Lost Crossovers: FLASH COMICS #77

While Golden Age publishers in general were relatively averse to having the stars of their assorted strips meet and team up on any sort of regular basis, the folks at DC/National Comics were a little bit more open to the idea of an occasional appearance or reference. Especially when it came to the features and titles originally instituted by ALL-AMERICAN COMICS, which merged with DETECTIVE COMICS INC. in 1946 to become NATIONAL COMICS. ALL-STAR COMICS featuring the Justice Society of America had been put out by ALL-AMERICAN, and that alone made it a lot easier to envision the stars of their titles bumping into one another or helping each other out as the need merited it.

And so, we get this comical Johnny Thunder story from FLASH COMICS #77. It was written as usual by John Wentworth and mostly illustrated by Stan Asch (using his regular pseudonym of Stan Josephs), with E. E. Hibbard apparently doing some touch-ups to a couple of Flash figures. The editor of record was Shelly Mayer, though Julius Schwartz was the uncredited story editor who worked on this adventure.

This was a relatively typical outing for Johnny Thunder in this Post-War period, just before his strip was taken over by the Black Canary and he was cast to the curb. The strip was an adventure comedy of sorts, though its humor was often pretty labored stuff.

In it, Johnny sets himself in business as an agency that will do anything, employing his mystic Thunderbolt to get all of the actual work done while dressed in a disguise as “Hypochap.” Unfortunately or fortunately for Johnny, when he runs afoul of some criminals, his efforts to capture them and reap any rewards are thwarted by the untimely arrival of the Flash, the Ghost Patrol and Hawkman and Hawkgirl in turn, the other stars of FLASH COMICS.

(That’s an E. E. Hibbard-drawn Flash in the bottom center panel of this page.)

In the end, Johnny visits the offices of FLASH COMICS editor Shelly Mayer to complain, threatening to show up in the other heroes’ strips and cause mayhem there. That doesn’t go so well for him.

ADDITION: As reader Zoomy pointed out in the comments, the Flash story in this issue of FLASH COMICS is also unique for the period, as it has the character make specific reference to a pair of specific older stories in which the Scarlet Speedster journeyed into the future. These weren’t relatively new adventures either, that Bomb Defense Formula story took place in ALL-STAR COMICS #10 in 1942, four years earlier. (And the Flash himself didn’t venture into the future in it–but why quibble?) Story by Gardner Fox with art by E. E. Hibbard.