Ever since I was six years old, the Flash has been my favorite super hero. There was something about the combination of elements–the slick costume, the simple power, the gallery of recurring villains, the sort of serious-but-not-too-serious tone of the strip–that really connected with me. But as time went on and I got older, both I and the Flash started to change. There was a clear push away from the sorts of simple, straightforward adventures that I’d loved growing up. The Flash was starting to deal with drug abuse, corrupt cops and systemic grief–the last in the form of the demise of Barry Allen’s wife Iris in an attempt to shake up the series. All of these developments as well as others tested my resolve, but when it was time to trim the tree that was my monthly comic book purchases, I sadly left THE FLASH behind with this issue, #319.
The very first FLASH comic book I ever picked up was this terrific 100-Page Super-Spectacular. This was one of the earliest comic books that I owned, and definitely the one that made me an addicted reader thereafter. This one issue gave me a good overview on the character and his world, introducing me not only to the titular here, but also his protege Kid Flash, the earlier Flash of the Golden Age, Jay Garrick, Flash’s super hero friend the Elongated Man, and his recurring enemy Captain Cold. It also introduced me to the work of artist Carmine Infantino, whose expansive vistas, talkative caption hands and vibrant visualizations of frankly absurd story concepts made him an early favorite–at least in terms of his 1960s material, when he was working on twice-up boards. The reduction in original art size didn’t do Carmine any favors, and I don’t know that he ever really became comfortable with the smaller canvas.
I became a steady reader of THE FLASH with the first regular issue I was able to find, #224, seen above. However, I did wind up missing #225, which was a small tragedy as it contained a team-up between the Flash and the back up star Green Lantern, as they joined forces against Professor Zoom, the Reverse-Flash of the future. I eventually scored a copy of #225 in a 3-Bag I found on sale at a local supermarket, and it was perhaps the best comic book I had read at six years old. By #230, I had purchased a subscription to the title, each issue of which was mailed to my house folded in half. My copies still have that subscription crease in them. I maintained that subscription for several years, eventually dropping it with #261 as I became more able to buy comics on my own, and I would regularly be vexed when a new issue would turn up on the stands before arriving at my house. I wasn’t a delayed gratification guy, so it always pained me to leave such issue behind unbought.
Cary Bates was the first writer I knew in comics, based almost entirely on him having written himself into the story as a character in both FLASH #228 and then later in JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #123-124. He was my very first favorite writer, not just for his work on FLASH but also his SUPERMAN and ACTION COMICS stories. He’s one of a few people that I think of as a quintessential Bronze Age writer, a guy who used a lot of the tropes and ideas of the Silver Age but approached them somewhat more seriously and less frivolously. His stories always had recognizable stakes that felt real to me, albeit as a young kid. But over time, his approach fell out of step, and after editor Julie Schwartz stopped editing FLASH, his successors each tried to modernize the series and bring it into the burgeoning 1980s in one way or another.
From a visual standpoint, workhorse artist Irv Novick was rotated off of the series. Novick’s work was definitely of its age, but his styling embodied the character and his world to me. I was ready to accept other approaches–other artists had drawn the character in JLA and in guest appearances, after all. But that solidity of presentation just wasn’t there for me in the same way after Novick was gone. His primary three successors were a young Alex Saviuk, who was good but a bit unpolished, Don Heck, who did solid work but sometimes struggled with conveying the character’s swiftness and whose style was a bit out of step with the times, and then Carmine Infantino, my old favorite. But the years had not been kind to Carmine’s work. He now preferred to be more stylized, more loose and abstract in his pencils, and he was often paired with inkers that really didn’t know what to do with what he was putting down. But also, his work felt of a different generation. It wasn’t appealing to an audience that was craving George Perez and John Byrne.
At the same time, the storylines were growing less fun, attempting to at once become more gritty and realistic (“Angel Dust!”) while at the same time containing many of the silliest elements of the past and new ones of the present. This is embodied in this issue in the person of Captain Invincible, a quasi-parody super hero who is actually Barry Allen’s boss Captain Darryl Fyre. Fyre had previously been treated with dignity, but in this sequence, when he discovers that his pacemaker has granted him superhuman strength (“Cardio-Power”), he dresses up in an absurdly ill-fitting costume and tries to become a costumed hero–one that the Flash needs to constantly bail out of trouble. The whole matter was a bit embarrassing to all concerned–especially when it was appearing in a storyline involving a brutal killer who was targeting criminals Punisher-style, and who was secretly the alternate personality of Senator Creed Phillips, Barry’s rival for the affections of his replacement girlfriend Fiona Webb, who had been taken hostage by the menacing Eradicator.
Speaking of Fiona Webb, that warrants a discussion of the Flash’s life post-Iris’s death. An issue after tracking down her actual killer (as opposed to a number of red herrings along the way), Barry Allen relocates to a singles apartment and begins wooing the strange Fiona Webb, who is initially hostile to him for convoluted and unconvincing plot reasons it’s better not to get into. This was, I expect, an attempt to make Barry Allen and the Flash by extension seem younger, getting him back out into the dating world. But it just didn’t work, and it was all honestly kind of icky–akin to watching your divorced father trying to get back in the game and score. I never warmed to this interpretation of Barry and I never warmed to Fiona Webb at all, which also made it more difficult to keep up my interest in the strip.
Also, for some time, perhaps in an attempt to pull in some fans who weren’t interested in this approach to the Scarlet Speedster, THE FLASH had been running a regular back-up strip for a couple of years. This wasn’t a deal-breaker for me–I had grown up with Green Lantern as the regular back-up series in FLASH, so the idea didn’t bug me. But the specific choices were pretty strange. Firestorm. Doctor Fate. The Creeper. I don’t know that any of those characters were necessarily going to bring in a ton of additional readers, for all that some very nice work was done in those strips. Each one of them looked and felt more contemporary than the lead feature, which gave the book a bit of a schizophrenic quality.
Issue #319 featured a Creeper back-up that was illustrated by British artist Dave Gibbons in one of his earliest jobs for DC. Gibbons would go on to do a ton of better remembered work after this, chief among it being WATCHMEN with Alan Moore. It’s a good looking back-up, but I must confess that I don’t remember a thing about the story, in this issue or any other. It really didn’t stick to my ribs in any way.
So when did I come back? Well, I entirely missed the interminably-long Trial of the Flash sequence that ate up the books final two years, though I was aware of it–it was impossible to be reading DC books and not be. I did pick up the very last issue, #350, upon learning that the title was being cancelled and that Barry Allen would be killed off in CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS. That last issue, wrapping up all of the title’s outstanding threads, was a bit of a convoluted mess. But it brought back Iris Allen, revealing that her spirit had been drawn back to her 30th Century home time right before her death and incarnated in a new body. And I was intrigued by Wally West taking up the mantle of his dead mentor in the final issue of CRISIS–a situation I followed avidly into NEW TEEN TITANS, a series that I was still reading and enjoying. So I was primed when the new FLASH title was launched under Mike Baron and Jackson Guice. And I really liked it, at least at the outset. But over time, it began to stagnate for me a little bit, becoming a bit tiresome. A lot of that was down to the characterization of Wally himself, who took a turn towards becoming more selfish and self-centered, and whose powers seemed to be in a constant state of flux. I bought the book regularly, but it wasn’t a favorite or anything. It took the arrival of Mark Waid to remind me of all the things that I loved about the character, and his run jumped to the top of my read pile. (I was getting the DC books for free then as a part of my Marvel bundle, but during the “Return of Barry Allen” storyline, I started buying the issues when they went on sale, not wanting to wait the additional week or so. Very much shades of my youth there.)
The Tom Brevoort Experience 
I came in right toward the end of Novick, but bought back issues – almost every issue back to 105. I was discouraged at the end as well, but bought all the way to 350 anyway. Great article.
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I only have a handful of The Flash series and I believe my first The Flash issue was number 300 ( August 1981 ) whose plot has appeared in both comics and TV series ( Doctor Strange#55 ( October 1982 ), Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Stargate: Atlantis and I think Smallville too ): A character has to pick between what they are told is their real life and what the rest of us knows is their real life. I did buy the Wally West Flash series until I lost interest ( I think it was when Jackson Guice left ).
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I didn’t care for the “new, grim ‘n gritty” version of FLASH either. I bailed out around #282, so you lasted a couple years longer than I did.
I also came back to check out the Baron/Guice version, but it just seemed like more of the same to me — trying too hard to be “hip” and “edgy”, and Wally just came off as a jerk. Crisis in general was a big “jumping-off” point for me.
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Sauviuk’s art and the Let’s Get Serious tone were terrible choices. I stuck with the book to the end but it got close to hate-reading.
I had a similar reaction to Baron. Messner Loebs did better by Wally and then Waid.
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Ernie Colon, the guy I thought of as The Good Richie Rich Artist, as editor. Did Dc under Dick Giordano and Jeanette Khan bring in a lot of artists as editors? I remember Ross Andru as an editor around this time.
And is this why DC’s cover game gets a lot better by this time. I’m reading another blog where the author is rereading pre-Crisis DC from 1980 until the Crisis. By this time the covers have a lot fewer word balloons and a lot stronger images than they had a few years before.
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I don’t think Dick and Jenette could really have been said to have brought in a lot of artist-editors.
Before Jenette, notable artist-editors at Bronze Age DC included Dick himself, Joe Kubert, Joe Orlando and Mike Sekowsky, all brought in by Carmine, I think. Though Dick would leave because Carmine was a PITA to work for, and come back under Jenette.
During the Jenette era, Al Milgrom and Larry Hama were there early on, but got fired due to the DC Implosion. Nothing personal; they were simply the last guys hired, so they were the first guys let go. I think that was a big mistake, but no one could see the future, and it makes logical sense.
But other than Dick, Ross and Ernie, the artist-editors brought in included Dave Manak and Nick Cuti — Dave mostly did gag-cartoon fillers and I don’t think Nick ever drew anything for DC. And post Crisis, Mike Carlin had been an artist on CRAZY, but was much better known as an editor and writer, and there seemed to be a strong bent toward editors who had either strong editorial or writing experience, in my memory.
Ernie didn’t last all that long as an editor — he was only on FLASH for a year, with a couple of the issues ghost-edited by Julie Schwartz. But I’m glad Dick hired him, since as FLASH sample script of mine got passed on to him, leading to my first pro sale, a GREEN LANTERN backup story.
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We were collecting the Flash (and Green Lantern) for awhile, and had most of the trial issues.
Looking back, not sure why. We also bought a lot of the DC Comics after Crisis. Flash was ok, but it just kinda of dragged for me and eventually gave it and the character up. I checked out some of the later stuff, but still didn’t really do it for me.
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I think you dodged a bullet dropping Flash when you did. granted, I never warmed to Barry and the only issues I bought were those with the Firestorm and Dr. Fate backups and the mess that was #350. I stuck it out longer than you on Wally’s title, with it greatly improving when William Messner-Loebs took over.
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While I was a fan of the Cary Bates/Irv Novick Flash, killing off Iris was the beginning of the end for Barry Allen as far as I was concerned. I enjoyed Mike Baron’s relaunch with Wally but the title was a lot better after Messner-Loebs and Mark Waid took over. Waid’s “The Return of Barry Allen” is probably my favorite Flash story of all time.
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for my sins, I suffered until the very end with Flash in that era. I’m also glad to know I wasn’t the only teenager who didn’t like the art in the book back then.
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As you know, I loved the Bates/Heck FLASH.
Just to be a contrast to all these other readers.
I also lasted all the way to 350, but I didn’t enjoy it. I thought the series was pretty good during Len Wein and Mike Barr’s editorships, slipped during Ernie Colon’s and went over the cliff when Cary was self-editing.
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How much foreknowledge did Cary Bates have of Barry Allen’s impending death in the Crisis? Did the Flash-on-trial plotline last so interminably long because Bates was simply running out the clock till cancellation?
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That’s what happened. He discusses it here: https://speedforce.org/2011/05/interview-cary-bates2/
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Great article! Like many of the posters here, I loved the Bates/Novick Flash of the 1970s. For me, the book took a major downturn when the great Irv Novick left. I agree with your comments on the 3 primary art successors. My reaction was even more negative than yours. Coupled with the death of Iris storyline, my readership dwindled over the next year and then I gave up. I didn’t like the stories or the art. I picked up an occasional issue here or there over the next few years. I think it was because I missed the great 70’s-era Flash so much and was hoping for a glimmer of a return to that type of book. It wasn’t to be. I did jump on the (Wally) Flash #1, but bailed after a year or two because they made Wally a huge jerk. He had also been one of my favorite characters in the mid-70s. Does anyone remember the effect that these Flash changes had on sales and fan reaction at the time?
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I just thought of something.
Iris Allen has died. She was dead for years Then she came back. And Barry Allen died in the Crisis. He was dead for a long time. Many people thought Barry would never return. But It came back. And It became more popular than ever. Not just in comics, but in TV and movies.
Sometimes i think that death in comics is a sentence to prison. And the only one who continues to serve a prison sentence for life is Gwen Stacy.
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I liked Heck’s art on The Flash. I liked Novick also.
I differ from most people in liking Infantino’s work when he returned, particularly is issues inked by Dennis Jensen. (I’m not sure if Jensen had been a Murphy Anderson assistant, perhaps on PS Magazine for the Army, or was simply a fan, but his work looked like Infantino/Anderson Flash stories from 1960 or so,)
I will confess to not liking Barron’s Flash. I think he was trying to differentiate the character but took it too far from what had been established since 1959 or so. Given the book was written in the first person, more explanation of the change in attitude would have been appropriate,
Bill Messner-Loebs cleaned things up adroitly prior to Waid taking over. I also Waid, as an editor, did a good job putting Barron’s run and Messner-Loebs run into synch with Messner-Loebs’s Unforgiving Minute story in Secret Origins Annual # 2. Robert Loren Fleming’s Secret of the Human Thunderbolt in the same issue put the entire post-Golden Age picture of the character into a high definition.
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I reacted so badly to Barron’s Wally that it’s the base still for my dislike for the character. It doesn’t help that I was still a completist back then and read every issue of his run, loathing it as I did. Not even Guice could help. I know I read Loebs and Laroque but I’m not sure how much Waid. I know I read zero Johns having given up on Wally and his series by then. Glad I did. If the Rogues no longer being credible solo threats and are all jobbed as a group now, it would have driven me even more nuts when Johns started the nonsense.
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I never warmed to Baron’s Flash. I could recognize the professionalism of his effort, but I didn’t think he was having fun with the feature, as was the case for Badger.
Though I realize Cary Bates was trying to keep things light, it was a bit of cognitive dissonance just to see widowed Barry– regardless of how much time had passed– just being turned on the first time he sees Fiona. A better approach, given that old readers knew Barry had been married many years before his wife’s violent death, and that he really never seemed to have dated anyone but Iris, might have been to have him feel guilty about seeing and being attracted to another woman. Bates wouldn’t have had to have gone into long, chest-beating soliloquies about it, but just acknowledge that it could be a struggle for Barry to think about romance, outside of the “quickie sexual healing” he got from Zatanna in some contemporaneous JLA script– which I LIKED, unlike some fans.
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Tom, I imagine your & your friend Mark Gruenwald’s shared love of the Flash was a good thing to have in common. As a young kid, after recognizing Flash’s place in DC’s elite heroes, as a JLA founder, it seemed weird to me he wasn’t initially in the Sper Friends on TV. But w/ Marvin & Wendy, the SF’s 1st felt like what some of the heroes did in their “free time”. Anyway… I’ve never been a huge Flash fan. Visually, Barry’s suit owes something to Captain Marvel’s.
When I started being able to buy comics regularly, I was put off by Carmine’s abstract, angular style, & distorted faces. Story-wise, DC let Barry “jump the shark” too many times. Even today, constant meddling & tweaking can overcook or cripple a character. Like “breaking a sauce” in cooking. They should’ve left Iris be. Their “shaking things up” took the series off the rails, & betrayed some of the character, in the eyes of longtime fans. I was sad to see Barry die in “CoIE”. Though his death didn’t break me up as much as Supergirl’s painful poignantly handled exit (& I wasn’t really interested her before then, but Marv Wolfman & George Perez really made me feel that loss).
I knew Mike Baron’s work on “Nexus” & “The Punisher”, but I immediately lost interest in his Flash. Butch Guice’s figures looked too wonky & elongated (he should’ve drawn Ralph!) for me back than. Flash looked cumbersome & clumsy, not as sleek & swift as he should’ve. I wasn’t a regular Flash reader until Waid joined. LaRoque was good, but his faces’ noses bugged me. :-) ‘Ringo brought a higher energy bounce that I liked. But the book really cooked when Carlos Pacheco & Salvador LaRocca took turns drawing issues. Oh, yeah. I was hooked. Then Oscar Jiminez. Fluid, kinetic, w/ solid drawing fundamentals underneath. ”Flash” became a top book for me. And Wally was written as a decent, empathetic guy. I’ve never followed books centered around obnoxious or just mean, snarky lead characters.
If I was a Flash editor, I’d go with artists who conveyed a quick, clean style. I think Norm Breyfogle would’ve been fun. Francis Manapul was a great choice. Pascal Ferry’s an ideal Flash artist for me. Robbie Rodriguez, too. Convincingly showing dynamic motion on a static 2D page. Alan Davis perfectly captured the elegance of the Silver Age Flash.
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