The Flash #112, 114, and 115
Originally released in 1960
Written by John Broome
Art by Carmine Infantino
I was planning to continue Blackest Night today, but I wouldn't have had the time to get as many issues in as I'd hope to read, so I went with the first appearance of the Elongated Man instead.
Barry comes off pretty badly in this issue. When the Elongated Man appears in his city and starts saving people, the Flash immediately assumes that the Elongated Man is a fraud and that this is all part of a sinister plot.
It happens pretty quickly too - he's beaten to a heroic act three times (not even major acts - something like saving a cat from falling), and he jumps straight to that conclusion.
The issue goes into the Elongated Man's backstory, which is weird even by Silver Age standards. As a boy, Ralph Dibny saw a contortionist act at a travelling circus. The contortionist refused to tell the boy his secret, but Ralph became obsessed with it. When he grew into an adult, he travelled the world, tracking down every similar act that he could.
He couldn't learn their secrets, but he noticed that all of the acts that he track down drank bottles of a specific soda called Gingold. He assumes that this is the source of their abilities, which is a logical leap even crazier than Barry's - it would be like seeing that several pro athletes drink Gatorade during games, so therefore, drinking Gatorade will turn you into a pro athlete with no further work required.
He used chemistry knowledge to develop a super-concentrated version of the soda, which made it so he could stretch his limbs or body like they were rubber.
A series of robberies are committed that cause some people to believe that only the Elongated Man could have been responsible. However, Ralph's name is cleared when it's discovered that a group of thieves were using a helicopter. (Meaning that the people of Central City must be both blind and deaf to have missed out on a helicopter hovering near several large buildings)
Ralph doesn't seem too concerned about his secret identity, revealing his name to Barry completely unprompted... while Barry seems to hold a similar attitude towards Ralph's secret identity, saying his name loudly in the middle of a town meeting to determine the Man Of The Year. (They tie)
There's also a Kid Flash story about the evils of shoddy craftsmanship and the dangers of go-karts. When his teacher's fiance loses out on a bid to build a new school for the city, Kid Flash uses his super-speed to age the school that was made by the company that outbid said fiance to show how poor their materials were. (Or he's just trying to get on his teacher's good side)
The go-kart plot has nothing to do with this story, despite Kid Flash initially thinking that a man was attacked because he upset the powerful go-kart lobbyists. It feels like it was thrown in here to fill in space. (Or to rail against the dangers of those newfangled contraptions!)
Weirdly enough, issue 113 (the debut of the Trickster) is exclusive to a much more expensive subscription tier on DC's comics app. It's only issue 113 in this set - none of the surrounding issues have that problem. It's bizarre, but it's not worth spending over $100 for an annual subscription, so I'm skipping it.
Issue 114 involves the return of Captain Cold. In it, Barry is so unsubtle about his own secret identity that I question how Iris doesn't even suspect it.
When Captain Cold's parole is denied due to the Flash's testimonial, he breaks out of prison. While it's not the strangest use of prison materials that I've seen from a Flash rogue (Captain Boomerang somehow built a time-traveling boomerang while in prison), Captain Cold building a machine the size of a key that can freeze metal to the point where it shatters like glass might be up there. (Though I'm sure Lex Luthor has them all beat)
Captain Cold has fallen in love with Iris West, but she rejects his advances, so he freezes the entire city in suspended animation. Only he, Iris, and the Flash (who was outside the city) are immune. Whereas Killer Frost needed access to New York's water main in the Firestorm issues that I read earlier, Snart just touches his belt buckle and encases the entire city in ice. ...somehow.
After some escalation that quickly gets ridiculous (Captain Cold activates a setting on his cold gun that lets it turn temperatures to absolute zero; the Flash moves at nearly the speed of light to avoid it), Captain Cold is captured. Meanwhile, the next issue has the Flash go from the Fastest Man Alive to the Fattest Man Alive.
Gorilla Grodd is so desperate to get out of prison that, using elements from the ground beneath him, he created a pill that will kill him instantly and put his consciousness into the body of another being, which is an overreaction, to say the least.
Grodd winds up in the body of a human, and rather than taking this opportunity to turn over a new leaf, it takes him less than a day to use his powers (and a group of circus chimpanzees) to turn to crime.
It's up to Flash to capture all of the monkeys, but Grodd builds a scientific instrument, which involves "startling new scientific principles", to make the Flash morbidly obese. He also gives his enemy amnesia for good measure.
This situation lasts all of two pages before the Flash regains his memories, sets out to lose that weight, and defeats Grodd. He's unaware that the human was possessed by Grodd, but Grodd notices that his gorilla characteristics are coming back, so his host will likely turn into a gorilla by Grodd's next appearance.
The issues were as silly as I expected they would be; the stories were nothing too deep, and the writing might not have been great, but it was entertaining. Barry was more childish in the Elongated Man's first issue than I'm used to; it's a side of him that I wasn't expecting to see.
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