The Flash #140-143

The Flash #140-143

Originally released in 1963

Written by John Broome (#140-142), Gardner Fox (#143)

Art by Carmine Infantino

The Flash is generally considered to have one of the best rogues galleries out there, so while I've covered Gorilla Grodd, Captain Boomerang, and Reverse Flash to some extent, I decided to look into a stretch of Silver Age issues to see what their earlier appearances were like.

The first issue that I chose was the introduction of Heat Wave, which also has him teaming up with Captain Cold.  Heat Wave is a recurring member of the Rogues, which is led by Captain Cold, though given their polar opposite elements, I'm not sure how long team-ups between them last.  In this case, it barely lasts a few pages.  Captain Cold broke out of jail because he became obsessed with a TV star.

Heat Wave also became a supervillain to impress the same TV star by defeating the Flash, and when Heat Wave sees a giant poster of that TV star in Captain Cold's secret lair, the two of them become rivals, with the Flash needing to arrest them both before their fights destroy a good chunk of Central City.

Their ultimate defeat is ridiculously anti-climactic, though I suppose that's what happens when you put two people with unusual guns up against someone who, in this stretch of issues alone, can move seven times the speed of light with no trouble.

These early issues of the Flash put the "science" in science fiction; Barry Allen is one of the few characters I can think of who would seriously say "I can't believe Einstein's theory of relativity nearly gave away my secret identity!"

The Trickster is another recurring bad guy who shows up here.  Fitting his name, he doesn't even take crime seriously, returning the money that he stole - he only commits crimes to get the Flash's attention so he can one-up the Scarlet Speedster.  I found him to be a nice change of pace - he doesn't even seem all that serious about how he's going to commit the crimes.  He steals a detective kit from a child, and on a whim, he decides to base his latest crime spree around modified objects from the thing that he took from a kid.

They can't all be winners, though, and out of the Rogues who were highlighted here, I found the Top to be the least interesting.  Yesterday, I mentioned how Whirlwind, formerly known as the Human Top, was the most interesting of Ant-Man's rogues gallery, but at least he had mutant powers and a costume that sticks out.  The Top doesn't have either of those. (though his story does show how villains in Central City get their themed costumes)

A crossover with Green Lantern introduces the villain T.O. Morrow, a man who wants to travel to the future, but as he can't do that right now, he built a machine that lets him see into the future, and uses technology that's a century ahead of his time to... commit crimes.  He would later go on to build the Red Tornado, a recurring Justice League member.

T.O. Morrow builds a duplication machine, and tests it out on a pilot.  Naturally, that pilot happens to be Hal Jordan, and the machine copies all of his knowledge and his Green Lantern Ring.  Now that T.O. Morrow knows Hal Jordan's secret identity, and he has three Green Lanterns under his control, and he modified their rings to remove the weakness to the colour yellow, he... uses them to commit crimes.

Admittedly, they're larger in scale than his previous crimes (he has one Green Lantern steal the Statue of Liberty), but given that Green Lantern Rings can do pretty much anything (a Silver Age Justice League story had Hal giving atmosphere to a planet using the ring), you'd think he'd think a little bigger.  Also, his defeat is hilarious.

These issues were pretty formulaic, but they were fun to read.  I feel like the focus on science in some stories, such as having plot points about metallic elements on the Periodic Table or Einstein's Theory of Relativity, might have gone over the heads of the target audience back in the 60s, but then again, maybe the book got the interest of a lot of kids who were already interested in science, or caused kids to develop an interest in science.