Issue Description

Paralyzed by a sonic chord, the Flash finds himself, along with the Governor, the Mayor, and the president of the power company, strapped into an aerialist rig, astride high tension power lines, two hundred-fifty feet above the ground. Below them, the diabolical Clown plays chords, on a calliope, to keep the Flash paralyzed, while simultaneously shorting out the gyros in the rig. For several seconds, the Flash is able to maintain their balance, with a steadying pole. Then, they begin to pitch over.

With a herculean effort, the Flash snaps his restraints, then hurls the pole at the clown, knocking him from the calliope. With the sonic chord silenced, the Flash regains his power of super-human speed. The Flash races across the wires, down the tower to the ground, where he catches his fellow victims. The Clown regains the calliope, forcing the Flash to run faster than the speed of sound to avoid being paralyzed again. The Flash generates a sonic boom, that unseats the Clown from the calliope, then dismantles the calliope at super-speed.

The Flash uses the shattered pipes of the calliope to cage the Clown. Before losing consciousness, the Clown writes "Help Me" in the sand. The police quickly arrive to take control of the situation. Unbeknownst to the Flash, he is being observed, from afar, by a mysterious young woman. The following day, the Flash, as police forensics scientist, Barry Allen, continues his observation of the Nephron Project. The highly experimental Nephron Process uses aversion therapy to rehabilitate criminals.

Murderer, Clive Yorkin, has volunteered to submit to the Nephron Process, in exchange for a full pardon, from the governor, for his crimes. Having second thought, Yorkin attempts to flee, only to be brought down by a pair of brutish orderlies. As Yorkin is strapped into the chair, for his next treatment, Allen voices his objections. Allen threatens to expose the Nephron Project to the media, over his growing ethical and moral concerns. The head of the Nephron Project agrees to suspend their research.

As soon as Allen leaves, however, Yorkin's treatments resume. Back in his laboratory, at police headquarters, Allen is drawn to an inexplicable chemical reaction, by his assistant, Patty Spivot. Allen checks the contents of the bottle of silver nitrate, and discovers that it is heroin. The exact same amount of heroin that recently went missing from the evidence room. After confirming his findings, Allen returns the bottle to the shelf. Allen rigs an alarm to the shelf that will notify him when the bottle is moved.

Allen arrives home for a midnight dinner with his wife, Picture News reporter, Iris West. Before the first course can be served, Allen's alarm is triggered. Allan heads back out, as the Flash, leaving behind his increasingly frustrated wife. Rather than apprehend the person stealing heroin from police headquarters, the Flash opts to follow him, in the hopes of bringing down all parties involved. Invisibly in pursuit of the thief, the Flash suddenly feels an uncontrollable compulsion to run in a different direction.

Try as he might, the Flash cannot resist the compulsion. The Flash finds himself racing towards a brick wall. Speeding up, the Flash vibrates his molecular structure into intangibility, to pass harmlessly through the wall. The wall, however, turns out to have been an illusion. When a second wall appears before him, the Flash makes the mistake of believing it also to be illusory. The Flash crashes... hard... into the wall, rendering himself unconscious. The same mysterious woman, who had surreptitiously spied on him from afar, steps forward. Her plans for the Flash... unknown.

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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