Dead Flash Covers

Looking back at the cover for Flash: The Fastest Man Alive #13, it wasn’t promising for Bart Allen, especially with the Flashes’ history of death. We know now that it ended badly for him (though he got better).

Crisis on Infinite Earths #8Countdown: Flash: The Fastest Man...Flash: The Fastest Man Alive #13

Of course, there’s also a history of Flashes (and supporting cast) appearing dead on the cover, but still making it through. More than 25 examples of dead Flash covers appear below.

I went through the galleries at the Grand Comic Database for the 1959 and 1987 series, and managed to find no less than 23 covers on which the Flash, or a member of his supporting cast was depicted as dead, but managed to survive the story. Sometimes the events took place, but the character survived, or it turned out the body was someone else’s. Sometimes they were what I call “CPR deaths,” in which the character is technically dead, but not beyond the help of modern (or in comics, slightly ahead of modern) medicine. Generally they’re resuscitated in the following issue. And some are just plain misleading.

Cover: Flash v1 #130: Who Doomed the Flash? Cover: Flash v1 #171: The Flash lies dead--unburied--and unmourned! Why? Cover: Flash v1 #172: Gorilla Grodd: If you're looking for the Flash on this cover--forget it!  This uniform is all that's left of him! Cover: Flash v1 #174: Triumph of the Six Super-Villains Cover: Flash v1 #186: Skeleton in uniform; So that's what happened to the Flash! Cover: Flash v1 #191: Empty uniform; Wrong! This is NOT the Flash! Cover: Flash v1 #199: Newspaper: Flash Dead! Cover: Flash v1 #202: Woman floating in pool; Oh no!  My wife--they've killed her! Cover: Flash v1 #209: Captain Boomerang and Tricskter: We did it! Killed the Flash! Cover: Flash v1 #215: Lifeless Jay Garrick.  Barry: You...Savage!  Why did you have to kill him to get at me? Cover: Flash v1 #227: Book title: Flash: This Is Your Death! Cover: Flash v1 #233: Prof. Zoom: Now that I've taken the Flash's life--I'll take his wife! Cover: Flash v1 #235: Dead Jay; Vandal Savage: I've finished one Flash! But to remain immortal, I must kill the other Flash--and Green Lantern! Cover: Flash v1 #258: Black Hand: You've run your last mile, Flash! I've doomed you to a flaming finish! Cover: Flash v1 #305: Jay Garrick: When your wife died...you know mine would die, too! Why didn't you tell me? Cover: Flash v1 #322: Flash seen in rifle scope, shot Cover: Flash v2 #17: Flash lying on ground amid rubble from explosion Cover: Flash v2 #25: Tattered costume remains in huge crater Cover: Flash v2 #49: Dead Flash, with R.I.P. Cover: Flash v2 #140: Tombstone: In loving memory, Linda Park Cover: Flash v2 #157: Tombstone: Here lies Linda Park... died again 2000 Cover: Flash v2 #202: Empty suit amid rubbble. Whatever happened to the Flash? Cover: Flash v2 #228: Flash and Nightwing, with multiple tombstones: Here lies Wally West, Barry Allen, Linda Park, Jay Garrick... Cover: Impulse #66: Impulse and Inertia clash in front of Max Mercury's skeleton Cover: Impulse #77: Impulse leads Young Justice into battle, saying 'They'll win this war over my dead body.'  Then the team looks at a grave, marked with a lightning bolt and the words, 'That's not funny.' Cover: Flash v.2 #247: the Flash's shadow is the Grim Reaper's, and the caption reads: Wally West...Finished? Cover: Flash Rebirth #2: Barry Allen runs in the foreground, while skeletal remains of other Flashes appear on a film strip.

Hover for a description. Click to open the issue’s page at GCD.

I later discovered that Comic Coverage did a similar feature on The Many Deaths of Barry Allen in 2006.

Originally published at K-Squared Ramblings. I’ve added a couple of items since then.

Update (June 2010): Added Flash v.3 #3

Update (July 2010): Added Secret Origins #41

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13 thoughts on “Dead Flash Covers

    1. Kelson Post author

      I’ll have to go back and re-check — it’s been a while since I looked at anything older than 2007, and one comes to mind right now from the 1980s: “Is the Flash fast enough to prevent his boss from becoming a human atom bomb? — Guess not!”

      Reply
  1. Mark Engblom

    Great continuation of what I started in 2006. I didn’t include anything from the Wally West years…and there are a shocking number of “Wally’s Dead” covers as well…not to mention Bart! What *is* is with the Flash family?
    .-= Mark Engblom’s latest blog post: Epilogue =-.

    Reply
    1. Kelson Post author

      Yes, I did…I’ve been meaning to get to them ever since, but I’ve just been really disorganized until I started to get things under control a little a few months ago.

      I’m sorry I haven’t gotten to them yet, but I’m hoping once my current project settles out a bit that I’ll have time to tackle the reference site again.

      Reply
      1. Omar Karindu

        Oh, I figured if you’d gotten it the problem was either the crazy amount of web design and comics news you were processing; I just figured that, with Speed Force launched and seemingly going swimmingly, if you’d lost it this might be a better time to re-send if necessary.

        Reply
  2. Jesse

    Wasn’t there a Zero Hour issue with Wally’s mask being held up as if he was dead? Remember when we thought he would die in that series?

    Reply

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