The Flash Companion Preview

by

Keith Dallas

TABLE

OF

CONTENTS

Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5

JAY GARRICK Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6 Sheldon Mayer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9 Gardner Fox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13 Flash Fact: Jay Garrick’s name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19 Harry Lampert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20 E.E. Hibbard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23 Carmine Infantino: Part 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25 Flash Fact: Lost Gold . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27

BARRY ALLEN Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .30 Julius Schwartz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35 Robert Kanigher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .41 Carmine Infantino: Part 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .47 The Significance of Showcase #4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .55 Carmine Infantino’s Brilliant Career . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .59 John Broome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .60 Ross Andru/Mike Esposito . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .68 Flash Fact: Reader Response . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .73 Cary Bates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .75 Irv Novick . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .83 Bob Rozakis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .85 Flash Fact: The Death of Iris Allen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .88 Alex Saviuk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .89 Mike W. Barr . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .97 Flash Fact: Publication Foibles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .102 Carmine Infantino: Part 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .103 Flash Fact: The Death of Barry Allen . . . . . . . . . . . . . .106 Flash Fact: Mackenzie Ryan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .108 Marv Wolfman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .109 The Flash CBS Television Show . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .113 Danny Bilson and Paul De Meo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .116

WALLY WEST Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .130 Flash Fact: Wally West becomes The Flash . . . . . . . . .135 Mike Baron . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .136 Jackson Guice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .141 William Messner-Loebs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .145 Greg LaRocque . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .151 Mark Waid, Part 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .154 Mike Wieringo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .167 Geoff Johns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .170 Flash Fact: Goodbye to Flash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .173 Scott Kolins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .174 Mark Waid, Part 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .181

BART ALLEN Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .184 Mark Waid, Part 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .189 Flash Fact: The Naming of Bart Allen . . . . . . . . . . . . . .195

The Flash TM and © DC Comics.

THE FLASH ROGUES Introduction . . . . . . . . . .196 Captain Cold . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .198 Mr. Element / Dr. Alchemy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .200 Mirror Master . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .201 Gorilla Grodd . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .203 Weather Wizard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .205 The Trickster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .206 Pied Piper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .208 Captain Boomerang . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .210 The Top . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .212 Abra Kadabra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .213 Professor Zoom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .214 Heat Wave . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .215 Zoom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .216 Inertia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .217 Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .218

JAY GARRICK The creation of editor Sheldon Mayer, writer Gardner Fox and artist Harry Lampert, Jay Garrick, the very first “Fastest Man Alive,” made his debut in All-American Publications’ Flash Comics #1 (Jan., 1940). His origin story is by now all too familiar; after accidentally inhaling hard water fumes—or “heavy” water vapors according to later stories—while working on a laboratory experiment late one night, college student Jay Garrick gains the ability to run at superhuman speed. With this incredible power, Jay dons a Hermes-inspired wing-crested helmet—which is later revealed to be his father’s World War I helmet—and dedicates his life to fighting crime, corruption and injustice as “The Fastest Man Alive.”

Actually, only the covers to Flash Comics #1 and #2 initially billed the Flash as the “Fastest Man Alive.” Throughout the first two years of the speedster’s publishing existence various superlative tags were used in the stories themselves to introduce him. Perhaps setting a record for the number of arrangements of the words “fast,” “swift,” “thing,” “earth,” “man,” and “alive,” the stories described the Flash as “The Fastest Thing on Earth” (Flash Comics #1, #2 and #13), “Fastest Human Alive” (#3), “Fastest Man on Earth” (#7), “Swiftest Creature Alive” (#9), “Swiftest Man on Earth” (#14), “Swiftest Thing on Earth” (#15), “Fastest Moving Thing on Earth” (#18), “Swiftest of All Things” (#20), and “Swiftest Thing in the Universe” (#21). AllFlash Quarterly #1 (Summer 1941) seemingly settled the matter—and brought it full circle—as starting with that issue, the tag “Fastest Man Alive” became permanently affixed to the name of “The Flash,” and not just to Jay Garrick, but to all his successors as well. Indeed, one of the most current volumes of The Flash’s adventures was titled Flash: The Fastest Man Alive.

Each 64-page issue of Flash Comics actually presented tales of several other characters besides the Flash, including Hawkman (who was featured on the cover just as often as Flash himself was), Johnny Thunder and in later issues, Black Canary. So each issue of Flash Comics would only include a Flash story of around 13 pages. Flash though also had individual adventures appearing in All Star Comics, the first issue of which was published in the summer of 1940.

As described by its editors in the very first issue, All Star Comics was intended to incorporate the fan-favorite characters from two DC comics (Adventure and More Fun) and two All-American comics (All-American and Flash), which meant that All Star readers were treated to tales of now famous Golden Age characters like Sandman, Hour-Man, Green Lantern, The Atom, Hawkman, Johnny Thunder, Spectre, and Dr. Fate, as well as some characters that have been lost to time, like Ultra-Man, Red, White and Blue, and Biff Bronson.

Jay Garrick Flash by John Byrne as published in The Flash Secret Files & Origins #1.

The Flash TM and © DC Comics.

6

SHELDON MAYER

Pacing the Speedster by Jim Beard have been but a wink of an eye before everybody loved it. The Flash is pure simplicity of concept. It’s a wonder another company didn’t think of it before All-American did.

Imagine if you will…

It’s 1939. You’re a fly on the wall of an office at 225 Lafayette Street in downtown Manhattan. Seated around a desk in that office are four men on the verge of a collective brainstorm. They are the Artist, the Writer, the Editor, and the Boss. The Boss rises from his chair, fixing his gaze at each of the others in turn, and then speaks.

The men around the desk on that hypothetical day? Harry Lampert was the Artist, Gardner Fox the Writer, and M.C. Gaines the Boss.

The Editor, the man who pulled it all together and made sure it was good? That was Shelly Mayer.

Born on April Fool’s Day of 1917, Sheldon “Shelly” Mayer was a graduate of the original School of Hard Knocks. Raised poor in New York’s East Harlem, he was determined to raise himself up from a bad beginning. Shelly gravitated towards art almost by default, quickly excelling in “scribbling and doodling” to the amazement of family and friends. He was soon assisting professional New York cartoonists, and in 1935, at the ripe old age of 18, Shelly became one of the very first creators to contribute original material to the very young, and until then reprint-heavy, medium known as comic books.

“Boys, we need a new character.”

The office belongs to AllAmerican Comics, a company born only a few months earlier and in a complex relationship as both sister and daughter to DC Comics. All-American wants a new comic book title to put out on the stands to further capitalize on DC’s success with Superman and Batman, and this book must have a new lead character, perhaps even two new leads. The purpose of this meeting is to come up with ideas.

Someone throws out a suggestion. Perhaps it’s the Artist, or the Writer. It could very possibly be the Editor, and it could most definitely have been the Boss.

“Speed” is the idea, and it flies around the gathering until it picks up the necessary impetus to become a full-fledged creation. In one lightning session, The Flash is born.

Though he loved drawing and was passionate for cartooning, his skills were soon put to work as an editor for M.C. Gaines, a canny publishing entrepreneur, first with the McClure Syndicate and then with Dell Comics. For Top: Sheldon Mayer, courtesy of Monroe Mayer. Above: Flash Comics #14 their next trick, the amazing duo (Feb. 1941), courtesy of Marc Svensson. The Flash TM and © DC Comics. of Gaines and Mayer rescued a still-born project from the slush pile and convinced DC Comics to Of course, the actual process of gestation, the actual moment of invest a bit of time and money into it. It was called “Superman.” birth that led to January of 1940’s Flash Comics #1, is lost to us forOne might think discovering such a firebrand industry-maker like ever. But we do know enough about the four gentlemen involved Superman would be the pinnacle of someone’s publishing career. to be able to make a few guesses. Perhaps it didn’t actually go For Shelly Mayer it was only the beginning. The boy cartoonist down like the scene above (it almost assuredly didn’t), but we can turned twenty-something editor was lined up to shepherd Gaines’ surmise that once an idea like The Flash was put out there, it would flock at his new publishing venture, All-American Comics, and he 9

GARDNER FOX

Having Fun with Speed by John Wells successful one. As he tells it, his career ended when, in the middle of a court case, he saw the other guy’s side and said so out loud, admitting that his client was wrong. So he came to work for us.”

In college, his coaches drilled into him the need for speed. In comics, his publisher demanded the same. “Don’t give me Rembrandt,” M.C. Gaines was fond of saying, “Give me production.” And at the princely sum of one dollar a page, you had to be fast to make a living in comic books in the 1930s and 1940s. It was altogether fitting, then, that Gardner Fox wound up creating the fastest man alive.

Fox’s family had wanted him to make something of himself and, at their urging, he decided to become a lawyer. After studying dry legal texts for hours, the young man sought release for his energies beyond what could be provided by the adventurous pulps that he enjoyed.

Outside the classroom, he was active in basketball, football, fencing and swimming. Upon his graduation from St. John’s College with a B.A. degree in 1932, he spent three years at St. John’s Law School. In 1936, the twenty-four-year-old passed the New York State bar exam and achieved his goal of becoming a lawyer.

Having done all that, Gardner Fox began to have second thoughts.

By this point, change was in the wind for the comics industry.

Superman’s introduction in 1938’s Action Comics #1 had changed the landscape and other cartoonists were rushing to cash in with their own costumed mystery-men. Fox got in very nearly on the ground floor, even contributing an early handful of Batman stories that introduced the Batplane and Batarang — to say nothing of Julie Madison (Detective Comics #31-32), first in a long line of love interests.

Fox was so prolific and dependable, in fact, that Gaines and Mayer of the All-American Comics line tapped him to develop the two pillars of their own entry into the super-hero sweepstakes — Flash Comics. Its namesake stemmed from Mayer’s mandate that their hero should be “the fastest man alive.”

The result was pure wishfulfillment on Fox’s part and imagining how he might have excelled in sports had he actually had real speed while in college. Doomed to mediocrity as a football player, Midwestern University science major Jay Garrick got an unexpected second chance after his inhalation of hard water fumes granted him super-speed. In the span of a few months, the former benchwarmer had become a football hero and won the girl.

Now a post-graduate student in New York, Jay realized there were better things he could be doing with his gift and took to fighting crime in the Mercury-capped persona of the Flash.

Top: Gardner Fox caricature from Amazing World of DC Comics #14 (April 1977). Above: Jay Garrick Flash by Joe Kubert as published in Flash Annual #3 (1989). The Flash TM and © DC Comics.

He continued to spend his days in the courtroom, but in 1937 a friend from grammar school named Vin Sullivan had lured him into other activities in the evening. While fighting the flu, the young lawyer wrote his first script for comic books. He would even go on to create a legal alter-ego of sorts in the form of Steve Malone, District Attorney, first seen in Detective Comics #18.

Eventually, a choice had to be made. Editor Sheldon Mayer noted in The Amazing World of DC Comics #5 (March-April, 1975) that the would-be lawyer “was too gentle a guy to be a

13

for very long. His p e r s o n a l response, in his semi-autobiographical humor feature Scribbly, was a parody about a middleaged housewife who became a c o o k- p o t- h e l meted “mysteryman” called the Red Tomato. Er… Tornado.

Mayer’s humorous sensibilities dovetailed neatly with Fox, who cemented the light tone that typified much of the 1940s Flash series. Reaction shots were key to this early period of the strip, with humor continually mined from criminals and civilians alike over the antics of a seeming invisible man. Quite often, too, the Page from All-Flash Quarterly #2 (Fall 1941). Courtesy of Heritage Auctions.

The Flash TM and © DC Comics.

Flash would strip Hawkman, looking like a refugee from villains to their underwear (starting in Flash Gordon, would co-star in the comic, Flash Comics #2) or even descend into soon getting the cover and lead-story stapure slapstick by throwing pies in the tus in every other issue. The first faces of racketeers (issue #18). It was Hawkman episode was grim stuff, hard not to like the smiling young man in recounting the ancient murders of an the winged silver helmet, and he’d won a Egyptian prince and his lover, the presentregular comic book devoted exclusively day electrocution of countless subway to his adventures — All-Flash — by midriders and the ultimate emergence of 1941.

Hawkman (reincarnated from the prince) Its effect on Fox’s scripts was stunning! to kill the would-be world-conquering All-Flash #2 spanned three decades in the Hastor. life of a lawyer and the man he’d senThe two series were, for diversity’s sake, very different in tone, with Hawkman acquiring more realistic visuals while Flash had a cartoony look courtesy of original artist Harry Lampert and his successor, E.E. Hibbard. The savvy Mayer’s relative youth allowed him insight into the comics-buying audience that his contemporaries couldn’t match. He’d been the man to green-light the much-rejected Superman for publication, but he was also the person who recognized that the new genre couldn’t take itself seriously

A short biography of Fox in All-Flash #1 (Summer, 1941) referred to his large library and declared the writer “a veritable fount of information on queer scientific facts and prehistoric phenomena.”

Indeed, Michael T. Gilbert’s research into Fox’s Archives at the University of Oregon revealed a plethora of timesavers including scrawled “plot germs” and plotting formulae. “He’d jot down ‘cheat sheets’ on every imaginable subject,” Gilbert wrote in Alter Ego Vol. 3, #21 (Feb., 2003).

“There were pages devoted to useful historical facts, character names, and even such arcane subjects as different ways to secretly signal a hero. And, of course, there were lots of slang phrases for every genre.” Even the most esoteric item — “two quail will eat 59 million seeds a year” — could find its way into a story, in this case an episode where the Flash was struck by a Curiosity Ray and tore through library shelves in search of knowledge (Flash Comics #30).

“He always thought like a lawyer,” Fox’s later editorial collaborator Julius Schwartz observed in his 2000 autobiography Man of Two Worlds. “He was organized, meticulous, and he never walked into his editor’s office without knowing exactly what he was going [to] do. He plotted stories with me the exact same way, and he never sat down to write a story without fully knowing every twist and turn it would take. He was always fully prepared, the perfect Boy Scout.”

tenced in 1917. Kidnapping the attorney’s infant son, Joe Connor raised the boy as his own with his eye towards using the son to exact revenge on the father — whose advancement from lawyer to district attorney to mayor to governor was charted in each chapter. It was a marvelously complex, emotional story and an early indication of what both the series and the comic book form could aspire to.

The writer-editor plotting sessions had been originated by Sheldon Mayer.

“Sometimes we worked in my office,” he recalled in a letter in All-Star Squadron #25 (Sept., 1983), “but very often we found it more productive to go to Gardner’s house in Yonkers, where Lynda (Gardner’s wife) fed us and didn’t see us for hours…sometimes not till early the next morning, when Gardner and I would come downstairs from his den, to find Lynda asleep on the couch in the living room beside a pot of now-cold coffee she had prepared for us.” On occasion, Mayer noted in Amazing World of DC Comics #5, Gardner “would hand me a fencing foil and somehow ideas would come while I was walking around swinging the thing.

He’d sit at the typewriter, throw out an idea... or catch one of mine... and we’d turn out enormous amounts of material that couldn’t have been turned out any other way.

Ever efficient, Fox constantly looked for ways to streamline the plotting process.

“Gardner was one of the few guys who could sit down, make a writing decision,

14

HARRY LAMPERT

Leaving A Lasting Impression On Jay Garrick

For a man who co-created one of the most enduring and recognizable super-heroes in comic book history, Harry Lampert (1916-2004) actually provided the artwork for only a handful of Flash stories. His inclinations ran more toward humorous work (no pun intended). Indeed, his gag cartoons were published in such magazines as Time, Saturday Evening Post, Esquire, and The New York Times.

time, National Comics, who eventually became DC Comics. I worked in the downtown area. I was requested to do it.

Period.

IRVING: It was just a job for you.

LAMPERT: A job, right. I was a freelancer.

IRVING: You were with The Flash for only a couple of issues. Did you get to design the character yourself?

Lampert began his cartooning career in 1933 at Fleischer studios where he inked Popeye, Betty Boop and Koko the Clown, among others. After working for National Publications (DC Comics), he opened his own successful advertising agency (the Lampert Agency) in New York City, from which he retired in 1976. He remained blissfully unaware of his role in comic book history until the 1990s when someone told him that he was acknowledged as a famous comic book creator. When he attended San Diego’s Comic-Con International the following year, Lampert was amazed at the fan reception he received: “There I was hailed. I couldn’t believe it. I was on this panel.

People were coming up to me for autographs!” A DC Comics representative also came up to him for his Social Security number as he was owed royalties for his reprinted Flash work.

LAMPERT: I worked with Gardner Fox on it. I don’t recall exactly all the details, but we did agree on what the costume was, etc. Most of the input was from Gardner Fox. He was the creator of it; there was no question about it, it was his idea.

IRVING: How was working with Gardner?

LAMPERT: He was wonderful. I worked with him on a number of other things. He is the first great professional. He’s very well known. When he assigned something, it was perfectly put out [with] the background, etc.

You still had to use your imagination, but he was very good at it.

IRVING: What other comic books did you draw?

LAMPERT: I did The King, then I did Red, White and Blue [EDITOR’S NOTE: the former Top: Harry Lampert, undated photo. Above: page from Flash Comics #1 (Jan. 1940).

In this 1998 interview conducted The Flash TM and © DC Comics. appeared in Flash Comics and

by Christopher Irving, Lampert the latter appeared in Alldiscusses all aspects of his life as a cartoonist.

American Comics]. Then I went into the Army. I was there for four years.

CHRISTOPHER IRVING: How did drawing The Flash in January of 1940 come about?

IRVING: Got any war stories?

HARRY LAMPERT: Actually, the drawing was done in 1939.

Most likely it was done around November. How it came about, I was doing a number of things for what was, at that

LAMPERT: The only war story that I have is that I was booked overseas, and then they bypassed me. I was stateside, but, 20

FLASH: LOST GOLD

The Unpublished Golden Age Flash Stories by John Wells

“[Flash Comics] was discontinued in 1949.”

rial he’d assembled for future issues. Instead, each page was stamped “Written Off 9-30-49,” filed away and ultimately marked for destruction in the late 1960s. 1999’s Alter Ego [Vol. 3] #2 (reprinted in 2006’s Alter Ego Collection #1) recounts the story of how Marv Wolfman, Mark Hanerfeld and others rescued scores of these pages from oblivion—often by slicing them into three tiers—but suffice it to say that unpublished samples of all five features in Flash Comics survived to the present. These included two Black Canary episodes, a complete Atom yarn and fragments of one Ghost Patrol story and another Hawkman tale. Most remarkably, there were five Flash stories—three preserved in their entirety! They are:

“Amazing! That’s the very year I—the Flash—retired…”

Well, not quite. Despite that exchange between Barry Allen and Jay Garrick in the historic Flash #123 (Sept., 1961), the adventures of the original Flash didn’t end with Flash Comics #104. He continued appearing with the Justice Society in All Star Comics for a full two years thereafter. And that doesn’t even get into all the solo stories that were written and illustrated but never published.

The abrupt cancellation of Flash Comics left Julius Schwartz with no chance to burn off the inventory of completed mate-

Above and right: Panels from “The Tale of Three Tokens”, courtesy of Heritage Auctions.

The Flash TM and © DC Comics.

27

BARRY ALLEN Barry Allen’s super-heroic origin was most succinctly described in the Flash issues of the early 1980s: “A bolt of lightning shattered a cabinet of chemicals—changing police scientist Barry Allen into the Fastest Man Alive… The Flash!” The fictional bolt of lightning that transformed Barry Allen in Showcase #4 (1956) also transformed the entire comic book industry.

It’s been well documented how poorly super-hero comic books sold during the mid-1950s, particularly when compared to how well they sold during the 1940s. With few exceptions the superheroes that thrived during World War II had already been packed away, seemingly to never be presented in four colors again. As Christopher Irving details in his “Significance of Showcase #4” article (originally published in Alter Ego #60 and reprinted in this book), many of the super-heroes titles published during the early 1950s embodied American Cold War rhetoric with the protagonists presented as patriotic “Commie Smashers.” Evidently though, readers weren’t as engaged by a “Red Scare” conflict as they were by the “Nazi Smashing” of a decade earlier.

The Barry Allen version of The Flash, however, avoided such Cold War trappings and perhaps in doing so, DC Comics inadvertently stumbled upon the magic formula to get readers re-interested in super-hero fare. Regardless of the reasons, The Flash’s appearance in Showcase #4 was an unqualified—and unexpected—newsstand success, one which not only ensured a revival of the Fastest Man Alive in his own title but also encouraged DC Comics to update its other Golden Age super-heroes. This then led to the collection of these heroes as the Justice League of America, which subsequently prodded Marvel Comics to create the Fantastic Four, and so on and so forth. For this reason, most comic book historians label Showcase #4 as the starting point of the Silver Age of super-hero comic books.

Besides ushering in a new era and relating the new Flash’s origin, Showcase #4 also immediately fashioned a mythos for the character that would be reiterated for years to come: while working in his laboratory, police scientist Barry Allen would wait for a specially rigged alarm system to alert him to some crisis or crime-inprogress that required The Flash’s attention. Then from a ring on his finger he would release his costume which instantly expanded on contact with the air. In a blink of an eye the Flash would race across Central City to confront some gadget-enhanced bank robber or some menace from the future… or some gadget-enhanced bank robber menace from the future. And unlike the opponents that Jay Garrick fought early on in his career, the villains that Barry Allen faced proved themselves up to the challenge of dealing with the super-speedster. But formidable doesn’t necessarily mean memorable as for every Captain Cold, Mirror Master and Gorilla Grodd that got introduced, there were duds like Mazdan, Katmos

Barry Allen Flash by Carmine Infantino and Murphy Anderson from the cover of The Flash #170 (May 1967).

The Flash TM and © DC Comics.

30

The Silver Age Catalyst

by Keith Dallas

The Silver Age and Golden Age Flash by Mike Wieringo, courtesy of Dave Tilley.

The Flash TM and © DC Comics.

and the Maugites.

Showcase #4 also established one of Barry Allen’s enduring idiosyncrasies: he was always late, especially for his dates with Picture News reporter Iris West. Although it might be tempting to attribute Barry’s lateness to his super-heroic exploits, it soon became clear that he was really just naturally tardy. As such, readers might have wondered how long Barry and Iris would remain a couple as issue after issue Iris berated Barry for being “the slowest thing on two feet” or not being “half the man Flash is” or some similar belittling remark. The two stuck together though even as Barry Allen’s mythos incorporated more and more elements, like Iris’

The Flash emerges in the Silver Age in the historic Showcase #4 (1956).

The Flash TM and © DC Comics.

nephew Wally West becoming Kid Flash (Flash #110, Jan. 1960) and The Flash regularly teaming-up with fellow crime-fighters Elongated Man, Green Lantern, and the scarlet speedster’s Golden Age counterpart, Jay Garrick.

Under editor Julius Schwartz and writers John Broome and Gardner Fox’s management, the Barry Allen Flash stories maintained a scientific (or more accurately, pseudo-scientific) focus, which included regular “Flash Facts” pages relating various velocity-themed information (e.g. “It takes about 90 seconds for the blood to circulate through the human body”). Indeed, in the “Flash Grams” column in Flash #124 (Nov. 1961) Julius Schwartz boasted, “Many of our readers have complimented us for our realistic approach to The Flash. When we present an amazing, almost unbelievable idea or gimmick, we like to explain it scientifically.”

So the Flash travels through time, not due to magic, but due to a cosmic-ray powered treadmill introduced in Flash #125 (Dec. 1961). And when the Flash melts his body in order to duck an

Barry Allen’s origin as recounted in Flash 50th Anniversary Special (1990).

The Flash TM and © DC Comics.

31

JULIUS SCHWARTZ

The Greatest Comic Book Editor Of All by Jim Kingman

It’s debatable, of course, the title “Greatest Comic Book Editor of Them All.” There are good arguments for the best, the most important, and the most influential editors in the comic book industry. Stan Lee and Sheldon Mayer come to mind, as do Archie Goodwin and Mort Weisinger. But once all the nominees are named, and after all the cases for them have been made, there can be no argument: Julius Schwartz was the greatest comic book editor of them all.

Schwartz always told his writers to “Be Original,” so we’ll take a moment and be original ourselves by imagining a world without Schwartz. Without him: • There may have been no science-fiction fandom in the early 1930s; • Many important 20th century science-fiction and fantasy writers, including Ray Bradbury and H. P. Lovecraft, may not have had their stories sold and published; • The Flash would not have been revitalized in 1956; • There would be no revived Green Lantern, Hawkman or The Atom in the years to follow, and superhero comics may have run their course in the late 1950s; • The Justice Society would not have been revamped as the Justice League of America; • Comics fandom would never have existed; • Stan Lee would never have been inspired to create the Fantastic Four in 1961; • And Batman, mired in outlandish science-fiction stories in the early 1960s and on the verge of cancellation, would not have been given a “new look,” hence no, for better or worse, campy Batman TV series of the mid-1960s.

That is hard to imagine.

Top: 1989 photo of Julius Schwartz. Above: Joe Kubert caricature of Julius Schwartz as presented in The Amazing World of DC Comics #3 (Dec. 1974). TM and © DC Comics.

Fortunately, we don’t have to. Schwartz indeed existed, and instead of imagining the impossible, we get to do something a whole lot better: be eternally grateful.

and maybe a couple of others whose names are lost to history.

Someone—it may have been Schwartz, it may have been Donenfield—suggested bringing back The Flash, who had been out of the comics picture since the last issue of All Star Comics almost five years earlier. The reasoning for his return was that the comics’ readership, mainly the 8- to 12-year old boys, only read comics for five years, so since half a decade had passed since The Flash had appeared in a comic, the new generation of readers would see the revived character as someone completely new.

“We knew there was a new audience for our stable of heroes,”

The day The Flash was chosen to be revived in the pages of Showcase #4 remains a pivotal moment in comics’ history, right up there with Superman’s first appearance in Action Comics.

While the exact date is lost to us, it was sometime in late 1955 when the editors at National Comics (later DC) gathered together to discuss the content of the next issue of their young try-out magazine, Showcase. On hand were Schwartz, Murray Boltinoff, Jack Schiff, Mort Weisinger, editorial director Irwin Donenfield 35

picked up the numbering of the previous Flash Comics with #105.

Twelve years into his second career as an editor at National Comics, Schwartz had ignited the Silver Age. His first career was lucrative, but fated to end, due in large part to the success of superheroes in comic books.

It was the comic book industry that saved Julius Schwartz shows his appreciation of Marty Pasko in this cartoon from Schwartz. It’s only fitThe Amazing World of DC Comics #3. TM and © DC Comics. ting that Schwartz Schwartz wrote in 1992’s Silver Age DC would help save the comic book industry.

Classics: Showcase #4, “and I learned never Julius Schwartz was born in New York on to blame failure on a previous editor — June 19, 1915. As a teen in the Bronx, he because most of the time the previous became a fan of dime novels, and after he editor was me!” was given an issue of Amazing Stories in Cover to The Flash #118 (Feb. 1961).

Once the Flash revival was given a go, The Flash TM and © DC Comics.

1926, he became an even bigger fan of there was no doubt Schwartz would be science-fiction. Schwartz voraciously read Heinlein. In 1939 he was involved in the editor, as he had edited the adventures of the sci-fi pulps, and through the readers’ first World Science-Fiction Convention, The Flash in the late 1940s. Schwartz columns in Amazing Stories and Science where he met a young Ray Bradbury. The agreed to the project, but he made it clear Wonder Stories he met Mort Weisinger then-unpublished Bradbury persuaded that he wanted an entirely new Flash, (who would later be well known as editor Schwartz to represent him, and in 1941 with a new identity, new costume, new of the Superman family of books). The Schwartz sold Bradbury’s first story (assistsupporting characters and new villains. two became friends when Schwartz ed by Henry Hasse), “The Pendulum,” to The only connection to the old Flash attended a meeting of the Scienceers, Super Science Stories. would be the power: super-speed.

Weisinger’s science-fiction club. In 1932, Donenfield accepted Schwartz’s terms In the early 1940s, pulp fiction was on the the same year Julius graduated from high and told him to get on it; there was a new wane due to the popularity of paperbacks school, Schwartz and Weisinger pubissue of Showcase to bat out. and comic books. Schwartz wasn’t selling lished what is considered the first scienough stories to earn a living. At the ence-fiction fanzine, The Time Traveller.

In For all intents and purposes, which transtime, Bester, author of The Stars My 1933 Schwartz and Weisinger formed lates to “we’ve got a deadline to make” Destination, worked for All-American Solar Sales Service, making them the first and not “let’s kick start the Silver Age of Comics, sister company to National/DC, as literary agents to science-fiction writers. comics,” The Flash’s first appearance in a writer on Green Lantern. He had learned Over the next ten years, Schwartz sold Showcase #4 (Sept.-Oct., 1956) was conthat chief editor Sheldon Mayer’s assistant stories written by, among others, ceived, created and produced in, no pun editor had quit and that Mayer needed a Edmond Hamilton, H.P. Lovecraft, Alfred intended, a flash. Schwartz had a lot of replacement as soon as possible. One Bester, Robert Bloch, and Robert A. creative talent on hand. He shared an office with the prolific Robert Kanigher, so he didn’t have to go far to enlist a writer.

Schwartz came up with the Barry Allen name, Schwartz and Kanigher came up with the combination of lightning and chemicals for the Flash’s origin, and Kanigher delivered the script and idea of Barry’s costume ejecting from his ring.

Penciler Carmine Infantino created the slick, capeless, colorful costume design and penciled the stories for the issue, and Joe Kubert was recruited as inker. The only aspect of the entire project that came in slow was the sales figures. But once they did, The Flash was deemed a success and after three more appearances in Showcase #s 8, 13, and 14, the Scarlet Speedster Julius Schwartz shows his appreciation of Elliot S. Maggin and Cary Bates in these panels graduated to his own title in 1959, which from Justice League of America #123 (Oct. 1975). TM and © DC Comics.

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ROBERT KANIGHER

Speedster Scripter by Jason Sacks

time, but it wasn’t the It seems that Robert proximity of the two men Kanigher got the assignthat gave Kanigher the ment to script the origin fateful assignment to of the Barry Allen Flash, script Showcase #4. In fact, fastest man alive, mainly if it were simply a matter because Kanigher was one of the two men’s proximity of the fastest comic to each other, Kanigher scripters alive. As Paul never would have gotten Kupperberg tells the story the assignment. The two in The Flash Archives men never really got along Volume 1, the decision to — as Kanigher said in Alter create the Silver Age Flash Ego vol. 3 #2, “an Eskimo happened around a conand a polar bear had more ference room table somein common.” time in 1955. National Comics’ editors were conNo, according to Schwartz, vened for their monthly Kanigher got the writing meeting, and the contents job because he wrote of Showcase #4 were quickly. “I knew I could get being discussed. Showcase the script out of Bob in a had recently been couple of days, which I did. launched as an anthology My guess is, he probably series to spotlight new sat down at his typewriter characters, and the editors during his lunch hour and at the table tried to find started it then and there,” the best content for the Schwartz reports in Alter fourth issue. The previous Ego #60. Artist Carmine three issues had suffered Infantino added in his desultory sales, and it was 1996 interview in The time to try something Comics Journal #191 that new. One of the editors— Kanigher also designed the exactly which one is lost cover: “Kanigher wrote the to the mists of time—sugscript, as well as designed gested a revival of the the very first Flash cover, Flash, who had last too. I had nothing to do appeared four years previwith that. I just drew it. He ously. However, since it sketched it out quite Top: Robert Kanigher caricature from Amazing World of DC Comics #14 (April 1977). was felt that the Jay Above: Cover to Showcase #14 (June 1958), the fourth and final Showcase issue featuring the roughly.”

Flash before his title was re-launched. The Flash TM and © DC Comics.

Garrick Flash had “failed,” There’s another element to it was decided that there having Kanigher and Infantino debut the Silver Age Flash. The should be a new version of the speedster. very last solo Golden Age Flash story in Flash Comics #104, Longtime superhero comic editor Julius Schwartz got the published in late 1948, had been by the team of Kanigher and assignment to assemble the comic, and Schwartz asked fellow Infantino, with inks by Frank Giacoia. Both Kanigher and editor Robert Kanigher to write the first script and design the Infantino were frequent creators in the Golden Age Flash new character. Schwartz and Kanigher shared an office at that 41

CARMINE INFANTINO

Ushering in The Silver Age by Keith Dallas cil Steve Canyon. Like many artists of this era, Infantino aspired to produce a regular syndicated daily newspaper strip, but ultimately he declined Caniff’s offer because the strip would have paid less than what he earned drawing comic books.

During the comic book industry’s Golden Age heyday Carmine Infantino drew stories for DC Comics featuring Johnny Thunder, The Flash, Green Lantern, The Ghost Patrol and Black Canary. By the late 1940s, however, super-hero comic books no longer sold well, so Infantino was moved on to other genres: Western stories like “The Trigger Twins” and “Pow-Wow Smith,” spy stories involving the Bob Kanigher-created King Faraday character as well as sci-fi and romances.

During this time, Infantino made a decision that irrevocably affected his artistry: he returned to school. He attended the Art Student’s League where he developed a life-long appreciation of the French Impressionist painter Edgar Degas (18341917). His study of Degas—and his later return to the School of Visual Arts—taught Infantino to focus more on design than anatomy. This focus aligned with his architectural leanings, and as a result, Infantino’s artistic style obtained a noticeable—and permanent—individuality.

In the early 1950s, Infantino also occasionally worked for other publishers: he collaborated with Joe Kubert on Jesse James for Avon, and he drew Charlie Chan for Joe Simon and Jack Kirby’s Crestwood company. In 1954, Milton Caniff asked him to pen-

The following is excerpted from The Amazing World of Carmine Infantino,

by Carmine Infantino and J. David Spurlock, published by Vanguard Productions, 2001, Pages 48, 50-1, 54.

Reprinted by permission of the authors.

Julius Schwartz Julie Schwartz was a very important editor to DC. When I was working for him, he would leave me alone as much as possible. He would hand me a script, I would deliver the art, and that would be it. I had been used to positive critiques when Shelly was my editor. One time, very early on (but after Shelly left), I brought work in that I was very proud of. I asked Julie what he thought of it. He looked at me and said, “You’re a professional; you’re getting paid for it. What more do you want?” And that was the last time I asked him about my work. His point was valid: It was his job to say if there was a problem, not to give out compliments. Recently, Julie related that he originally only worked with text. As he was leaving the company, Shelly told Julie, “You have to oversee the art now as well.” Julie admitted to Shelly that he knew nothing about art. So Shelly suggested that Julie never critique the art but if he recognized a problem to tell the artist to fix it—but just not how to fix it, as Julie hadn’t a clue. This way Julie wouldn’t expose his ignorance of art. Shelly told him the problems he was able to spot are the same ones the kids buying the books would find, so it would be okay.

After a while, I didn’t see the boys—Joe [Kubert], Frank [Giacoia], and Alex [Toth]—so much any more. We all moved in our own

Opening page from Showcase #4 (1956).

The Flash TM and © DC Comics.

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The Flash’s costume expands on contact with the air for the first time in these panels from Showcase #4.

The Flash TM and © DC Comics.

my parents’ house in Queens. Another time they came out to Long Island with us.

My brother shot home movies of everyone, including Julie’s wife jumping around, doing gymnastics.

Back in the city, Julie and I would see each other every week when I’d pick up my scripts. We had lunch together on a regular basis. The funny thing is, he always had navy bean soup—every single day. I’d go home and come back the next week: Art, script, lunch, navy bean soup! This routine went on for years and years.

The New Flash One day in 1956, I brought a job in—I think it was a romance—and, without fanfare, Julie said to me, “You’re going to draw a super-hero again.” I was surprised because they hadn’t been selling. Of the hundreds of costumed characters created in the ’40s, only Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman survived in their own titles. Julie said, “You’re going to be doing The Flash.”

There’s that simple-yet-sleek new costume!

Carmine Infantino explains how he draws The Flash, as presented in Flash Annual #1 (1963).

The Flash TM and © DC Comics.

directions. I had my group of friends, none of whom were in comics. I think it was the same with the others. We all kind of went our own way. Occasionally, I’d see one of them in the office, and we were always very friendly. Sometimes we’d have coffee, or we’d just kid around for a few minutes, and that would be it. Then it was back to work.

As time went along, I saw Julie more than the other artists. On rare occasions, Julie and I might get together away from the office. One time he and his beautiful redheaded wife came to a Christmas party at

Writer Gardner Fox and artist Harry Lampert created the original Flash, who appeared in the first issue of Flash Comics, 1940. I had worked on the Golden Age Flash early in my career under Shelly Mayer. I thought it was the old Flash Julie wanted me to draw and I was bewildered as to why they were pulling the character out again. Then he told me it was to be a totally new Flash and Julie wanted me to design the character as well as draw the story.

Bob Kanigher handed me the script, and had even laid-out a stick-figure idea of the first cover. Bob sat with me and asked, “If there’s anything in the script that you don’t quite understand, ask me.” And we went over it a little. That’s how I know it was Bob’s script. No matter what anybody else says, Bob Kanigher introduced the 48

ring that contained the uniform. Julie may have helped Bob come up with the combination of lightning and chemicals giving The Flash his abilities and I believe Julie came up with the character’s name, Barry Allen (after talk show hosts Barry Gray and Steve Allen). But if you look at the very first script, you can tell it was Kanigher’s type of story. He had a style to his stories that was distinctive. Whether you liked them or not, his tales were pure Kanigher.

Then Kanigher said to me, “Go create a costume for this guy; forget the old character.

You go create something new.” So I went home and designed the red outfit that you see today. And it works because I tried to keep the design simple and colorful so people could easily recognize him. I also designed the character streamlined for speed. Everyone liked it and said, “Okay, let’s go with it.” I also designed Flash’s “Rogues’ Gallery” of villains. So the creation of the new character was a group effort between Julie, Bob, and myself.

Kanigher was very good to work with. He gave me plenty of room to do what I wanted. Joe Kubert was assigned to ink the first story, which ran in Showcase #4. Frank Giacoia was the natural choice to ink my pencils but the deadline may have been too tight for him. I’m very pleased it was Joe who got to ink my pencils. I was on the third Flash issue of Showcase [#13] when I learned the first one sold great. Julie said to me, “You’re going to be doing a lot more of these.”

I didn’t understand why, but after the four Showcase issues, Julie took Bob off the Flash. Bob wasn’t happy about it, but it was Julie’s decision. John Broome became the writer when Flash got his own title and I believe Gardner Fox also wrote a few. The Flash was the first successful, new superhero title in quite a few years, kicking off

SIGNIFICANCE OF SHOWCASE #4

Life From A Flash Of Lightning by Christopher Irving

(This is a revised version of an article that first appeared in Alter Ego #60—July 2006. Reprinted with permission of the author.)

ic power proved itself (in comic books, film, and television) either the cause of mass destruction, a mutating horror, or the source of great power.

When the revived Flash made his first appearance in Showcase #4, he was a bolt of lightning that energized the struggling comics medium into a Silver Age.

The first returning hero from the Golden Age was, interestingly enough, the Blue Beetle from Fox Comics. The Blue Beetle #47 (July 1948) was the character’s final appearance for two years: he returned (even acknowledged in the story) in The Blue Beetle #48 in April, 1950. The pre-Code date of his shortlived return (The Blue Beetle would find himself mothballed with his fiftieth issue) has the Azure Avenger straddling the fence as to coming back in the final days of the Golden Age, or the beginnings of the Silver.

Fifty years after, one can still wonder what formula made the Barry Allen Flash the harbinger of new life where other heroes had failed. Sure, there’d been speedsters in the Golden Age: the original DC Comics’ Flash, Quicksilver, Timely’s Whizzer (with his unfortunate yellow costume), and DC/ National’s Johnny Quick. There was nothing new about running fast, not really.

So what was it that made the Flash work? It may not have been the power alone, but the approach given The Flash: one more sophisticated and nonpolitical than many of the other superheroes making comebacks and debuts in the 1950s.

More noted is Atlas Comics’ (earlier known as Timely, and later as Marvel) super-hero revival, which brought Captain America, The Human Torch, and Namor, The Sub-Mariner back in December 1953’s Young Men #24.

The Carl Burgos-drawn cover Comic books had been domiheralded a very short-lived nated by cowboys and spacereturn for the characters, in men for the early part of the their new roles as “Commie 1950s, in a disastrous slump for Smashers” (a term plastered the struggling industry. The across the Captain America only superheroes still in print comic book). The run of were Superman, Wonder appearances of all three in Woman, Aquaman, Green Young Men would be over with Arrow, and Batman. When The by issue #28, eight months Adventures of Superman televilater. sion show starring George Robert Kanigher conceived-Carmine Infantino drawn cover to Showcase #4 (1956).

In the lead story, The Human Reeves hit the airwaves and The Flash TM and © DC Comics.

Torch comes back from the became a commercial success, dead, in time to avenge himself by using his now atomically-powsome companies either dusted off their old heroes, or invented ered flame to free his sidekick Toro from Commie brainwashing. new ones, trying to cash in Superman’s success. In many An interesting detail thought up by the writer had established instances, the “Commies” were the new formulaic villains, sucthat The Torch killed Hitler (who would return as the Hate Monger ceeding the Nazi and “Jap” antagonists of the 1940s, while atom55

JOHN BROOME

Words to Run By by Michael Decker

After a successful four issue trial-run in Showcase, The Flash was finally awarded his own ongoing series in 1959, commencing with issue #105 which picked up the numbering from the Golden Age Flash Comics.

name was John Broome... I’m proud it’s his comics that are the ones I always remember” (p. 205).

Even though his groundbreaking stories are the stuff of legend, revered by pros and fans alike, unfortunately, very little is known about John Broome’s life outside of comics.

For the next decade the whirlwind adventures of The Fastest Man Alive were primarily written

by John Broome, who according to Gerard Jones and Will Jacobs’ The Comic Book Heroes, was “a master of the miniature narrative. His were intricate short-stories that held everything a genre story had to have, all in graceful balance: character, setting, mystery, suspense, humor, action, the inevitable showdown and the happy resolution” (p. 9).

He was born in 1913 in Brooklyn, NY. As a young man he showed interest in a variety of subjects, especially literature. “I read everything... I loved them all—all the great writers... H.G. Wells, [George] Bernard Shaw, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky...

I read them all.” He was also a great lover of Shakespeare’s plays as well as art and music, particularly the Dixieland Jazz so popular in New York during the 1930s.

While attending Brooklyn College, Broome met two people who would have a profound impact on his life. One was a fellow sciencefiction enthusiast named David Vern (later to be better known by his pseudonym, David V. Reed), who introduced Broome to the man who would become his best friend, literary agent and legendary comic book editor, Julius Schwartz. In the introduction to Flash Archives Vol. 1, Schwartz states, “John Broome was my best friend as well as one of my favorite writers to work with” (p. 7).

Indeed, it was this masterful combination of plotting and characterization that makes Broome’s Flash and Green Lantern stories so memorable and a joy to read, even fifty years after their original publication.

Grant Morrison, popular writer of JLA, Animal Man, Doom Patrol, Seven Soldiers of Victory and AllStar Superman, has stated his admiration for the work of John Broome on numerous occasions. In an interview for Mark Salisbury’s book Writers on Comics Scriptwriting he recalls, “I never really got into comics until I was 12….

When I looked back later it turned out all those stories I really loved were written by the one guy who turned out to be a really big influence. His

Top: Undated photo of John Broome; Above: A Flash pin-up page by Infantino, as presented in Flash Annual #1 (1963). The Flash TM and © DC Comics.

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The other was a young woman named Peggy Siegel, who shared many of his interests. They were married in 1937 and remained a devoted couple for 62 years. In the early years of their marriage, one of John and Peggy Broome’s mutual passions was playing contract bridge. In 1940 their frequent bridge partner was Rod Reed, an editor for

CARY BATES

A Scarlet Speedster For The ’70s by Jack Scott

Mort Weisinger’s Superman books, I had always wanted to work As a teenager, Cary Bates (b. 1948) would sketch cover ideas for for Julie too. In fact, when I was submitting cover ideas, I was various DC comic books and submit them to DC editors Mort always “fair and balanced” about it since I was an avid reader of Weisinger and Julius Schwartz. It didn’t take long for one of these both editors’ books. In my pre-scripting days, if I worked up 10 sketches to be accepted and turned into an actual comic book; in cover sketches for Mort, I’d do 10 for Julie. Anyway, of all of Julie’s this way Superman #167 (Feb. 1964) is acknowledged as Bates’ books, Flash had always been my favorite, so it followed that the first comic book work. Only a few years later though, while a first story I’d ever pitch to him as a writer would be Flash (I also freshman at Ohio University, Bates matured from submitting provided the cover idea, which he used). cover concepts to providing full story scripts, and thus began Bates’ decades-spanning SCOTT: And that would be career as a comic book writer.

“The Flash — Fact or Fiction?”

Starting in the late 1960s from Flash #179 in 1968. This and continuing unrelentingly issue is credited for the crethroughout the 70s and 80s, ation of Earth-Prime and the Bates scripted various DC first time a DC character met titles, most notably Julius Schwartz in a comic Superman, Action Comics, book. Throughout your writSuperboy and the Legion of ing career on The Flash and Super-Heroes and Captain Justice League books, you realAtom. Arguably, Bates’ ly liked to dance around tenure on The Flash is his breaking the fourth wall at most impressive achievetimes. What can you tell me ment. Once he became the about this story and how it title’s regular writer in 1971 came about? with Flash #209, Bates wrote BATES: You’re right about my nearly every issue of The affinity for the fourth wall Flash until the series’ cancelthing, but I really don’t know lation with issue #350 in where that comes from.

1985—an interrupted run of Though I remember this par137 issues. By the late 1980s ticular story was inspired by Bates had journeyed to “Flash of Two Worlds.” It just Hollywood and his credits as seemed logical to me that a screenwriter include the after Julie and Gardner Fox Superboy television series, established the precedent Christopher Columbus: The that Jay Garrick had his own Discovery, the Gargoyles carearth, why couldn’t there be toon and most recently, the Top: Cary Bates caricature from Amazing World of DC Comics #14 (April 1977). yet another earth for us (the French animated series Above: Cover to The Flash #234 (June 1975). The Flash TM and © DC Comics. reader) where Jay and Barry W.I.T.C.H. Allen were just comic book characters? I think the “Earth-Prime” Interview conducted by Jack Scott via e-mail in February and designation came years later.

March 2007. Special thanks to Michael Eury for helping arrange SCOTT: Do you recall how you became the regular writer on the interview.

The Flash in 1971?

JACK SCOTT: Hi, Mr. Bates. Let’s start with you telling us a little BATES: At the time I started doing Flash stories, John Broome about the very beginning of your career as a writer for the Flash. had recently left the business and Julie seemed to be alternating CARY BATES: Though I began my writing career selling scripts for among a number of writers, including Mike Friedrich and old pro 75

“reined” by the editors?

BATES: Input varied from editor to editor.

Paul and Len gave me plenty of creative freedom, whereas Ross Andru was brought in when the powers that be decided we should change the direction of the book. This was around the time of the infamous DC “implosion” of cancelled titles, and although Flash was in no danger of cancellation, like a lot of books, its sales were off. As I recall, Ross was the editor when we decided to kill Iris to shake things up a bit.

SCOTT: Who then was your favorite editor to work with on The Flash?

BATES: Hands down that would have to be Julie for reasons mentioned above.

Cary Bates finds himself in Central City watching The Flash take on The Trickster in these panels from The Flash #228 (Aug. 1974). The Flash TM and © DC Comics.

Bob Kanigher. I was certainly more than happy to be thought of as the “regular” Flash writer, but it just sort of happened; there was no official announcement or contract to that effect.

SCOTT: In Flash #228 (1974), during a story called “The Day I Saved the Life of the Flash” you wrote yourself into the story to help the Flash defeat the Trickster. What inspired you to write yourself as a character, and is there any particular reason why you had a creator taking part in the adventure of so many of your stories?

BATES: As I recall, this was just another way to play off the Earth Prime concept, which Julie had become quite fond of. As for my “many” appearances as a character, aside from this story and the two-part Justice League story the following year that Elliot Maggin and I shared as co-writers (and co-stars), I honestly don’t recall any other appearances “I” might have made. [Editor’s Note: Bates is referring to Justice League of America #123 and #124, published in 1975.]

SCOTT: How would you describe your approach to writing The Flash? Did it differ in any significant way from how you approached writing Superman?

BATES: Up until the ’80s at least, I think I was always striving to do my best to carry on the tradition of the Silver Age John Broome-Carmine Infantino Flash comics I grew up reading, since those were the stories that inspired me as a fan and drew me to the character. No dig to Irv Novick, but back in those early days I remember wishing Carmine had stayed on the book long enough to make my fantasy-come-

true complete. Of course, I had no way of knowing I’d be getting my wish some 9 or 10 years down the road. In my later years on the book, I opted for a more serialized, Marvel-type approach with extended storylines.

SCOTT: Of course, Julius Schwartz was your Flash editor throughout most of the 1970s whereas Mort Weisinger edited your Superman stories in the 1960s and early 1970s. Can you describe how differently or how similarly these two (now legendary) men edited your work?

BATES: Both of them were heavily plotoriented, often at the expense of character, which was the prevailing DC style (with few exceptions, like Deadman) through the last half of the sixties, up until Mort’s retirement in 1970. Beyond that, Mort was infamous for being rude and abrasive with his freelances, though as I’ve stated in other interviews I seemed to get along with him better than most. Julie could be gruff and difficult at times too, but he was in no way a tyrant… with him it was more a “curmudgeon” thing, often laced with humor. For example, though I’m sure this story has been told elsewhere, Julie would often refer to himself as “B.O. Schwartz.” No, he wasn’t hygienically challenged. For him the B.O. was a badge of honor, because in his mind it stood for Be Original!

SCOTT: You also had Paul Levitz, Ross Andru and Len Wein (among others) as your editors throughout your era as the Flash writer. How much input on story direction did they provide? Did you remember being loosely or tightly 76

SCOTT: One element that I always felt was a strong part of the Flash mythos was the Rogues’ Gallery. Flash #209 (1971) is the first issue that you began regularly writing the series (even though Len Wein did write The Flash #215 and #217). This story was called “Beyond the Speed of Life.” In this story, Captain Boomerang and the Trickster kill the Flash (or so they think) and have his inanimate body on the ground. The Rogues decide not to unmask the Flash out of respect. Throughout your run on The Flash, you’ve always incorporated this Rogue honor system as a huge part of the main Flash Rogues’ Gallery motives and personality. Do you recall any reasons or inspirations as to why you did this?

BATES: Not specifically, no. But I suppose I always envisioned them as “gentlemen villains,” for lack of a better term, who shared a certain camaraderie… with the notable exception of the more obvious loners and subversives (like Grodd and Reverse-Flash).

SCOTT: Who were your favorite Flash Rogues, and who was your favorite Flash villain?

BATES: I liked ’em all… not only for the kinky characterizations, but for the way Carmine drew them. I remember during those early pre-writing days when I still had lofty (and totally unrealistic) notions of becoming a comic book artist one day, I created my own interpretation of the Rogues’ Gallery, drawing, inking and coloring my own version of each villain on heavy-duty Strathmore stock. They were all facsimiles of poses that Carmine had drawn, since what limited art talent I possessed was restricted to copying. If I had to pick stand-out favorites, though I suppose it would be Abra Kadabra, Grodd, and of course, Reverse-Flash.

IRV NOVICK

Running on Solid Ground by Jim Beard

When super-heroes began to lose their top-dog status in the 1950s, Novick did what many artists at the time did: he found something else to do. Dabbling in advertising and also contributing to a few ultimately-unsuccessful syndicated comic strips, Novick worked quietly on his art until 1952. Then, DC came Born in 1916, Novick had an calling. Prolific writer Robert unremarkable childhood, yet Kanigher, whom Novick had as a young man he was able to worked with at MLJ, was attend the prestigious working as the war comics National Academy of Design. editor at DC and tempted his Armed with an art education friend with the promise of that many illustrators of his steady assignments. Novick day lacked, he struck out into took on the art chores for the wild and wooly world of books like Our Army at War, comic books and landed a whatever DC romance titles position with the infamous Kanigher was working on at Harry “A” Chesler in 1939. the time, and a lengthy run of Barely more than a sweat covers for Wonder Woman. shop for young artists, the The friendship between Chesler “studio” did allow Kanigher and Novick grew Novick to get his feet wet in steadily, and so strong was the infant industry, and he their bond that when Novick was soon departing to seek left DC in the 1960s to once his own fortunes. again pursue an advertising Novick, full of talent and career, Kanigher was able to gumption, arrived at MLJ lure him back to the fold with Comics later in ’39, and the a bevy of perks. The thenpublisher that would later be unparalleled package includknown as Archie Comics saw ed a freelance contract, the something in the young artist. highest going page-rate, and He was given comics work, most interestingly, a guaranproved himself, and was tee that Novick would never, awarded a plum assignment: repeat never, be without an the cover and interiors of Pep assignment. This agreement, Comics #1. In January of 1940, unique at the time, would lay Novick illustrated the Pep the foundation for similar debut of The Shield, the patriartist contracts to come.

Top: Undated photo of Irv Novick from Comic Book Marketplace #77. otic hero who predated Novick was again working Above: Novick page from The Flash #247 (March 1977), courtesy of Arthur Chertowsky.

Captain America. He swiftly The Flash TM and © DC Comics. steadily with DC, and he plied became MLJ’s go-to artist, and comfortable waters until a in addition to The Shield, Novick went on to work with such charmassive shake-up at the company would once again alter the acters as Steel Sterling, the Hangman, and Bob Phantom. Novick’s artist’s landscape. tenure with MLJ lasted until 1946. By then, he had gained all the In the aftermath of what has been described as both a creators’ experience he would need for the assignments yet to come. walkout and a purge of writing talent at DC in 1968, the editorial Though not a proud man, and more than reluctant to opine as to his career, artist Irv Novick defined The Flash for a generation of fans. His fleet figures and solid draftsmanship were responsible for the distinct look and feel of the Scarlet Speedster’s adventures throughout the 1970s.

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have absolutely no fondness for any job or character over any other. ‘I just drew what they gave me to draw,’ he’d say. ‘If it was Batman or Captain Storm or Flash…I didn’t care.’” He could have fooled his fans and his professional peers, though, as the obvious attention and professionalism he put into such books as Batman and The Flash seemed to put the lie to his own words. He was very pleased, though, that his good friend Robert Kanigher penned the first seven Flash scripts that he would illustrate.

Taking over The Flash from artist Ross Andru, Novick quickly blocked out his own signature TM and © DC Comics. on the book. Most likely department transgiven direction by editorial to provide a formed both itself and its visual continuation from the Infantino stables. Following a primarily-unsuccessful Scarlet Speedster era, Novick did not so bid by many writers and a few artists to much ape his popular predecessor, but gain health insurance, better page rates, most definitely emulated him. Novick’s and other benefits, DC promoted Flash and feel for architecture and the skyscape of Batman artist Carmine Infantino to Art Central City, the Flash’s home, were very Director (a management position). One of much inspired by Infantino, as was his eye the results of this sea-change was an for panoramic landscapes and creative influx of new creative personnel and a panel structure. His figures were lanky at shuffling of existing artists to other assigntimes, accurate in anatomy, yet also heroments. DC Editor Julius Schwartz, in a letter ically-proportioned. Novick created a look to writer John Broome (as reprinted in for Barry Allen and his wife Iris that would Comic Book Artist #5), described the new define them for years to come, yet also situation: “Artists have been so juggled rooting them in the late ’60s and early around I haven’t a single artist working on ’70s as relatively “hip” citizens of their my books today who wasn’t working on fictional Central City. Their clothes and them a year ago!” Ross Andru was put on hairstyles were current to the times and The Flash and Novick himself was moved felt “real,” and the Allen home became a off his war and romance titles and awardcomfortable hang-out that inside and out ed with Batman. There he helped usher in would make Flash fans feel welcome. yet another “new look” Caped Crusader in The Flash’s specialized speed-tricks were 1969’s Batman #217, and he would continalso something Novick gave considerable ue to delineate the Dark Knight through attention to, providing that oh-so-impor1981. During the mid-to-late 1960s Novick tant sense of movement and vibration also worked on Teen Titans, Superboy, The that is crucial in the depiction of such a Brave & the Bold, and Superman’s super-hero. After-images of the Flash as Girlfriend Lois Lane (with Kanigher). he sped through the panels were lovingly Beginning in September of 1970, Novick detailed with a multitude of lines, just the took on The Flash. amount needed and no more. Novick was In his online obituary of Novick, writer and also blessed with a revolving team of credcomics historian Mark Evanier reported ible inkers, such as Tex Blaisdell, Frank that later in life the artist “claimed to McLaughlin, and the perhaps the most remember very little of his career and to The Golden Glider skates to her escape in these panels from The Flash #250 (June 1977).

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compatible of all, Dick Giordano. The inker’s style was much like Novick’s and his lines always complemented the pencils, never obscuring them.

Novick’s nine-year race with the Flash, from 1970 to 1979, primarily partnered with writer Cary Bates, covered every aspect of the hero’s mythology. Together, the two creators presented Barry Allen with countless deadly traps, attacks by every member of the Flash’s devilish Rogues’ Gallery, visits by fellow heroes (most notably Green Lantern and the Golden Age Flash Jay Garrick), and numerous chances to show off his speedy intelligence. New adversaries reared their conniving heads during this time, too, including fan-favorite The Golden Glider (introduced in The Flash #250) and the confounding Clown (The Flash #270). Novick handled them all with ease and character.

At one time Novick was seen as something of an usurper to Infantino’s throne, but by the end of his Flash days, he was a firm part of the Flash’s foundation, leading one fan to write in the letter column of The Flash #270, “Irv Novick has done such a thoroughly flawless job on the art that I seriously question the validity of Infantino being the Flash artist.”

With The Flash #270 being his final issue, Novick left the title in 1979, citing that “he had done his best work on the character,” according to DC staffer Mike W. Barr in #276’s letter column. His eyesight had begun to deteriorate around this time (he was 63), and the Flash’s wife Iris was murdered five issues after his departure, marking an overall downturn in the character’s fortunes. Novick returned to art duties on Batman and later projects for the artist read like a tour of the DC universe and include Action Comics, DC Comics Presents, Wonder Woman, Superman Family, World’s Finest, Detective Comics, and Green Lantern. One of his very last Flash stories would be in 1990 for Flash Special #1, a Jay Garrick solo story.

Novick would continue to draw, albeit more intermittently, until his eyes failed him all together in the mid-’90s, forcing him into permanent retirement. He passed away quietly in 2004 without ever fully commenting on or detailing his long career in comic books, yet leaving behind, as Mark Evanier said, “an amazing body of topnotch comic illustration.”

THE FLASH CBS TV SHOW The Scarlet Speedster’s Network Run by Keith Dallas At the time The Flash was On Thursday, September 20, the most expensive televi1990 at 8pm EST The Flash sion show to produce as it television show debuted involved then-state of the on CBS. That a premier netart digital effects, elabowork like CBS would allorate sets, and several costly cate one of television’s Flash costumes (complete most coveted time slots to with their own cooling sysa super-hero drama is a tem). The costume itself result of the 1989 Tim became an early point of Burton Batman feature contention between the film, which was the highest producers and the netgrossing film at the box work, one that had nothoffice that year. The sucing to do with the show’s cess of Batman convinced budget. Initially, CBS didn’t movie and television netwant The Flash wearing work executives that anything resembling a super-hero fantasies were super-hero costume. The a viable form of entertainnetwork proposed The ment that didn’t need to be Flash wear a track suit and presented in a self-mocksneakers with LED lights. ing, “camp” fashion. As As DC Editor Mike Gold such, DC Comics’ parent recounts the incident, company Warner Brothers provided writers/producers “Word came down that Danny Bilson and Paul De CBS didn’t want The Flash Meo with a catalogue of in a costume. After wonavailable DC Comics chardering if CBS had ever acters and commissioned heard of the Batman them to develop a supermovie, Jeanette [Kahn, DC hero pitch to the networks.

Comics’ publisher], Brian Bilson and De Meo con[Augustyn, another DC ceived a series titled Comics editor] and I put Unlimited Powers, a polititogether a dozen reasons cally allegorical, dystopian why we had to have a cossuper-hero tale involving tumed Flash. In our teleestablished DC Comics phone meeting with characters—Flash among [Warner Bros’ Vice them—which was heavily President] Norm Stevens, influenced by Alan Moore’s Brian and I discussed these John Wesley Shipp as The Flash.

Watchmen (for more inforreasons. Clearly, the most © Warner Bros. Television. The Flash TM and © DC Comics. mation on Unlimited important reason was the Powers, read Back Issue #19, December 2006). While CBS depth of our feelings and the traditions upon which they took a pass on Unlimited Powers, Bilson and De Meo’s proare based… good enough for Warner Bros., but maybe not posal did persuade the network to authorize production of quite good enough for CBS. After a pregnant pause, I took The Flash as an hour-long television show. up the task. ‘Well, you know, take away that red costume, 113

DANNY BILSON & PAUL DE MEO Talking TV’s Flash by Keith Dallas Interview conducted by Keith Dallas on January 24, 2007.

Danny Bilson and Paul De Meo wrote, directed and produced several Bmovies in the first half of the 1980s before writing a film adaptation of Dave Stevens’ comic book The Rocketeer that was bought by Disney. This led to a development deal with Warner Brothers Television who commissioned the writers to develop a super-hero pitch to the networks from the catalogue of available DC Comics characters (Warner Bros. owned DC Comics at the time). While CBS ultimately passed on Bilson and De Meo’s Unlimited Powers proposal, the network instead authorized the pair to produce The Flash television show, which aired for one season on CBS in 1990/1991.

KEITH DALLAS: To the best of my knowledge you two began your collaboration on the 1985 Tim Thomerson/Helen Hunt sci-fi film Trancers, can you describe how you two met and what encouraged you two to collaborate?

PAUL DE MEO: We actually started working together before Trancers.

We met almost 9 or 10 years earlier in college at Cal State-San Bernardino where we were both Theatre Arts majors. We started writing together there. Our first work was a three-act play for our senior thesis, the one and only play we ever wrote.

Then when we came to In the years after The Los Angeles, we wrote a Flash television show, bunch of spec scripts and Danny Bilson and Paul De tried to get some jobs Meo collaboratively writing in television and developed and executive pitching our movies. We produced three 1990s telwrote a script in 1980 evision series: Human that was never proTarget, Viper, and The duced, but it got us into Sentinel. They then Top: Danny Bilson and Paul De Meo. Above: John Welsey Shipp in one very expensive the Writers Guild, and branched into the video Flash costume. © Warner Bros. Television. The Flash TM and © DC Comics. that was a comedy based game industry by producon the idea of alligators ing The Sims and writing the Medal of Honor: Rising Sun and running around in the sewers of New York, which was not several James Bond 007 games, all of which proved to be our idea, but we were happy to take a whack at it and write incredibly popular with consumers. More recently, Bilson and it.

We also wrote a script for Richard Pryor that was pretty De Meo wrote DC Comics’ re-launch of the Flash (Flash: The good but was never produced as well.

Fastest Man Alive) as well as the critically acclaimed Wildstorm mini-series, Red Menace.

The first thing that we wrote that actually was filmed was 116

between them. We kind of wrapped it up, and also within that last episode, besides the cameo bit that Danny and I did, you will see sprinkled throughout, people who worked on the show as extras. So that was fun.

DALLAS: A character that I don’t see you two asked about a lot in the various interviews about the show is Julio Mendez, played by Alex Desert. You’ve admitted that Barry’s brother, Jay, was named after Jay Garrick, and we’ve already covered that Amanda Pays was playing Tina McGee, a character directly taken from the Wally West series. Julio, however, wasn’t based on any established Flash character. What was the basis of the creation of that character?

BILSON: We tried to get some people of color on the show. That was one of the reasons to start with, and we always wanted Barry to have someone to play off of all of the time. We certainly didn’t want a Kid Flash, but on the Barry Allen detective side, Julio is sort of his Kid Flash.

Of course, the part was written as a Hispanic character, and Alex just was the best actor for it, so he became the part, and we didn’t have to change the character’s name because of course, there are a lot of Hispanics who are also African-American.

DE MEO: Also, we were trying to come up with a Jimmy Olsen kind of character, even though Alex played it older.

BILSON: Absolutely.

DE MEO: He’s even like a Lois Lane kind of character because if you follow the show, you’ll see Julio is the guy, at least initially, who’s suspicious that Barry is the Flash.

DALLAS: Yeah, he even almost figures it out at the end of that one episode, “Shroud of Death.”

DE MEO: Julio is the guy Barry most often has to fool. And then in a few episodes Julio takes center stage, like in the one about the jazz musicians that Angela Bassett was in.

DALLAS: “Beat the Clock.”

DE MEO: “Beat the Clock,” yeah. He was a real central part in that. You know, Alex has a great comic timing and was a lot of fun to work with, and he had a great rapport with John, like Amanda did. And some of the scenes between those two guys are really some of my

Cover to The Flash TV Special, published by DC Comics in 1991. The Flash TM and © DC Comics.

favorite of the entire show because they played it with affection. Julio was just a great classic sidekick character.

DALLAS: In the Flash TV Special comic book Howard Chaykin actually professed to having some difficulty writing the Julio character.

DE MEO: Really? I don’t remember that. Did he say why?

DALLAS: Ummm. [looks through his 125

notes and then laughs] I’ll have to go back and look at the comic book.

DE MEO: Maybe a lot of those guys weren’t real comfortable with writing the kind of jokey back and forth exchange that we were more comfortable writing. Barry and Julio were peers.

They would double date and all that kind of stuff, and Julio was always trying to set Barry up with girlfriends. I tried to use their relationship as the

WALLY WEST

Imagine a spectrum that arranges all super-heroes according to their lot in life. At the cursed end of the spectrum is Peter Parker, the Charlie Brown of super-heroes who must forever experience futility, misfortune and tragedy despite his noble intentions. At the blessed end of the spectrum is Wally West, possibly the most fortunate of superheroes in comic book history. The Life Story of The Flash graphic novel (1997) accurately describes Wallace Rudolph West as “the star of the greatest rags-to-riches tale” ever told. For proof consider that Wally…

• Not only met his childhood hero, The Flash, but also received his powers and became his sidekick partner; • Was a founding and long-time member of The Teen Titans where he befriended Dick Grayson, a.k.a. Robin; • Became the first super-hero sidekick to assume his mentor’s role; • Won the New York State lottery at the age of 20, making him a millionaire; • Was inducted into several versions of the Justice League of America;

Wally West IS The Flash in this image that was originally printed in Wizard Magazine in 2002, courtesy of Scott Kolins.

• Became the first character to enter and return from the “Speed Force”—the source of super-speed in the DC Comics universe— making him Fastest Man Alive ever;

The Flash TM and © DC Comics.

• Married his soul-mate and fathered super-powered twins.

Before becoming Zoom, a distraught Hunter Zolomon even mocked Wally for having so perfect a life: “You’ve never had any 130

The Luckiest Man Alive

by Keith Dallas

personal tragedy… A bolt of lightning turned you into the Fastest Man Alive. You have a beautiful wife. You’re adored by this city and the world as a hero. Your life has been anything but tragic” (The Flash #196, May 2003). It’s not a completely fair assessment as Wally has had to deal with his share of hardships, including: • Fluctuating speed powers throughout his youth, with the prospect that they could even kill him; • Tumultuous relationships with both his parents and girlfriends; • Deep-rooted feelings of inadequacy when he assumed the role of The Flash; • Homelessness when he lost all his lottery-won riches; • Being forced as a young adult to share an apartment with his mother (never a good situation); • The loss of his unborn children due to a Zoom-induced miscarriage.

All these hardships though proved ephemeral (the miscarriage was even reversed) with Wally’s good fortune always winning out.

And readers have had the good fortune of watching Wally mature from an upstanding boy to a self-centered young adult to a conscientious married man with kids. It’s hard to think of another superhero who has experienced more gradual change and maturity than Wally West. Dick Grayson has displayed a similar development, but Wally has exhibited more changes in his personality.

It all began in The Flash #110 (Jan. 1960) when ten year old Wally— president and only member of the Blue Valley, Nebraska Flash Fan Club—visited his Aunt Iris West in Central City and consequently had the best summer vacation a kid could ever have. Not only did he get to meet his idol, he also experienced the same lightning strike chemical bath that endowed Barry Allen with his superpowers. Thus Wally West became The Fastest Boy Alive, and without any hesitation Barry Allen adopted his girlfriend’s nephew as his super-speed protégé and gave him the name Kid Flash. (It was later revealed that Wally initially campaigned for the name of “Speedy.”

Unfortunately, that name was already being used by a boy archer

The cover to Flash #1 (June 1987), courtesy of Metropolis Comics.

The Flash TM and © DC Comics.

who would soon become Wally’s Teen Titans teammate.) After his introduction, Kid Flash starred regularly on his own in The Flash back-up features. His stories served partially as public service announcements warning young readers about the dangers of juvenile delinquency, go-mobiles, and—gasp!—beatniks.

For the first few years of his published career, Kid Flash ran around in the same red costume as Flash did. Since both Barry Allen and Wally West shared the same lanky frame, it was a bit hard to distinguish the two if they weren’t standing beside each other. In Barry’s defense, it’s not like he had other material at hand to fashion his sidekick a different costume. But in The Flash #135 (March 1963), it’s as if The Flash recognizes his readers’ frustration when he says, “For some time now, Kid Flash, I’ve been thinking it would be a good idea if you were attired in a brand new uniform—

Wally West’s origin as recounted in the Flash 50th Anniversary Special (1990).

The Flash TM and © DC Comics.

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MIKE BARON

Wally West’s Fast Living by Keith Dallas

Mike Baron’s most significant comic book achievement is his co-creation of the critically acclaimed science fiction comic book Nexus with artist Steve Rude. First published in 1981, Nexus earned Baron and Rude many honors, including the coveted Eisner Award in 1993.

Nexus aside, Baron has also created many other titles— most notably Badger—and has written profusely for other publishers, including DC Comics, Marvel, Dark Horse, Comico, Valiant, First, and Image. He continues to write comic books to this day.

BARON: As a result, my work was not the best that I could have done. I have gone through a lot of changes since then, and I look back at that period with mixed feelings.

The cocaine definitely contributed to my “over-writing.” I don’t think I was taking all my writing subjects as seriously as I do now. However, I took Flash very seriously, and that’s the reason I stopped writing the series [after issue #14] because I just ran out of ideas and I couldn’t vamp it.

In 1987 DC Comics editor Mike Gold tapped Baron to write the Flash re-launch.

DALLAS: It was around this time that you were nominated three years in a row for an Eisner Award for your writing on Nexus.

Interview conducted by Keith Dallas on July 12, 2007.

BARON: My work on Nexus has never suffered.

KEITH DALLAS: The late 1980s were a particular heyday for you. At the time you started writing Flash in 1987, you were also writing Nexus, Badger, Robotech Masters, and Marvel had you on The Punisher.

When you do cocaine, you think you can do any damn thing. Often, I just would grab a sheet of paper and start telling a story and make it up as I went along, panel by panel. But you can’t do that really. You need a real solid idea and solid characters to build a story around.

MIKE BARON: I was a busy boy.

DALLAS: How did Flash become one of your assignments?

DALLAS: [chuckles] Can you describe your career at that point? What was it like writing all those titles?

BARON: Mike Gold asked me to do it. Mike Gold, the greatest editor who has ever walked the Earth.

BARON: Well, there was a lot of confusion.

DALLAS: How so?

Top: 1987 photo of Mike Baron. Above: 1987 DC house ad promoting Flash #1.

The Flash TM and © DC Comics.

BARON: [pauses] Keith, at the time I was making a lot of money, and I was doing a lot of cocaine.

DALLAS: What makes you say that?

BARON: He’s editing me now.

DALLAS: [laughs] Well, what is it about Mike Gold compared to other editors that makes him the best?

DALLAS: Really?

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BARON: The one thing about Mike Gold is that he has always been concerned about the freelancer and the freelancer’s rights. He doesn’t abuse freelancers. For instance, he doesn’t call up a freelancer and ask him to pitch an idea and then call up six other freelancers and ask them to pitch the same idea.

He fights for freelancers’ rights. He makes sure they get paid.

did you have for starting this Flash re-launch with Savage as the villain?

BARON: I can’t exactly recall, but for starters, he’s a great villain. It may also have been that I wanted to have some continuity in that first issue between Barry Allen and Wally West.

Vandal Savage became a frequent foe of Wally West. From Who’s Who. TM and © DC Comics.

I would like to do a lot more with Kilg%re.

That’s my main character that I created for Flash. He and the Chunk.

He’s an all around good guy.

BARON: No. He didn’t have to.

DALLAS: In the back of Flash #2 Mike Gold writes a very long editorial column in which he explains how he, you and Jackson Guice became attached to the title. He stressed that this new Flash series had to be “different” and that its writer had to be “incapable of writing anything that was at all similar to the Barry Allen Flash, and who was not associated with writing that style of superhero.” With that criteria, he concluded that you were the perfect fit. He wrote that you are “the most ‘different’ writer” he knew.

DALLAS: He just knew what kind of work you were going to provide?

DALLAS: What was it about Kilg%re that you liked?

BARON: Because I always look forward.

I never look back.

BARON: He encapsulates a number of science fiction ideas that lend themselves to exciting storytelling. Dark Horse took a stab at it with a movie called Virus, which is very similar in idea to Kilg%re. It wasn’t the greatest movie in the world. It starred Jamie Lee Curtis.

BARON: Well, that was very kind of Mike to write that.

DALLAS: Is that something he emphasized to you as he approached you to write Flash?

DALLAS: Well, let me ask you this: at the time you were asked to write Flash, did you have any feelings about or attachment to the Flash character? Was the Flash a character you had considered writing previously or was it just a matter of you agreeing to an assignment that fell into your lap?

BARON: It was the latter, but in retrospect I wish I had stayed on the book and taken it more seriously.

DALLAS: When you got the assignment to write Flash, did you and Mike Gold plan out together what stories would be told?

DALLAS: I remember that movie.

Now what was it about Chunk that you liked?

BARON: He was kind of a projection of me. The ultimate nerd.

DALLAS: [laughs] It didn’t take you long to show that Chunk wasn’t a true villain.

BARON: No, he was just an outsider who wanted to belong.

BARON: No, not at all, he left that completely up to me.

DALLAS: Okay, so then did you plot out several story arcs in advance?

BARON: I had a very solid idea for the first two issues with Vandal Savage and the revelation about Wally’s eating habits, but I never sat down and planned a story arc. Honestly, I prefer self-contained stories, but stories are getting longer these days so those are getting harder to do.

DALLAS: Vandal Savage was an interesting choice of villain for those first two issues.

Nexus: the creation that earned Mike Baron an Eisner Award in 1993.

It seemed pretty obvious that during your run on Flash you were avoiding the classic Flash Rogues. No Captain Cold, no Captain Boomerang, no Mirror Master.

Instead you introduced some completely new villains… with the exception of Vandal Savage. What particular reason

Nexus TM and © Mike Baron and Steve Rude.

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The villain who became a supporting character: Chunk. From Who’s Who. TM and © DC Comics.

JACKSON GUICE

Starting Up The New Speedster by Keith Dallas

Since 1982, when he began drawing Marvel Comics’ Micronauts, Jackson “Butch” Guice has been steadily employed as a comic book artist, working for such publishers as Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, Valiant, First, and CrossGen on such titles as X-Men and the Micronauts, X-Factor, Iron Man, Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme, Action Comics, Resurrection Man, Birds of Prey, Ruse, and Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis. In 2007 Guice signed an exclusive contract with the publisher who initiated his career, Marvel Comics, which might be all too appropriate since Guice was born the same year that the “Marvel Age” began: 1961.

JACKSON GUICE: If I truly am recalling everything correctly, my move to DC was largely due to general work frustration. My experience on X-Factor was not a very happy one, and my perception at the time — right or wrong — was that then-Editor-inChief Jim Shooter disliked my work intensely.

Of course, with the advantage of hindsight, I can look back today and readily accept that I wasn’t very skilled or polished in my craft, as well as understand how, in all likelihood, I misinterpreted Jim’s stern admonishments as some sort of personal vendetta.

Anyway, I called DC looking for a fresh start.

DALLAS: So I’ll assume this is when Flash was offered to you as an assignment.

In 1987 Guice—along with writer Mike Baron, editor Mike Gold and inker Larry Mahlstedt—became attached to the re-launch of Flash in the wake of the DC Comics’ mini-series, Legends.

Interview conducted by Keith Dallas via e-mail in August 2007.

GUICE: Yeah. I’m pretty sure Flash was the first thing we discussed — the re-launch with Wally West.

DALLAS: What was the lure of working on Flash?

GUICE: It sounded exciting. I was already a fan of Mike Baron’s writing style thanks to Nexus and The Badger.

Mike Gold was very enthusiastic and encouraging. It all seemed to fall into place rather easily.

Top: Photo of Jackson Guice, courtesy of Jackson Guice. Above: Guice drawn cover to Flash #3 (Aug. 1987), courtesy of Caesar Alvarez. The Flash TM and © DC Comics.

KEITH DALLAS: Prior to 1987, you worked exclusively for Marvel, most notably on Micronauts, New Mutants and X-Factor. Then Flash editor Mike Gold claims that you called him looking for work. What compelled you in early 1987 to “go across the street” and work for DC? Did you have a falling out with Marvel?

DALLAS: New titles emerging from the 1986-7 Legends miniseries were Justice League, Suicide Squad, Shazam! and Flash.

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WILLIAM MESSNER-LOEBS A Run In The Real World by Keith Dallas Despite having his right arm amputated in his infancy due to a cancerous tumor, William Messner-Loebs (b. 1949) became a gifted cartoonist. After producing work for underground comic books, in 1983 he created, wrote and drew Journey—which chronicled the fictitious adventures of an early 19th century frontierman— before being hired by Comico to write Jonny Quest, an assignment that earned him an Eisner Award nomination in 1989. In the 1990s Messner-Loebs was steadily employed by DC and Marvel Comics to write such titles as Dr. Fate, Hawkman, Thor, Impulse, and most notably, a critically acclaimed three-year collaboration on Wonder Woman with artist Mike Deodado Jr. He also co-wrote with Sam Kieth the Image series The Maxx that MTV came to produce as a televised cartoon.

With the new millennium, however, Messner-Loebs found comic book work hard to come by. Indeed, he found any employment hard to come by. Once word of Messner-Loebs’ financial and health difficulties spread amongst the comic book community, efforts were made to raise money to assist one of the most prolific and distinctive comic book writers of the past 30 years. These efforts included two benefit books: The Three Tenors: Off Key published by Aardwolf and Heroes & Villains: The William MessnerLoebs Benefit Sketchbook published by TwoMorrows.

In 1989 William Messner-Loebs became Mike Baron’s successor as writer of Flash.

Interview conducted via e-mail by Keith Dallas in December, 2007.

KEITH DALLAS: As best as I can tell, Flash was your first DC Comics writing assignment. Can you relate how the Flash assignment was offered to you? Had you been trying to write for DC for a while?

WILLIAM MESSNER-LOEBS: Obviously, everyone in independent comics at the time had been trying for years, with varying degrees of success, to break into Marvel and DC. In my case I had been storming the gilded citadels for more than a decade. It was so exquisitely difficult to do that many of us had resolved to make a virtue of necessity and remain outside as pure and honorable agents of the creative impulse. Yet when the call came, we all went. Were we all hypocrites, so easily corrupted that the slightest push would make us leap into the Pit? Maybe. DC’s rates were more than twice Comico’s, and their audience was huge. But what actually brought most of us in was Mike Gold.

Mike was a legend at that time in Indy comics. He had been a management intern at DC back in the day, then started the Chicago ComicCon. He founded First Comics to give comic talent a place to create with a viable rights structure. DC lured him back to give their books more edge, more punch. Mike was made Group Editor under Dick Giordano and set about lassoing a lot of the Midwestern talent he had worked with at First Comics. I remember him saying: “DC is corporate as sh*t, they’ll keep your originals and your rights (that changed), and they’ll drive you f*ckin’ nuts with their pettiness, but you’ll make more money than you’ve ever seen, and you’ll never miss a paycheck.” And he was right about it all.

DALLAS: Now you were already fond of The Flash, right? If I remember correctly, you professed to

Top: Photo of William Messner-Loebs; Above: Wally West is The Fastest Man Alive, from Who’s Who. The Flash TM and © DC Comics.

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MIKE WIERINGO

A Tribute to Mike Wieringo (1963-2007) by Mark Waid deep end of the pool. At that point, he had never drawn a 22page superhero comic book, and here I was, asking for a bunch of different characters in a baseball stadium, probably the worst thing a writer can ask an artist to draw. In subsequent issues, I also had Mike draw an amusement park and a state fair, not realizing at that time that it’s evil and meanspirited for a writer to force his artist to draw those ridiculously crowded environments.

I distinctly remember the first time I ever saw Mike’s work.

It was upside-down.

Even then, I wanted to look at it. It was a Justice League Quarterly story on top of Assistant Editor Ruben Diaz’s desk. And I liked what I saw.

The figures were good, the storytelling was really good, the camera angles were really good, and there was a cleanness to the line that was unlike that firestorm of Image wannabes who were servicing about at that time. All those guys wished they could draw like Rob Liefeld or Jim Lee, so they just stole their basic technique and didn’t have any idea what a line drawing truly was.

Conversely, Mike had a very clean, more traditional DC Comics style, and it really stood out among the crowd of cluttered, overwrought submissions.

But it didn’t break Mike. It actually made him stronger, and I remember distinctly there was some alchemy with our third issue working together on The Flash. Our first issue was good, our second issue was better, but in that third issue Mike really stepped up his game. In that issue you can turn the page and see that he got it.

Again, Mike’s legacy on The Flash is that he put the same enduring stamp on the character that Carmine did.

Mike completely re-defined how The Flash was drawn for an entirely new generation.

The way The Flash is drawn now—not only just the character but the speed effects associated with the character—can all be traced back to Mike. He was sort of the Carmine Infantino of his generation in terms of imprinting a look on The Flash that has carried forth with everyone else who has drawn the character since him.

The lesson we should take from Mike’s life and career is that it’s always better to follow your own path, to march to the beat of your own drummer rather than try to adapt your work to the predominant style. Mike was never considered a superstar breakout artist—which I Top: Photo of Mike Wieringo; Above: Craig Rousseau’s 2007 tribute think was unfair—but it was in to the late Wieringo, courtesy of Craig Rousseau. part because his style was not Impulse TM and © DC Comics. noodly. It wasn’t full of anger and rage. Yet it was energetic. I think Mike always felt that he was one year away from being forever out of work in comic Right from the start, I always knew that Mike was “The Guy” books because he figured his time had come and gone. for The Flash. He would have been the first to admit that his Luckily, he was always able to find work and justifiably so first issue on The Flash was a little weak. He was still getting because good never goes out of style. the feel of things, but then again, I really threw him into the 167

Mike Wieringo’s tribute to Bart Allen.

Flash and Impulse TM and Š DC Comics.

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GEOFF JOHNS

The Last Lap by Ben Morse

After graduating from Michigan State University, Geoff Johns (b. 1973) went to Hollywood to become assistant to film director/producer Richard Donner. After working on such films as Conspiracy Theory and Lethal Weapon 4, Johns began writing for DC Comics in 1999, first on a series titled Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E., whose lead character, Courtney Whitmore, was modeled after Johns’ sister, who had perished in the TWA Flight 800 explosion in 1996. Johns soon began writing other comic book projects, not only for DC Comics (JSA, Hawkman, Teen Titans) but also Marvel Comics (Avengers), Dark Horse Comics (B.P.R.D.: Night Train) and Top Cow (Tomb Raider: Scarface’s Treasure), among others. By 2004 though, Geoff Johns was working exclusively for DC Comics and over the next few years, he wrote DC’s highest profile series: Green Lantern: Rebirth, Infinite Crisis, and 52.

In 2006 Johns reunited with his mentor, Richard Donner as the two co-wrote Action Comics. At this time Johns also became more involved in Hollywood, having written the pilot episode for the Blade television series as well as becoming its consulting producer.

(The following is a revised version of an article that was first published in Wizard Magazine #167—September 2005. Reprinted by permission of Wizard.)

“The Last Lap”: As he races towards his final issue of The Flash in August, Geoff Johns looks back on his five-year run with the Fastest Man Alive.

By Ben Morse For Geoff Johns and The Flash, it was love at first run.

“From when I first saw him on Super Friends as a kid, the Flash was my favorite character,” Johns remembers. “I was about 6 years old and this guy running really fast in a red and yellow costume was about the coolest visual I’d ever seen.”

As the future Teen Titans and Infinite Crisis writer came of age, his obsession for the fastest man alive continued to grow, to the point where even incarceration wouldn’t stop him from getting his Flash fix.

“In 1987, when the new Flash #1 came out, I was grounded and couldn’t leave the house,” Johns recalls. “A friend of mine came to my window and I gave him 75 cents to run to the drugstore and bring me back the comic.”

Top: Photo of Geoff Johns; Above: Cover to Flash Secret Files and Origins #3 (Nov. 2001), courtesy of Scott Kolins. The Flash TM and © DC Comics.

In 2000 Geoff Johns was given the opportunity to become the regular writer on The Flash. His tenure on the title lasted five years and over 60 consecutive issues before he finally stepped away in 2005.

In college, The Flash, written by Mark Waid, was the only comic Johns continued to collect on a regular basis. A film major, Johns planned to become a screenwriter, but something about Waid’s 170

take on Wally West kept him hooked.

Most Important Storyline

“I always admired Wally because he’s not a genius or the most important guy in the world,” says Johns. “He’s just an honest guy trying to do what he thinks is right.”

“My first storyline, ‘Wonderland’ [issues #164-169], was originally supposed to be a fill-in arc. Two issues in, I was put on the book regularly, so ‘Blood Will Run’ [issues #170-#173] was my first real storyline. It was my first chance for me to show what I wanted to do with the Flash’s universe, to showcase Keystone and bring in the new supporting cast.

From here, every story flowed into the next one, it was the start of the bigger picture.” [Editor’s Note: “Blood Will Run” brought to Keystone City the villainous Cicada, a cult leader who was struck by lightning and believed he could harness Flash’s power to augment his own by killing those Flash had saved. The storyline also introduced Detectives Fred Chyre and Jared Morillo to the Flash supporting cast.]

Never in his wildest dreams did John imagine he would be the one to take the reins of his favorite character from Waid in 2000. Five years and sixty-one issues later, Johns’ run on The Flash is being considered one of the best ever.

“He experienced a lot of trials by fire before I came on the book and my goal was to show him as a confident hero who knew what his job was and what he could do.”

On the eve of his final issue, #225, Johns reflects on the highpoints of his Flash experience.

A study of Flash Rogues by Justiniano, as published in Wizard’s The Flash #1⁄2 issue (April 2005).

TM and © DC Comics.

During an Iron Heights prison break, The Flash finds himself facing the Geoff Johns-created generation of Rogues: Plunder, Girder, Double Down, Tarpit, Cicada and Murmur. Spread page from The Flash #192 (Jan. 2003) TM and © DC Comics.

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BART ALLEN In 1994, at a time in comics’ history that was better known for dark characters with even darker stories, Mark Waid and Mike Wieringo introduced a new fun hero to the DC Universe: Bart Allen, a kid who liked to run fast and help people. Why this character was introduced, and where his fast feet took him over his career, is a story that links the past, present and future of the DCU. One of the challenges that came along with the death of the Barry Allen during the Crisis on Infinite Earths was that Wally West needed to become a hero in his own right after being the first sidekick to carry on his predecessor’s legacy. By the early 1990s fans, and some seasoned professionals, felt that Wally was not living up to the billing. As commented in the afterword of the Flash: Terminal Velocity trade paperback, in order to help move Wally along and force him to grow up, Mark Waid and Mike Wieringo introduced Bart Allen as the grandson of Wally’s lost mentor.

At the time, it was well known that when Barry Allen and his wife Iris lived in the 30th century, they had a pair of twins. However, a lesser-known fact—introduced in Legion of Superheroes #17 (April 1991)—was the existence of a Bartholomew Allen II, the son of Don Allen who was one of those twins. Until his introduction in Flash, “Bart” Allen was an unknown commodity.

Bart was born to Don Allen and Meloni Thawne, a member of the infamous Thawne family who had been recurring villains for the Flash throughout history. Whereas all other speedsters had gained their powers through various experiments gone awry or other such origin stories, Bart was born directly connected to the Speed Force. This ended up being a curse of sorts, as Bart aged alarmingly quickly, appearing to be 12 years old when he was truly just two. While scientists attempted to solve the aging problem with 30th century technology, Bart was placed in a virtual reality (VR) simulation. This VR world, comprised of real environments and game components, allowed Bart to develop higher brain functions that kept up with his accelerated aging. Unfortunately, when it became clear that a solution was unlikely in the 30th century, Bart’s grandmother Iris took him back in time to be put in the care of Wally West, her nephew, in the hopes that he would be able to teach Bart to control his speed.

Despite the obvious assumption that there would be many years of mentoring between this new Flash/Kid Flash team-up, Waid and Wieringo threw a wrench into the works. After Bart’s aging problems had been solved, it quickly

Bart Allen matures from Impulse to Kid Flash to The Flash in this cover to The Flash: The Fastest Man Alive #9 (Apr. 2007), courtesy of Moose Baumann. TM © DC Comics.

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The Most Impulsive Man Alive

by Christopher Power

became apparent that Wally and Bart were not going to be partners. Wally could not stand Bart’s lack of common sense and impulsive behavior, and Bart resented Wally as an authority figure.

History gets a little bit muddled here. There is a great deal of confusion as to exactly which DC character provided Bart with the codename “Impulse.” In All Flash #1 (September 2007), Iris reminds Wally that he coined the “single synapse” theory, which asserts that Bart jumped from mental impulse to action without any conscious thought in between. While this is consistent with the details presented within Impulse #1 and Flash #95, other stories attribute the creation of the codename to other characters.

For instance, in Impulse #50 Bart tells Batman that Wally credits the Dark Knight with the invention of the name (which provokes Batman to quip that he was providing a warning, not a name). In Countdown #43 Robin reaffirms this version of the story. However, The Flash: The Fastest Man Alive #2 alleges that Max Mercury created the “Impulse” moniker, but this claim is widely dismissed as erroneous since Bart already had the codename before he met Max. Wherever the name came from, there is little doubt that it described Bart perfectly. Due to his life in virtual reality, Bart had little concept of the consequences of life and death. Indeed, in Impulse #1, Bart relates his odd resentment that Wally didn’t die during their clash with Kobra (in Flash #95) to allow him to become the Flash. This terrifying lack of reality, along with several disagreements, led Wally to use his contacts to get falsified documents for the youngster and entrust Bart to the care of the man who honed his own skills in the ways of speedsters: Max Mercury, The Zen Guru of Speed.

Max Mercury was a foot messenger during the 19th century. He was granted his speed from a dying Blackfoot tribe shaman who drew a pink lightning bolt on his chest, in order to save the rest of his tribe. Some time after that, a lightning storm called out to the

Bart Allen arrives in the DC Universe in this cover to Flash #92 (July 1994).

TM © DC Comics.

young man to run… and run he did. After reaching the outer limits of speed, he was drawn into the Speed Force and flung forward in time to New York in 1891. Further adventures led to Max time traveling further forward, making several stops in the 20th century, where he encountered other modern day speedsters. After settling down in the 20th century, Max served as an elder-statesman among speedsters, including the various Flashes. As such, it seemed reasonable that he, with his many years of experience training speedsters, would be able to pass on his values to the impetuous youth that was Bart. How wrong everyone was, at least at first. With the move to Max’s home in Manchester, Alabama, Bart became a representation of the typical under-stimulated mid-teen student, something that resonated with readers and fans.

Bart explains his circumstances in these panels from Secret Origins 80-Page Giant (1998). TM © DC Comics.

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Bart initially had a very hard time adjusting to life with Max. It was not just the lack of any consideration of the consequences of his actions, but the complete misunderstanding of just about every lesson that Max tried to teach him. The concept of keeping a low profile and the reasons for having a secret identity were completely lost on the young man. On top of this, the point of school was unclear at best to Bart, and he had no friends to speak of there. At one point, he even managed to arrange squabbles and fights in the school yard with every major group in the school— including defending a student in a food fight with a tray that paid homage to Jay Garrick’s original lunch tray display. Bart did gradually gather a close group of friends, including a young woman named Carol who would come to be very important in Bart’s life.

focused on being heroes. Indeed, when Arrowette was in danger of killing a vigilante in revenge, it was Bart who stepped up to stop her (Young Justice #15, December 1999).

While all of these events helped hone Bart’s character, he still had trouble understanding some of the nuances of the real world. For instance, when Max Mercury chided him for not saving innocent bystanders, Bart reasoned that because there was always more “points” for stopping the bad guy, he should do that first.

This disconnection from reality would come to a head when Max was shot, causing damage to his connection to the Speed Force.

Bart had a series of solo adventures stopping villains such as Blockbuster and the lesser known White Lightning, but his first real evolution as a hero did not occur until a conflict with Max’s enemy, Savitar. This villain rendered all speedsters powerless, leaving Bart to cope with the “normal speed” world for the first time. During the climactic battle with Savitar and his minions, Johnny Quick entered the Speed Force to save his daughter Jesse. When he did this, the realization of how serious the game of playing hero really was, and how high the costs could be, became painfully clear to Impulse.

Shortly after this incident, Todd Dezago and Ethan Van Sciver introduced one of the most important additions to the Flash Rogues’ Gallery: Inertia, the evil clone of Bart Allen. Cloned by Bart’s maternal grandfather, Thaddeus Thawne was to be the last great revenge on Barry Allen and his family. After tormenting Bart on several occasions, he finally took his place, unbeknownst to readers. Inertia actually attempted to save Max’s life by delivering him to the Speed Force when the shooting he had suffered robbed him of his connection to it. Just before reaching the Speed Force, Inertia revealed himself to Max and attempted to leave him in the Speed Storm. As Max was about to be lost, Bart transcended his limits and broke the barriers to the Speed Force, which allowed him to defeat Inertia and deliver Max into the essence of speed to save his life (Impulse #66, November 2000).

One would think that with all of this going on, there would be no need to introduce

As Bart continued to evolve as a hero in his own right, he helped form the Young Justice team, which hoped to emulate and exceed their adult counterparts. Under the creative influence of writer Peter David, Robin was the brains of the operation and Superboy the brawn. Impulse, however, was the soul of the team, even though his feet would sometimes get ahead of his brain, such as the time he ran off to save the day without knowing the address of the disaster (Young Justice #9, June 1999).

Over time, Impulse became an intricate part of the Young Justice team, even helping to recruit additional members, such as Arrowette, with whom he had shared a number of experiences back home.

One thing was for certain: Bart brought a moral compass to the team. While it was sometimes a detriment—such as when Bart was being influenced by an evil image and thought himself Batman (Young Justice #10, July 1999)—more often than not he embodied an unwavering desire to help people that helped keep the team

Bart Allen as Impulse from Impulse #1 (Apr. 1995).

Impulse TM © DC Comics.

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THE ROGUES ’ GALLERY All super-heroes get linked to a distinctive set of foes, and in many ways they are defined by the villains they oppose. Arguably, the super-heroes with the most celebrated sets of villains are Batman, Spider-Man and The Flash.

The Flash’s Rogues’ Gallery began in earnest with Barry Allen’s Showcase adventures. Although The Turtle was the first opponent the Silver Age Flash fought in Showcase #4 (Oct. 1956), he made very few follow-up appearances. Captain Cold appeared in the next Showcase issue that featured The Flash (issue #8, June 1957), and he became the first of the Flash’s recurring foes. Many others were quickly introduced. While Batman’s villains are all certifiably insane, The Flash Rogues all seemed to become criminals by their own free will. Most of them stumbled upon or created a fantastic piece of technology that could be wielded as a weapon, and then each one of them—in an apparent rational state of mind—chose to don a costume and plunder the nearest Central City jeweler or bank.

At certain points in Flash’s publication history the Rogues can be considered not only the villains of a story but also its supporting characters. During his tenure as writer on The Flash, Geoff Johns devoted entire issues to detailing the Rogues’ origins. And in many of John Broome’s stories of the 1960s a Rogue received more page time than Flash himself.

After displaying how a Rogue came to be, and then showing the Rogue’s inevitable confrontation with The Flash, a typical Broome story barely had enough space left for Iris West to—once again— reprimand Barry for his tardiness.

One matter was clear: Flash fans were just as fascinated by the Rogues as they were by their hero. For evidence, look no further than the letter columns.

In a fan letter printed in Flash #124 (Nov. 1961), Mary Morgan of Columbia, SC complained that the Flash’s villains were too “purty”: “you make us girls fall in love with them instead of Flash, which is most impolite. Take fer [sic] instance that (woowoo) blond-haired cutie, The Trickster! He’s my dream-boat, and everyone else’s on our block.

Please stop this dreamy practice before you have every girl reader in the world flipping over a crook!”

Above: The Rogues converge over the Flash (presumably) in this cover to The Flash: The Fastest Man Alive #11 (June 2007), courtesy of Moose Baumann.

Above Right: These Rogues' headshots appeared in Who's Who #10 (1991).

TM © DC Comics.

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Despite Mary Morgan’s warning, editor Julius Schwartz kept authorizing more Rogue confrontations for The Flash. For years, each Rogue operated on his own or occasionally collaborated in pairs,

ROGUE PROFILE

by John Wells

CAPTAIN COLD The man in the fur-trimmed blue parka and goggles strode the streets of Central City, a virtual human iceberg with unbending principles and deadly hidden depths… which were mostly demonstrated by the knocking over of banks and jewelry stores. Captain Cold was a very smart man, but in his introspective moments even he had to admit that he was short on vision.

What the unfortunately-named Len Snart lacked in vision, he more than made up for in foresight. Specifically, at the dawn of the Flash’s emergence, as recounted by John Broome and Carmine Infantino in Showcase #8 (June 1957), the small-time crook realized that the stakes had changed and that operating in Central City would require a defense to counter the Scarlet Speedster. With a natural if untrained aptitude for science, Snart broke into a

science lab and attempted to incorporate the power of a cyclotron into a gun he’d designed. More through luck than design, the soon-to-be Captain Cold created a weapon that generated frigid blasts. He kept fiddling with it until he’d cranked up its chilling capability to minus 460 degrees Fahrenheit— absolute zero!

The effects were not unimpressive. The cold rendered the steel of a bank vault as brittle as glass and created mirages akin to those produced by intense heat.

He even committed the truly audacious act of encasing the entirety of Central City in a dome of ice, thereby placing the population in suspended animation. This was done not for riches or fame but merely for the hand of lovely Picture News reporter Iris West.

Remember what we said about lack of vision?

In a single story, Cold reconfigured his cold gun into a youth ray to rejuvenate a silent movie queen, added an attachment that made it fire below absolute zero (“I know it sounds impossible—but then everything I do is impossible!”) and shattered the Flash’s body into a collection of appendages that presaged Jack Kirby’s cover to OMAC #1 by five years!

Captain Cold tries again to take on The Flash in this page from The Flash #114 (Aug. 1960).

Flash TM © DC Comics.

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And so it went.

Captain Cold would strike, and the Flash would dutifully go through his paces, slipping and sliding on the requisite patches of ice

Cover to The Flash #193 (Dec. 1969).

TM © DC Comics.

and generally providing a red target to focus on. “He made it a game,” Cold eventually conceded. In other words, by encouraging the pantomime of “cops and robbers,” The Flash kept Cold and the other Rogues from doing any damage of far-reaching consequence.

Likewise, Snart’s ill-fated pursuit of various beautiful women culminated with a super-model actually returning his affections only to stab him in the back by stealing his cold-weaponry for herself. Prevented by the Flash from committing a murder-suicide, Captain Cold decided it might be more practical to just schedule weekly appointments with an, ah, professional escort from that point on.

The only woman Len never gave up on was his kid sister Lisa, a troubled girl whose affair with the villainous Top turned her psychotic after he died.

Over the years, the Golden Glider would steal Captain Cold’s weaponry in a single-minded quest for revenge, even implying at one point that she killed her brother in order to outfit a succession of boy-toys called Chillblaine. But when one of them murdered her, it was Lisa’s older brother who avenged her death. Captain Cold could only justify killing under two circumstances—self-defense… and payback.

That was one of several rock-solid principles that Captain Cold abided by,

ROGUE PROFILE

by Jim Beard

MR. ELEMENT/DR. ALCHEMY Albert Desmond is two, two, two Rogues in one. A single criminal identity not being good enough for him, Desmond crafted two such personas over his illicit career. And that’s not even counting his evil twin.

Interested in chemistry and the elements but perversely attracted to crime, Desmond decided it was a pretty good idea to kick off his Rogue-ishness by throwing himself in the Flash’s path.

Decked out in lime green armor and, for reasons known only to him, a gas mask, “Mr. Element” sported weapons that allowed him to manipulate the elements. In April 1958’s Showcase #13, he quickly ran afoul of the Scarlet Speedster and inaugurated that grand tradition of Flash Rogues attempting to launch the hero into space. Suffice to say, Desmond’s ideals were bigger than his brain and he failed. Then his creators, John Broome and Carmine Infantino, did something really different.

After introducing Mr. Element they reintroduced him in the very next issue.

You read right; in an unprecedented move, Al Desmond, in what would later be explained as a fit of split personality pique, reimagined himself as a new Rogue: Dr. Alchemy. It might have also been the pure oxygen he was inhaling through his gas mask. Regardless, in the space of two months Broome and Infantino made a small part of comic book history. The identity-change operation was born.

So, not one to cool his heels in jail, in Showcase #14 the sorcerously-garbed Dr. Alchemy began an on-again-offagain relationship with the curious artifact known as the Philosopher’s Stone. Though he was able to transmute elements with the Stone, it proved to be as bad of a fashion statement as the gas mask, and the Flash got his revenge by pitching it into space. One stands in awe of the Flash’s admirable restraint; it could have easily have been Dr. Alchemy playing guided missile. Desmond then settled down into a strange existence of three lives, each battling to dominate yet none of them suffering from originality or vision. The Flash eventually managed to help drive out the villainous personalities, one after the other, and Desmond paused long enough in his troubles to woo and wed a wife. As with most else in his life, Rita Desmond didn’t last.

Al Desmond tried to reform. Really, really tried to be normal, but when he was presented with the conundrum of a man who claimed to be his “psychic twin”, Alvin Desmond, something had to give. After years of schemes and plans, after years of being unable to hold onto a simple little piece of rock, even after allying himself with a fire demon (never a good idea), Albert began to wonder if his middle name truly was “crazy.” This “twin” took up the mantle of Dr. Alchemy but proved to be as unsuccessful in adversity as Albert. Again with the help of the

The Flash finds Mr. Element a challenging foe in this panel from Showcase #13 (Apr. 1958).

Flash TM © DC Comics.

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Dr. Alchemy appears in this panel from The Flash #207 (Apr. 2004), courtesy of Will Jenkins. TM © DC Comics.

Flash, Alvin was defeated and revealed to be a crazed construct of the Stone itself, a manifestation of Desmond’s forcibly-submerged criminal personality. Par for the course in Albert’s little corner of reality.

Recently, a Dr. Alchemy has been witnessed at Iron Heights Prison, though it’s not clear if it’s Albert or Alvin under the hood of the medieval madman.

Whichever, this Doctor seems strangely more concerned with the study of books than the snatching of bills. No gas mask has yet been sighted.

Dr. Alchemy admires a gift from Captain Cold in this panel from The Flash #207 (Apr. 2004), courtesy of Will Jenkins. TM © DC Comics.

ROGUE PROFILE

by Keith Dallas

GORILLA GRODD Gorilla Grodd is one ape who doesn’t monkey around. While most of the Flash Rogues dedicate themselves to robbing jewelry stores and banks, Grodd won’t settle for the acquisition of priceless bananas. Instead, Grodd aspires to nothing less than the conquest of Gorilla City and ultimately—of course—the world.

telekinesis, mind control, telepathy and mental projection. He also was a brilliant inventor, constructing various imaginative weapons and gadgets, like the one that caused The Flash to absorb so much moisture from the surrounding air that he turned into a 1000-pound fat man (The Flash #115 September 1960).

First appearing in Flash #106 (May 1959) in a John Broome-written/Carmine Infantino-drawn tale, Grodd was revealed to be the one “bad ape” amongst a race of benevolent super-gorillas living in the African “Gorilla City,” which was completely hidden from mankind through the aid of a machine that blocked human sensory perception. Governing this advanced primate civilization was the wise Solovar, another super-gorilla who Grodd despised. But rather than beat his chest and bare his teeth, Grodd sought to overthrow Solovar through his impressive psionic powers, which included

When that all failed though, Grodd relied on his awesome physical strength. He is a gorilla, after all.

Opening page to The Flash #106.

TM © DC Comics.

Grodd’s machinations mostly took him to Central City where Barry Allen as the Flash would confront and defeat him.

Curiously though, after his introduction in The Flash #106, Grodd also appeared in the next two issues (The Flash #107-8, July-September 1959). Considering the long-standing practice of super-hero comics having its protagonist battle an ever rotating cast of opponents, these back-to-back-to-back Grodd appearances are peculiar—although perhaps Julie Schwartz was just testing his conviction that simians sold comic books. Put together, the three issues present three self-contained, disconnected Grodd stories. A “Grodd trilogy” of sorts.

This trilogy quickly established that even though the super-gorillas conducted themselves as a superior society complete with futuristic technology and architecture, their prison system sucked as badly as the ones operated by “unsuper” humans.

To wit, it seemed that every time Barry Allen defeated Grodd and returned him to Gorilla City for incarceration, as soon as Allen crossed the Atlantic Ocean on his return home, 203

Panels from Grodd's first appearance in The Flash #106 (May 1959). TM © DC Comics.

Grodd was on the loose again, and Solovar would be getting the Gorilla City operator on the line in order to contact Barry Allen telepathically (one can only imagine what an international call from Africa to the Midwestern United States cost back then). At times, Grodd didn’t even have to try hard to free himself from the super-gorillas’ detention. His first break out was the result of the supergorillas being suckered by Grodd’s pretense that he had lost his psionic powers.

That’s right. Grodd proved the supergorillas were capable of being a bunch of dumb monkeys. When the super-gorillas later condescendingly boasted that they use 100% of their brain power (The Flash #294, Feb. 1981), Barry Allen must have rolled his eyes at super-speed.

Mostly, Grodd prefers to plan his conquest of the Earth on his own, but on occasion he joins forces with non-knuckle walkers to aid his endeavors. Indeed, it was Grodd who collected the Rogues together for the first time in The Flash #155 (September 1965), even though he really only planned to use the Rogues’ weapons to drain the Flash’s speed.

Grodd also was a charter member of the Secret Society of Super-Villains, and later he accepted Vandal Savage’s invitation to join “Tartarus” in order to oppose The

ROGUE PROFILE

by John Wells

THE TRICKSTER He ran through the air with the greatest of ease. The bubbles that blew out of his pipe were solid as a rock. His tricycle was clocked at 120 miles an hour.

YOU And he even achieved one ofIFthose iconic moments Flash foes dreamed of when he turned the Scarlet Speedster into “the Swell-Headed Super-Hero.”

For the Trickster, the thrill was in the chase. It was never about the money. If it was, he’d have sold those shoes!

ly—were James Jesse’s salvation. The son of famed aerialists, young James was expected to follow in the family tradition, but he was secretly terrified ENJOYED THISthePREVIEW, CLICK THE LINK of falling. Over span of several years, he devised a solution:THIS the aforeBELOW TO ORDER BOOK! mentioned shoes that shot out jets of compressed air and allowed him to The Trickster is ready for the Fastest Man Alive stay aloft in the air. In no time at all, the in this panel from The Flash #113. TM © DC Comics. young man was supremely confident stunts weren’t quite as risky as they on the high wire even if cheering audiseemed. ences didn’t realize his death-defying Details the publication histories of the four heroes who The shoes—pointy blue slippers, realhave individually earned the right to be declared DC Long enamored with his imagined Comics’ “Fastest Man Alive”: Jay Garrick, Barry Allen, “namesake” Jesse James, the bored Wally West, and Bart Allen. With articles about legendary creators SHELLY MAYER, GARDNER FOX, E.E. HIBBARD, acrobat decided to go his idol one betJULIUS SCHWARTZ, ROBERT KANIGHER, JOHN ter and trump his great train robberies BROOME, ROSS ANDRU, IRV NOVICK and all-new inwith great plane robberies. So he put terviews with HARRY LAMPERT, CARMINE INFANTINO, on a gaudy orange, blue and yellowCARY BATES, ALEX SAVIUK, MIKE W. BARR, MARV WOLFMAN, MIKE BARON, JACKSON GUICE, MARK striped harlequin outfit, slipped on WAID, and SCOTT KOLINS, among others, THE FLASH those wonderful shoes and christened COMPANION recounts the scarlet speedster’s evolution himself the Trickster in John Broome from the Golden Age to the 21st century. Also featured and Carmine Infantino’s Flash #113 are “lost covers,” never before published commission pieces by Flash artists throughout the decades, a ROGUES GALLERY detailing The (June-July, Flash’s most famous 1960). The entrance of the foes, a tribute to late artist MIKE WIERINGO by MARK WAID, a look at the speedster’s 1990s TV Flash made things a bit more challengshow, and “Flash facts” detailing pivotal moments in Flash history. Written by KEITH DALLAS, with a ing but James compensated, reluctantcover by DON KRAMER. (224-page trade paperback) $26.95 ly placing innocents in harm’s way secure in the knowledge that the http://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=95_71&products_id=660 Scarlet Speedster would save them. At heart, he declared early on, “I’m not a mean man” (Flash # 152, May 1965).

THE FLASH COMPANION

The Rogues’ Gallery will tell you now that their glory days of fighting the Flash were all part of a great game, but truth to tell, they took it very seriously at the time. So they must’ve resented the Trickster for treating it as a lark from Day One. Small wonder that he didn’t join the group of Flash foes until the Top’s funeral (Flash #243, August 1976). James Jesse was never really much of a team player, from his acrimonious first meeting with Captain Cold to swiping the Mirror Master’s gadgets behind his back. He actually got himself kicked out of the Secret Society of Super-Villains for stealing their own loot.

Opening page from The Trickster's first appearance in The Flash #113 (July 1960).

TM © DC Comics.

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Stuff like that tended to force the Trickster into alliances with superheroes, as in the case when Blue Devil had to save his hide from Bolt and a criminal organization trying to steal the secrets of his, uh, shoes. James Jesse’s connection with Blue Devil was enough for him to get a job as a special