COMIC BOOK OF THE WEEK

COMIC BOOK OF THE WEEK

Welcome yet again to another installment of our cover series, and we're continuing the 80th Anniversary of The Flash with yet another iconic issue of The Fastest Man Alive.  And THIS week, we finally get the past and the (at the time) present to meet!  It's the time that Barry Allen met Jay Garrick!  It all went down in the pages of The Flash#123, and it was a banner issue, for it gave us not only a great story featuring the two men who'd share the same superhero name, but it also set up the concept of more than one Earth that operated in the DC Universe.  So, as we continue our marathon run through the life of the Monarch of Motion, let's peek into this issue, and see what's what...

THE FLASH #123

COVER: Carmine Infantino & Murphy Anderson

WRITER: Gardner Fox

ARTIST: Carmine Infantino

INKS: Joe Giella

COLORS: Carl Gafford

LETTERS: Gasper Saladino

EDITOR: Julius Schwartz

COVER DATE: September 1961

PUBLISHER: DC Comics

TAGLINE:  Featuring "Flash of Two Worlds" -- A spectacular story that's sure to become a classic!

STORY TITLE:  "Flash of Two Worlds" 

The Flash #123 stands as one of the most iconic issues of the Silver Age for DC Comics.  It was the first appearance in awhile of the Golden Age Flash - Jay Garrick.  Executive Editor Julius Schwartz had yet another grand idea, and it turned out to be a goldmine:  re-introduce the classic DC heroes into the modern age.  The team-up between the two Flashes resulted in the dawn of the DC Multiverse, and the birth of what we'd know as "Earth-Two" where the Jay Garrick Flash and his JSA counterparts to Barry and his JLA friends resided on Earth-One.  It proved to be such a phenomenal success, that the classic Golden Age heroes (including the Golden Age versions of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman), would live on in new titles and adventures, and would carry on until 1985' Crisis on Infinite Earths, where DC decided to streamline the continuity, and thus combining the Multiverse into one, singular universe.  Something that would last for a long while, until the story of Infinite Crisis. This issue's story is also a book-length issue, one of the rarities at the time, since many of Flash's early stories had two stories per issue.

THE STORY:  Barry Allen, as the Flash, is entertaining some children that are orphans.  He was performing magic tricks, and scaled up a rope, when he disappeared, only to find himself in a strange city he wasn't familiar with.  It turns out he has arrived in Keystone City, the hometown of his comic book hero, Jay Garrick - also known as the Flash.  He goes to see Jay, and reveals what happened to him:  that he must have breached between two worlds.  Jay had decided to come out of retirement when he finds out his three arch villains:  The Fiddler, the Thinker, and Shade, are pulling off robberies in Keystone.  Both Flashes then suit up to take on the villains and stop their nefarious plan.

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This was the first issue that Gardner Fox ever wrote featuring Barry Allen.  It seemed appropriate that he would pen the story featuring the character HE created with Harry Lampert back in 1940 - Jay Garrick.  Carmine Infantino was also the artist on the final issue of Flash Comics back in 1949...which THIS series picked up THAT series' numbering. The success of this issue also allowed for both Green Lanterns, Atoms, and various other Golden Age and Silver Age characters to crossover.  Barry had named himself after the adventures of the Flash from a comic book he read by---you guess it---Gardner Fox, whom makes an appearance as himself in this issue, as a way of honoring the man who got the ball rolling 21 years earlier.  This issue also premiered on newsstands two months before Marvel Comics officially began with Fantastic Four #1.

One other note:  This cover has been duplicated various times by different DC Comics, including another Flash series, as well as used as an homage by other comics companies.

NEXT WEEK:  We move into a more "modern age"...with perhaps the FASTEST Flash of them all....