Tag Archives: Jay Garrick

Who is the Fastest Flash?

Flash v.2 #75 cover: Barry Allen, Jay Garrick and Wally West together.It’s the eternal question among fans. Who’s faster, Flash or Superman? (Answer: Flash, just barely.) Who would win in a fight, Wolverine or Batman? And of course, which Flash is faster? Wally West? Barry Allen? Jay Garrick? Bart Allen?

The truth is that which Flash is fastest changes over time, but there’s an easy pattern to follow: unless he’s been deliberately de-powered, whoever headlines the current series is the fastest Flash. After all, why focus on the second-fastest man alive?

When Jay Garrick was the one and only Flash around, he was, of course, the fastest man on Earth. When Barry Allen burst onto the scene, Jay was a little older, and had slowed down. So Barry was faster. When Wally West first took over as the Flash, he’d been pushed down to near the speed of sound…but as he kept going, breaking through his psychological blocks and eventually learning about the speed force, he reached that #1 rank. Then during Bart Allen’s brief tenure as the Flash, he absorbed the speed force and became not just the fastest man alive, but the fastest man who had ever lived.

All signs point to Barry Allen being the star of the Flash series that’s sure to spin out of The Flash: Rebirth. No doubt once the dust settles, he’ll once again be the Fastest Man Alive — and even faster than his fellow Scarlet Speedsters.

Until the next relaunch, of course…

Marching Toward the Kingdom

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One of the themes in “Thy Kingdom Come,” the storyline that’s been running through Justice Society of America this year, has been exploring the link between the present-day DC Universe with the future shown in the groundbreaking 1996 miniseries Kingdom Come. This week’s Justice Society of America #21 looks into the mystery of the Kingdom Come version of the Flash. Continue reading →

Speed Reading for Thursday

A few more bits:

Final Crisis Annotations: Rogue’s Revenge #3 completes the series.

Fortress of Baileytude examines Flash Secret Files #1, which reminds me of a couple of past blog posts: Comic Coverage’s parody of an endorsement in Smoking Superheroes, and my response that looked into the slow process of removing Jay Garrick’s smoke break from his origin.

Next month, Graphic Audio is releasing an audio book of the prose novel The Flash: Stop Motion by Mark Schultz.

Incidentally, the last 24 hours have been the busiest yet on this blog. Note to self: write more reviews!

Flash Companion Preview: Lost Gold

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The following is an excerpt from the upcoming book, The Flash Companion. The full article appears in the first section of the book. It is printed here with permission of the book’s main author, Keith Dallas.

The Flash Companion is scheduled for a July 23 release.

Lost Gold: The Unpublished Golden Age Flash Stories

By John Wells

The abrupt cancellation of Flash Comics left Julius Schwartz with no chance to burn off the inventory of completed material he’d assembled for future issues. Instead, each page was stamped “Written Off 9-30-49,” filed away and ultimately marked for destruction in the late 1960s. Unpublished samples of all five features in Flash Comics survived to the present. Most remarkably, there were five Flash stories — three preserved in their entirety! They are:

“Journey Into Danger”: A criminal discovers a formula capable of accelerating speed and motion — but not the means of controlling it. In an effort to force Jay Garrick to give up his own formula for slowing down energy, the Farmer unleashes his speed solution on an unsuspecting Keystone City and the Flash himself (published in The Flash #205: April, 1971).

“The Tale of the Three Tokens”: A stranger gives common objects to Jay and two other men that prove instrumental in saving each of their lives during the Thinker’s attempt to use a stolen time machine (published in The Flash #214: April, 1972).

“Strange Confession”: After the Flash’s third encounter with the Thorn, her “sister” Rose confesses to Jay Garrick that she and the villainess are one and the same. Her evil personality kidnaps Joan Williams in retaliation, and the Flash ultimately asks Green Lantern to transport Rose to the curative Transformation Island at the suggestion of Wonder Woman (pages 11 and 12 published in Superman’s Girl Friend, Lois Lane #113: Sept.-Oct., 1971. Later published in its entirety in Robin Snyder’s fanzine The Comics [Vol. 6] #10: Oct., 1995.).

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Flash Pieta Covers

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Comics Should Be Good has a feature on the top 10 Pieta covers — covers inspired by Michelangelo’s statue, Pietà, of Mary holding the lifeless body of Jesus. The most famous of these covers is probably George Pérez’ cover for Crisis on Infinite Earths #7, the death of Supergirl.

One Flash cover made the cut: Flash v.1 #305, in which Barry Allen and Jay Garrick each hold their dead wives. (It turned out Joan wasn’t actually dead. And Iris got better…eventually.)

There’s at least one more Flash cover that fits the bill: The full cover for Flash: The Fastest Man Alive #13, featuring the Black Flash carrying the lifeless body of Bart Allen.

This was the cover that set me looking for examples of dead Flash covers last year — and it’s amazing how many there are!

Morrison/Millar Run on Flash to be Collected

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Updated: See end of post! Back in 1997, Mark Waid took a break from writing The Flash so he could work on JLA: Year One.  Final Crisis scribe Grant Morrison and Civil War writer Mark Millar stepped in for a year, co-writing issues #130-138, with Millar writing #139-141 solo.  At the end of the year, Waid and Brian Augustyn returned with the epic “Chain Lightning.”  To date, none of the Morrison/Millar run has ben collected.

The stories had a much more sci-fi take on the character than had been seen since the Silver Age, and included:

Emergency Stop (#130-132): The Flash finds his own dead body, sent back in time from the future, and has to solve his own murder.  Introduced The Suit, the ultimate super-villain costume that came to life, draining those who wore it.

Flash Through the Looking Glass (#133), battling the Mirror Master.

Still Life in the Fast Lane (#134): A spotlight on Jay Garrick, the original Flash, as he fills in for an injured Wally West.

Three of a Kind (#135): Part of a crossover with Green Lantern and Green Arrow, in which the youngest members of the Justice League try to take a vacation…only to find a trio of super-villains is on the same cruise.

The Human Race (#136-138): Wally must compete in a galactic race against his childhood imaginary friend, Krakkl of the planet Kwyzz.  If he loses, Earth is destroyed.  If he wins, Krakkl’s homeworld is destroyed.

The Black Flash (#139-141): Death comes to everyone, even speedsters… but this time, Death takes the wrong target.  Introduced the Black Flash, who featured prominently on the cover of last year’s cover for Flash: The Fastest Man Alive #13 (remember those Dead Flash Covers?).

Now, eagle-eyed Comic Bloc poster Lee H has spotted The Flash: Emergency Stop on Amazon, coming in January 2009.  There’s no official word yet, and the Amazon listing doesn’t include a page count, so it’s not clear how many of the issues will appear.  We may find out soon, however: tomorrow DC will announce solicitations for September, and they usually include upcoming collected works as well.

Update (June 20): Collected Editions reports that the book does include “The Black Flash.” Whether that means the entire run is included, or just the first and last arcs, remains to be seen.

Update: It turns out that the 12-issue run is being split across two trades, Emergency Stop and The Human Race. “The Black Flash” appears in the latter.