Issue Description

The curator of the Coast City Museum discusses it's latest Modern Art acquisition. An enormous meteor was on a collision course for Coast City. As the panicked citizens looked skyward, two gigantic hands, composed of green energy, caught and crushed the meteor. The Green Lantern had saved the city. A large meteor fragment fell towards Coast Park. This, too, was intercepted by the Green Lantern, then melted down. The Green Lantern was just about to blast the rock into dust, when a local artist convinced him to donate it to the Coast City Museum. The curator leads several of the museum patrons to the next exhibit. One man, William Hand, breaks off from the larger group, lingering by the meteor fragment.

Hand absorbs the residual power ring energy from the meteor, then heads to Central City. The Flash is presented with a bronze insignia plaque, by the mayor of Central City. Among the crowd of onlookers are Lisa Snart, the infamous Golden Glider, and the Sands family, next door neighbors of police forensic scientist, Barry Allen. Young Barney Sands furiously snaps photograph after photograph of the award ceremony. The Green Lantern arrives. Upon shaking the Flash's hand, the Green Lantern causes the Flash's invisible protective aura to appear around the Scarlet Speedster. This results in the Flash feeling a momentary wave of weakness, that brings him to his knees. While the Flash is down, the Green Lantern kicks him off the stage, and into oncoming traffic.

Vibrating his molecules at super-human speed, the Flash becomes insubstantial, allowing a tractor trailer to pass harmlessly through him. The "Green Lantern" reveals himself to be Black Hand, one of the Green Lantern's rogues gallery. Greatly recovered, the Flash attacks Black Hand, flooring him with a single punch. Black Hand uses the residual power ring energy, collected at the Coast City Museum, to levitate the entire stage into the air, before transforming it into an attack craft. Black Hand rolls the attack craft, pitching the Flash off the hood. As the Flash falls, Black Hand fires on him, with beams of power ring energy. Astonishingly, the Flash is able to race along the beams, even controlling their direction, through his super-speed vibrations.

The Flash redirects the beams back at Black Hand, destroying his ship. Before impact, Black Hand vanishes. Back at home, Sands is disappointed to find that all of his photographs of the Flash are blurry. The Flash, as Allen, has also returned home. Allen absentmindedly mows his lawn, while he ponders why Black Hand has come to Central City. Black Hand reveals that the moment he illuminated the Flash's invisible, protective aura on stage, his weapon locked onto it, and Black Hand has been remotely absorbing it ever since. Without his protective aura to protect him from the enormous heat friction generated by running at super-human speed, the Flash runs the risk of catching fire and burning to death. Sands tries to do some drawings of the Flash.

Sands asks Allen to model some running poses for him. Allen spies an enormous, gaseous black hand rising up over Central City. Allen investigates, as the Flash. The Flash is decked by a power-ring energy constructed fist. The Flash is then lifted, high into the air, by a power-ring constructed geyser. Running in place, at super-human speed, the Flash works his back down to the street, through the geyser. The Flash scours Central City, searching for Black Hand. The Flash begins heating up. Sweating profusely, the Flash realizes that he has lost his protective aura. The Flash tries to slow down, but it's too late. The Flash bursts into flames. By the time the Flash stops, all that remains of him is a smoldering pair of yellow boots, at the end of a miles long, still burning, scorch mark in the road. With the Flash dead, Black Hand prepares to enact the next part of his sinister scheme.

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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