Got this one at that same post-Church candy store. Look at that
lovely Nick Cardy cover, very clearly done from a Carmine Infantino
sketch. This was the first new issue of FLASH that I ever had.
Artwork
on this one was by Irv Novick, whose style I would come to associate
with the character, as he drew the series practically unceasingly for
all the time it was at the forefront of my comic-reading habit. Here,
he’s well-inked by Dick Giordano, who provides a lush, full-bodied finish to his work.
The
story was written by Cary Bates, who would become probably my favorite
writer in these early days, and the first one that I would know by name,
as we shall soon see. Cary too had just begun what would be a long run
on the series, all the way up to its demise with #350. But, to me, it
was as though he had been there forever.
The
story is a bit of a trifle, as these things go, and is actually
somewhat more like the sorts of yarns that Robert Kanigher was spinning
in these days. Barry Allen’s friend Charlie Conwell (who, while he seems
like a new addition for just this story, had actually appeared
previously) is assassinated while running for District Attorney, despite
the Flash’s best attempt to save him. From this point, the story is
narrated by the spirit of Conwell, as he follows the Flash’s efforts to
bring his killers to justice, and intercedes himself at a key moment,
despite being only a spirit.
I
got the same charge out of this story that I did out of the previous
100-Page issue that I’d picked up, and from this point forward, the
Flash became my favorite super hero. I would follow him into whatever
titles he went into.
Also
in this issue I had my first encounter with my second-favorite DC hero,
Green Lantern. After several years of being embroiled in stories
emphasizing relevancy, editor Julie Schwartz brought the Emerald
Crusader to the back-pages of FLASH, and returned him to his roots as a
cosmic police officer.
Despite
only being 8 pages long, this simple little story introduced all of the
salient elements of the Green Lantern mythos, including the 24 hour
charge-limit and the ritual of recharging the Power Ring with the
Oath–indeed, the plot turned directly on one of them, the fact that
Green Lantern’s power ring is powerless against anything colored yellow.
So when a payroll is seemingly destroyed by Green lantern’s ring while
he’s capturing the thief, it takes Hal Jordan only a few pages to
realize that something is fishy, because his ring could not have
affected the contents of the yellow-lined bag the money was carried it.
Some very lovely Dick Giordano artwork on this one, channeling his then-partner Neal Adams to a certain degree.
Also, while the other comics I’d
bought had letters pages, this was the first time that I had paid any
attention to them. Most of what was discussed was beyond my
understanding, but I did learn that the next issue of FLASH would
feature a team-up between the Scarlet Speedster and Green Lantern. Oh,
how I wanted that issue.
The Tom Brevoort Experience 