Issue Description

Dexter Myles, curator of the Flash Museum, installs a new memorial figure of the Top. Police forensics scientist, Barry Allen, and his wife, Picture News reporter, Iris West, attend the Top's funeral. Allen overhears a police radio bulletin, regarding a bank robbery. Allen, as the Flash, races to the scene of the crime, to confront Captain Boomerang. As the Flash closes on him, Captain Boomerang summons a fleet of remote controlled, flying boomerangs. The Flash sets up an air brake with his super-speed, inadvertently powering up the boomerangs. After a grazing blow nearly lays him out, the Flash flees, with the boomerangs in hot pursuit. The boomerangs keep pace with the Flash, even vibrating so fast as to pass harmlessly through solid objects. Out on a lake, the Flash whips up a column of water, trapping the boomerangs, and causing them to detonate.

Returning to the scene of the crime, the Flash is astonished to learn that Captain Boomerang didn't steal a single penny. Captain Boomerang meets up with the Weather Wizard and Heat Wave, back at their secret lair. All three men have successfully retrieved an explosive device, planted by the Top, at three of the Top's last six crime scenes. Knowing that he was dying, the Top decided to take Central City with him, by planting the six explosives around the city. The only way to stop the detonation is to collect all of the explosives, and stack them atop one another. The Rogues have set out to do just that, but the Top is counting on the Flash to stop them, thus dooming his own city to destruction. Having retrieved his part of the explosive, Captain Cold rampages through the streets of Central City, freezing everything in his sight.

Building up heat friction at super-human speed, the Flash melts the ice, and uses the sudden flood water to overwhelm Captain Cold. Once again, the Flash discovers that nothing has been stolen from the crime scene. Emptying Captain Cold's bag, the Flash finds the Top's explosive. Uncertain as to what he's dealing with, the Flash, as Allen, studies the disc-shaped device, back in the laboratory, at police headquarters. The Rogues fume over Captain Cold's failure. Under a literal cloud of invisibility, the Weather Wizard elects to break into police headquarters and retrieve the explosive. At dinner, Allen looks over his wife's research material on the Top, and suddenly realizes the purpose of the disc-shaped device. Allen races back to police headquarters, only to find that the device has been stolen.

On the local news, Allen watches a live feed of the Trickster, escaping from the Ace Fur Company, having just robbed it. Having figured out the true motivation behind the Rogues' non-robberies, Allen does nothing to interfere with the Trickster's escape. Allen determines where the final bomb will be, and heads out, as the Flash. The Central City police have also figured out the Rogues' pattern, and have surrounded the Central National Bank. When the Mirror Master appears on the scene, the Flash takes steps to prevent the police from interfering with the Mirror Master's retrieval of the device. Moving faster than the eye can see, the Flash employs tactics that not only prevents the police from taking action against the Mirror Master, but also keeps the Mirror Master from ever knowing the police are even there.

As the Mirror Master heads back to his secret lair, the Flash follows. The Flash, though, has underestimated the Mirror Master. Spying the Flash in his rearview mirror, the Mirror Master fires his distortion gun at the Flash, without even bothering to look back. The Mirror Master arrives at the hideout, with the final piece of the Top's bomb, and the horrifically warped body of the Flash. Stacking the explosives atop one another activates a pre-recorded message from the Top. The explosives have to be stacked in an exact configuration. Worse, the Rogues have only 60 seconds, to work through 720 possible combinations, before the bomb detonates. With the Rogues frantically stacking the explosives, the Flash has time to reconfigure his molecular structure, returning it to normal. Taking over for the Rogues, the Flash runs through all 720 combinations, until the bomb is disarmed. The crisis averted, the Flash rounds up the Rogues, then returns home to his wife.

The Flash (1959)

Publisher

DC Comics

Volume Description

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

House Ad

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)

Please first Sign In before leaving a review.

Status: Not in Collection