Issue Description

Picture News reporter, Iris West, is writing an article on Foundling House. Particularly heartbreaking to West is the story of Beth, a lost, five year old girl, with little memory of her early life. West's husband, police forensics scientist, Barry Allen, has his own problems. A new thief, the Green Ghost, has been looting Central City. While West is driving Allen to work, they see the owner of a jewelry store, crying out that he is being robbed by the Green Ghost. Allen investigates, as the Flash. Racing into the store, the Flash finds no trace of the Green Ghost. The jewelry store owner, Charles Perkins, is relieved to discover that his souvenir chess piece has not been taken.

Unbeknownst to the Flash, the Green Ghost is standing right next to him, appearing as a small spider. Back at his secret lair, the spider illusion is dropped, revealing the true culprit behind the Green Ghost's crimes, Doctor Light. Having faced separate defeats at the hands of the Justice League of America, the Atom, and the Green Lantern. Doctor Light has decided to try his luck with the Flash. His latest invention, the "Photonikron", allows him to cast light illusions around himself, so that he may appear as, literally, anything. At home, Allen is contacted by Dexter Myles, the curator of the Flash Museum. The stolen jewels, from the jewelry store robbery, have appeared at the Flash Museum.

Allen investigates, as the Flash. Observing the gemstones, Myles and the Flash are struck by twin beams of light. Myles is floored, but the Flash only takes a glancing blow. The gemstones, really an illusion-masked Doctor Light, begin peppering the Flash with spheres of light. The Flash retaliates by hammering away at the gemstones. Once again, Doctor Light is on the verge of losing a fight. A blinding potpourri of kaleidoscopic colors explodes around the Flash, giving Doctor Light the chance to change his surrounding illusion. Appearing as Myles, Doctor Light is able to get in a couple of surprise punches, before the Flash mops up the floor with him.

Desperately, Doctor Light, still appearing as Myles, levels one of his special light weapons on the Flash, and murders the Scarlet Speedster. Perceiving no heartbeat, Doctor Light casts the illusion of a concrete slab about the Flash, and carefully places him, on the sidewalk, of a busy Central City street. The Flash, upon recovering, gradually comes to the realization that the world perceives him as a concrete section of sidewalk. After being stepped on a few times too many, the Flash finds that he can still stand up, and does. As he moves down the street, bystanders become terrified at the sight of a mobile block of concrete.

The police take the block into custody, where police scientists attempt to break a piece off the block for analysis. The Flash suffers a pounding chisel blow to his head, being doused in cold water, and scraped on the nose. Finally, the police forensic scientist, desperate to break off a sample of the "concrete block", begins violently kicking the Flash. Having observed the "concrete block" moving down the street, Doctor Light arrives at police headquarters, to finish off the Flash. Vibrating at super-human speed had saved the Flash's life back at the Flash Museum. Now, as those vibrations finally begin to slow, the light illusion fades from around him.

The Flash vibrates into intangibility to avoid Doctor Light's laser attack. Doctor Light counters by switching to a vibratory weapon, attuned to the Flash's very own vibrational wavelength. The Flash blocks and deflects the shot. Doctor Light fills the room with a barrage of light needles. The Flash, vibrating back into intangibility, dives up through the roof to dodge Doctor Light's attack. As the Flash descends back into the room, he blocks Doctor Light's next attack by building up a wall of compressed air in front of him. After mercilessly beating Doctor Light into unconsciousness, the Flash recovers the stolen jewelry. In conversation with Perkins, after returning his jewels to him, the Flash begins to suspect that Perkins is Beth's father. The Flash, and West, reunite Beth with Perkins. To celebrate the happy turn of events, Allen takes West, and Myles, out to dinner.

The Flash (1959)

Publisher

DC Comics

Volume Description

The Flash Volume 1, (continued from Flash Comics).

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Starring Barry Allen as the Flash and Wally West as Kid Flash. After 4 try-out issues of "Show case" - the first being #4, which is widely accepted as being the comic that launched the Silver Age - the Flash returned to star in his own title with #105 in 1959. The numbering of the title continued from the Golden Age "Flash Comics," which had come to an end as Super Heroes went out of fashion in the early 1950's. When Police scientist Barry Allen was doused with a variety of chemicals along with a bolt of lightning, the accident endowed him with Super Speed, and he donned the famous red Flash uniform we are all familiar with. Barry was seeing reporter Iris Allen, and to ensure he kept his identity as the Flash a secret from his girlfriend, he always turned up late for their dates. During his Showcase appearances, the Flash had battled the first of what was to become his rogues gallery when he clashed with Captain Cold, and his range of costumed opponents was about expand almost as rapidly as his uniform expanded from his ring when it came into contact with air. In his opening issue, the Flash battled the Mirror Master, and in the following issue, readers were introduced to Gorilla Grodd, Solovar, and the inhabitants of Gorilla City in a trilogy of tales that ran through issues #106 - 108. Also starring in #106 was another costumed villain, the Pied Piper. The Mirror Master obviously proved a hit with fans as he was back in #109 for a re-match and in #110 the Flash encountered the Weather Wizard for the first time. The Trickster brought his tricks to Central City in Flash #113, while Captain Cold returned in #114 and another Captain - this time Captain Boomerang debuted in #117.

However, it wasn't just super villains the Flash was encountering in the early issues of his own series. In #110, Kid Flash made his debut, when Wally West was caught in a freak duplicate of the accident that had given Barry his super speed. Wally's original costume was a duplicate of Barry's (only smaller of course) but sidekicks were "in" at the time and Wally would often feature in back up stories in the Flash as well as sometimes teaming up with his mentor - such as in #120. Later (#135) Wally would receive his more familiar yellow and red costume, which would serve him for the best part of two decades. Shortly after the introduction of Kid Flash, the Flash encountered Ralph Dibny, the Elongated Man in #112. At first, Barry thought the Elongated Man was a criminal, but by the end of the lead story in this issue, Ralph was exonerated, and the two men became firm friends. Editor Julius Schwartz was developing a number of friendships across the books he edited and chief among them was a friendship between Green Lantern and the Flash. The two first teamed up in Green Lantern #13 and the friendship was cemented during several shared adventures including the ones in Flash #131 and #143.

The most far reaching team -up of Barry's career was to come about in the classic Flash #123, "Flash of Two Worlds" in which the Scarlet Speedster met his "hero" Jay Garrick, the original Flash from the Golden Age of comics, and the concept of Earth Two was launched. Subsequent team ups between the two Flashes included the reintroduction of the Justice Society of America in #137's "Vengeance of the Immortal Villain," as the heroes pitted their wits against Vandal Savage. In the meantime, the villains just kept coming, as Abra Kadabra - a magician from the future made his debut in #128, Heat Wave made things hot for the Flash in #140, and the Top put him in a spin in # 141. However, it was the introduction of Eobard Thawne - the Reverse Flash (or Professor Zoom) in #140 that would have the most far reaching and long lasting effect upon Barry Allen's future.

When Barry and Iris finally got around to tying the knot, (#165), the Reverse Flash tried to take his place at the altar. Although Barry foiled his arch -foe on this occasion, history would repeat itself later in the series. After the death of Iris (accidentally shot at a costume ball), Barry was about to get re-married. Thawne was about to kill his fiance, but in order to prevent that happening, Barry snapped the neck of his enemy - an event which led to the two-year plus "Trial of the Flash," which concluded the series and led to the seeming demise of Barry Allen in Crisis on Infinite Earths.

With science-based stories by the likes of Gardner Fox, John Broome, and Robert Kanigher, and the sleek angular artistic lines provided by Carmine Infantino, the Flash became one of the most popular and attractive books in the DC line throughout the Silver Age and indeed its impressive 246 issue run. The series ended with issue 350 and was continued a little more over a year into The Flash Volume 2.

Collected EditionsFlash Archives Vol. 1 (#105-108)Flash Omnibus (#105-132)Showcase Presents: The Flash vol. 1 (#105-111)Flash Archives Vol. 2 (#109-116)Flash Archives Vol. 3 (#117-124)Showcase Presents: The Flash vol. 2 (#120-140)Flash Archives Vol. 4 (#125-132)Flash Archives Vol. 5 (#133-141)Showcase Presents: The Flash vol. 3 (#141-161)Flash Archives Vol. 6 (#142-150)Showcase Presents: The Flash vol. 4 (#162-184)Absolute Green Lantern/Green Arrow (#217-219 & 226)Showcase Presents: The Trial of the Flash (#323-7, 329-336, 340-350)

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