Issue Description

Three Flashes--Jay Garrick, Barry Allen, and Wally West--battle Golden Man!

Joan Garrick convinces her husband, Jay, to take her to Earth-1. Joan wants Jay to convince police forensics scientist, Barry Allen, to reveal his secret identity, as the Flash, to his wife, Picture News reporter, Iris West. Upon arriving at the Allens, the Garricks find that Barry has taken West's nephew, Wally West, to a movie. Wally returns without Barry, much to Jay's concern. While Joan engages Iris in some girl talk, Jay leads Wally out to the balcony. Jay reveals that he is the Golden Age Flash. Wally explains Barry's absence.

The two were on their way to the theater when Allen spied the elusive Domino Gang, fleeing the foreign exchange. Allen and West, as the Flash and Kid Flash, moved in to apprehend the gang. The Scarlet Speedsters were seconds away from rounding up the entire gang, when the Flash was struck by a beam of energy, and vanished. The force of the beam stunned Kid Flash, long enough for the Domino Gang to escape. Garrick arranges to meet with West later.

Garrick and West, as the Golden Age Flash and Kid Flash, scour Central City, in search of the Flash. As the two Flashes are about to cross paths, a beam of energy strikes Kid Flash, and he, too, vanishes. Kid Flash finds himself transported to the planet, Vorvan. His captor, the Golden Man, a natural mutation, possesses a towering intellect, forever setting him apart from the savage primitives that inhabit Vorvan. After single-handedly building his technologically advanced Vorvan City, the Golden Man grew bored.

A passion for hunting inspired the Golden Man to bring the Scarlet Speedsters to Vorvan, to serve as his prey. Releasing the Scarlet Speedsters into the wilds of Vorvan, the Golden Man offers to return them to Earth, if they can elude him for four hours. The Scarlet Speedsters find their flight across the Vorvan landscape quickly interrupted, when they are caught up in a powerful geyser. The constant undulation of the water's surface make it impossible for the Scarlet Speedsters to make any headway.

The Golden Man closes in on his prey, leveling a paralysis rifle on them, Before he can fire, the two Flashes vibrate down into the geyser, then tear off at such high velocity, they are rendered invisible to the naked eye. The two Flashes are caught in a torrential downpour. The raindrops crystallize upon contact with their skin, weighing and slowing them down. Once more, the Golden Man closes in on them. The two Flashes break for a dense thicket, using the twigs and bushes to scrape away the crystals from their bodies.

Once more, the Scarlet Speedsters are able to escape the Golden Man. In truth, though, the Golden Man is not actually interested in the hunt. Chasing the Scarlet Speedsters is merely a ruse to keep them running at their highest velocity. Machines in Vorvan City are absorbing the speed force created by their running, which the Golden Man plans to harness, and use, to rapidly evolve his people to his intellectual level. The very ground itself liquifies beneath the Scarlet Speedster's pounding feet.

Caught in an ever deepening quagmire, Kid Flash begins to go under, passing out from the extreme effort to keep his head above the surface. The Flash lifts, and hurls, Kid Flash to solid ground, but the effort drives him below the quagmire's surface. The Golden Man collects Kid Flash, and returns to Vorvan City. As Kid Flash, alone, cannot generate enough speed force to power his machines, the Golden Man teleports the Golden Age Flash to Vorvan.

The Golden Man is surprised to find that the Golden Age Flash was not rendered unconscious upon arrival, as the Flash and Kid Flash had been. The Golden Age Flash attacks the Golden Man, but is quickly subdued. The Golden Age Flash and Kid Flash are placed in a radiation cell. Inside the cell, the temperature is rapidly decreased into subzero range. Only by vibrating at their highest velocity can the two speedsters keep themselves from freezing to death.

Kid Flash is on the verge of passing out, again, from the exertion of sustaining such high velocity, when the Flash storms Vorvan City. The Flash tears into the Golden Man's control console, until the power flickers out on the radiation cell. The three Scarlet Speedsters lunge at the Golden Man, only to be repelled by his superior force of mind. By vibrating in sync with the Flash's specific vibrational frequency, the Golden Age Flash and Kid Flash are able to boost the Flash's speed, with their own.

The Flash breaks through the Golden Man's telekinetic field and begins mercilessly pummeling him. Hoping to create an army of golden men to fight at his side, the Golden Man activates his machine. Instead of evolving the Vorvan populace to his level, the machine's energy devolves the Golden Man to theirs. The now primitive Golden Man wanders out of Vorvan City, to be with his people. The Flash reveals that he escaped the quagmire by vibrating himself through the planet itself.

The Golden Age Flash reveals that, due to his constant maintaining of an inner vibration, to cause his features to blur, protecting his secret identity, he was able to remain conscious upon being teleported to Vorvan. The three Flashes return to Earth, then track down and apprehend the Domino Gang. The Garricks return to Earth-2, after getting Allen's assurance that he will reveal his secret identity to Iris, on their anniversary.

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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