)
By Cary Bates, Ross Andru and Mike Esposito. Cover by Andru and Esposito.
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Beyond the Super-Speed Barrier! — DC Special Series #11. This was a home run and such a great read — the longest single-issue Flash story ever told up to that point, a 63-page epic that once again brought Jay, Barry and Wally together, this time with a guest appearance from the Golden Age speedster Johnny Quick, his first time showing up since the 1950s. It hosts a killer line-up of artists, too; series regular Irv Novick draws the bulk of it, but there are chapters by Kurt Schaffenberger (his only Flash work), Alex Saviuk, and (worth the price of the book alone) Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez inked by the legendary Wally Wood. Still pretty inexpensive in back issues — seek it out! (May 1978.)
Written by Cary Bates. Cover by Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez.
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1981–A Flash Odyssey — The Flash #300. Only a few issues previous, Carmine Infantino had returned to the series he’d helped launch, and while some might argue he’d lost a step, his layouts and page design were still comics at their best. Cary Bates fills this no-ads, 48-page special by touching all the typical bases, recapping Barry’s life and career in flashbacks. (August 1981.)
By Bates, Infantino and Bob Smith. Cover by Infantino and Giordano.
But what makes it remarkable is that he frames it all inside the creepy-ass main story, which posits that the accident that created Flash had not given Barry powers but instead scarred him beyond recognition and left him paralyzed and bandaged from head to foot. Come to find out that every Flash adventure ever was just a part of Barry’s imagination, a fantasy that he believed to be real rather than be driven insane by the reality of his plight. It’s really not a spoiler to say, “there’s more to it than that,” but I will tell you that it’s well done and that certain images from this story, of Barry’s horrified eyes peeking out from a face swathed with bandages, still haunt me to this day.
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That’s my list. It was much harder to assemble than you might think — there are nearly 30 years of stories to choose from — but the one thing I knew for sure, sadly, was that despite being told “STOP!” on the cover, The Flash #163 does not make the cut. Sorry, Barry.
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MORE
— PAUL KUPPERBERG: My 13 Favorite Things About SHOWCASE #4. Click here.
— PAUL KUPPERBERG: My 13 Favorite SILVER AGE INNOVATIONS — RANKED. Click here.
— THE FLASH’s 70-Year History Through 13 CLASSIC COLLECTIBLES. Click here.
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MARK WAID has pretty much written every superhero known to man, but is particularly recognized for his work on The Flash.
