The Flash is a DC Comics superhero possessing "super-speed." Created by Gardner Fox and Harry Lampert, the original Flash first appeared in Flash Comics #1 (1940).

Thus far, three different persons have assumed the identity of The Flash: Jay Garrick (1940-51), Barry Allen (1956-86) and Wally West (1987-present) Each of these individuals somehow gained the power of "super-speed," which includes the ability to run and move extremely fast, superhuman reflexes, and to violate certain laws of physics.

The second incarnation of The Flash was among the first heroes of the Silver Age of comic books in 1956. The character featured in a short-lived live action television series in 1990. The Flash is also featured in the all-star animated series The Justice League.

Contents

1 Publication History 2 Fictional Biographies 2.1 The Golden Age Flash (Jay Garrick) 2.2 The Silver Age Flash (Barry Allen) 2.3 The Modern Age Flash (Wally West) 3 Powers & abilities 4 Other media 5 Related characters 6 External links

Publication History

The Flash first appeared in Flash Comics #1 (1940). This Flash was Jay Garrick, a college student who gained his speed through the inhalation of hard water vapors, and who wore a metal helmet with wings on it. He is notable for being the first speedster in comics and one of the first to have a singular super-power as opposed to the multi-talented Superman. He was created by writer Gardner Fox.

Garrick was a popular character in the 1940s, supporting two different titles and being a charter and long-time member of the Justice Society of America, the first superhero team. Garrick's adventures in the Golden Age of comic books came to an end when Flash Comics was cancelled with the publication of issue #104 (1949), and the subsequent end of the Justice Society's adventures with All-Star Comics #57 (1951). Superheroes and indeed the entire comic book industry had fallen on hard times in the 1950s, and the Flash was only one fatality.

A few years later, DC Comics decided the time was right to reintroduce some superheroes, but rather than bring back the Golden Age heroes unchanged, it was decided to recreate them as new, more modern characters. The Flash was the first such hero to be revived in a new incarnation. Showcase #4 (1956) introduced Barry Allen, a police scientist who was bathed by chemicals after the shelf on which they lay was struck by lightning, and he gained super-speed like Garrick before him. After several more appearances in Showcase, Allen's character was given his own title, The Flash, which resumed numbering from Flash Comics with #105.

The Silver Age Flash proved popular enough to revive several other Golden Age heroes in new incarnations, and even the creation of a new superhero team, the Justice League of America, of which Flash was a prominent member.

The Flash also introduced a long-standing plot device into superhero comics, when it was revealed that Garrick and Allen each existed on fictional parallel worlds. Their powers allowed them to cross the dimensional boundary between worlds, and the men became good friends; their respective teams began an annual get-together which endured from the early 1960s until the mid 1980s.

Allen's adventures continued in his own title until the advent of Crisis on Infinite Earths (The Flash ended as a series with #350). Allen's life had become considerably confused in the early 1980s, and DC elected to end his adventures and pass the mantle on to another character. Allen died heroically in the Crisis #8 (1986), though thanks to his ability to travel through time he would continue to appear occasionally in the years to come.

The third Flash is Wally West, who had been introduced in Flash #110 (1959) as Kid Flash. West, Allen's nephew by marriage, gained the Flash's powers through an accident similar to Allen's, and adopted the Kid Flash identity and maintained membership in the Teen Titans for years. Following Allen's death, West adopted the Flash identity in Crisis #12 and was given his own series, beginning with The Flash vol 2 #1 (1987). As of 2004 he is the current holder of the title.

Fictional Biographies

While several other individuals have used the name Flash, these have lived either on other parallel worlds, or in the future. Garrick, Allen and West are the best-known exemplars of the identity:

The Golden Age Flash (Jay Garrick)

Jay Garrick was a college student in 1940 (suggesting he was born around 1922) who accidentally inhaled hard water vapors. As a result, he found that he could run at superhuman speed with similar reflexes. After a brief fling as a college football star, he donned a red shirt with a lightning bolt on it and a stylized metal helmet with wings and began to fight crime as The Flash. His first case involved battling the Fearsome Four, a group of blackmailers. In the early stories it seemed to be widely known that Jay Garrick was the Flash. It was later explained that Jay kept his identity secret without a mask by keeping his body continually vibrating in public so any attempt to photograph him for intense scrutiny would be blurred.

Flash soon became one of the best-known of the golden age of superheroes, and was a founding member of the Justice Society of America, and its first chairman, beginning with All-Star Comics #3 (winter 1940). He has always been based in the fictional Keystone City.

He left the JSA after issue #6, though he returned several years later, and had a distinguished career as a crimefighter during the 1940s.

(Several pieces of retroactive continuity fill out early Garrick history. A story explaining the retirement of the JSA members including the Flash explained that in 1951 the JSA was investigated by the House Un-American Activities Committee for possible Communist sympathies and asked to reveal their identities. The JSA declined, and Flash, who had recently married his longtime girlfriend Joan, retired. A trained scientist, he ran an experimental laboratory for several decades. All-Star Squadron Annual #3 states that the JSA fought a being who imbued them with energy which retarded their aging, allowing Garrick and many others – as well as their girlfriends and sidekicks – to remain active into the late 20th century without infirmity. The 1990s Starman series notes that The Shade prompted Garrick to come out of retirement in the 1950s, but the details of his activities during this time – if any – are hazy at best.)

Garrick emerged from retirement in 1961 to meet the silver age Flash – Barry Allen – from a parallel world. Garrick's world was dubbed Earth-Two, while Allen's was Earth-One. The rest of the JSA soon joined Flash, although their activities during the 1960s other than annual meeting with Earth-One's Justice League of America are unrecorded. That he and Green Lantern (Alan Scott) are good friends is clear, however.

Garrick was a key member of the JSA's 1970s adventures (as chronicled in All-Star Comics and Adventure Comics), as well as helping to launch the careers of Infinity Inc. Following the Crisis on Infinite Earths, all the parallel worlds were merged into one, and Keystone City became the twin city across the river from Allen's Central City.

(Another retcon suggests that Keystone in this merged world had been rendered invisible and wiped from the memories of the world for many years through the actions of several supervillains, but this may itself have been retconned.)

As the 20th century drew to a close, many of Garrick's JSA cohorts have retired or passed away, but Garrick remains active with the latest incarnation of the group. He is physically about 50 years old thanks to the effects of several accidental anti-aging treatments, though his actual age is closer to 80.

The Silver Age Flash (Barry Allen)

Barry Allen was a police scientist in 1955 with a reputation for being very slow and deliberate, and frequently late, which frustrated his fiancee, Iris West. One night as he was preparing to leave, a lightning bolt shattered a case full of chemicals and spilled them all over Allen. As a result, Allen found that he could run extremely fast and had matching reflexes. He donned a set of red tights sporting a lightning bolt (reminiscent of the original Captain Marvel) and dubbed himself The Flash – after his childhood hero in the comic books, Jay Garrick – and became a crimefighter. In his civilian identity, he stored the costume in his ring which could eject the compressed clothing when Allen needed his costume and could also suck it back in with the aid of a special gas that shrinks the suit.

Flash acquired a colorful rogues gallery of villains. They usually operated with each using a particular theme in their equipment and methods and had unusually small time goals for their power level, usually content with simple robbery and crimes of a similar scale. They include:

• Captain Cold – used cold-based technology
• Heat Wave – used heat-oriented technology
• Mirror Master – used mirror-oriented technology
• Captain Boomerang – used a variety of trick boomerangs
• The Top – used a variety of tops and other methods involving high-speed spinning
• The Trickster – a former circus performer, used gadgets that allowed him to perform tricks like walking on air
• Weather Wizard – used weather control
• Gorilla Grodd – an intelligent gorilla and would-be conqueror
• Professor Zoom the Reverse-Flash – a criminal counterpart from the future

He also became a charter member of the Justice League of America, and good friends with Green Lantern (Hal Jordan).

In time he married his girlfriend Iris, who learned of his double identity because Allen talked in his sleep. She kept his secret, and eventually he revealed his identity to her of his own free will. Iris was eventually revealed to have been sent as a child from the 30th century and adopted.

In the 1980s, Flash's life began to collapse. Iris was murdered by Professor Zoom (who had long loved her and been jealous of Allen), and when Allen was prepared to marry another woman, Zoom tried the same trick but was stopped by Allen, killing Zoom in the process. Put on trial for Zoom's murder, Allen was eventually acquitted, and learned that Iris' spirit had in fact been taken to the 30th century where she was given a new body. Following the trial, Allen retired and joined her in the 30th century.

However, after only a few weeks of happiness, the Crisis on Infinite Earths intervened, and Allen was captured by the Anti-Monitor and brought to 1986. Allen escaped and managed to foil the Monitor's plan to destroy the Earth, but Allen died in the process. He has been lauded as one of the greatest of superheroes since then.

When Allen died, it turned out that Iris was pregnant. She had two children, the Tornado Twins , who would later meet the Legion of Super-Heroes. Each of her children themselves had children. One, Jenni Ognats, grew up to become the Legionnaire XS , while the other, Bart Allen, was born with a rapid-aging illness, and was sent back to the 20th century where he was cured. He remained there as the superhero Impulse (and later adopting the name Kid Flash).

The Modern Age Flash (Wally West)

Wally West was the nephew of the second Flash, Barry Allen, by marriage to Iris. One day when visiting his uncle's police laboratory, the freak accident which gave Allen his powers reproduced itself, bathing West in electrically-charged chemicals, and giving West the same powers as his uncle. West - then about 10 years old - donned a copy of his uncle's outfit and became the young crimefighter Kid Flash.

He soon adopted a slightly different, yellow-and-red outfit with his hair exposed, and became a founding member of the Teen Titans, with fellow sidekicks Robin and Aqualad. Always something of a straight-shooter from rural America, Kid Flash sometimes felt out-of-place alongside more flamboyant heroes such as Speedy and Wonder Girl.

As a young adult, West found his powers to be failing and even doing damage to his body, and he retired from crimefighting until a cure could be found. But he was called to action again by the Crisis on Infinite Earths, in which his uncle Barry Allen was killed. As a side-effect of the energies he was exposed to during that adventure, West's powers stabilized. However, he could no longer run at the extraordinary speeds of his uncle, but was limited to the speed of sound, and had to eat vast quantities of food to maintain his metabolism.

Despite these handicaps, West resumed his career, adopting the costume and name of the Flash to honor his uncle.

Shortly after resuming his career, West won the lottery, bought a large mansion, and became something of a playboy. He also joined the reformed Justice League.

Over the next few years, West learned several things about his powers: First, it was suggested that Allen had not actually been human after gaining his own powers, but was a powerful energy force of which West used only a fraction, and that as Allen's career wound down and once he died, West had only a fraction of the energy. Later, West discovered that in fact Allen was a conduit to the "speed force", an extradimensional energy force which West and other speedsters also tapped, but West had been mentally holding back from using to its fullest extent for fear of replacing his uncle in the minds of the public.

A difficult encounter with a particularly vicious foe who was himself bent on destroying Allen's memory motivated West to finally use his abilities to their fullest potential. As a result, West gained some additional abilities from the speed force. A few of his uncle's abilities continued to elude him, though - most notably, the power to travel through time.

West married journalist Linda Park and has revealed his secret identity to the world. Like his predecessors, he has a friendship with the Green Lantern of his time (Kyle Rayner).

Recently, following an attack on Linda by a new Reverse Flash, West regretted the public knowledge of his identity. The Spectre wiped the knowledge of the Flash's secret identity from everyone's mind, including West himself. He began working as a mechanic for the Keystone City Police, a job that reminded him of Barry Allen, whom he only remembered as a police scientist. Eventually, Batman deduced the truth, and restored West's memory. The truth has also been revealed to West's friends in the heroic community, and Linda Park, who found it difficult to deal with and has taken some time away from her husband.

Powers & abilities

All incarnations of the Flash can run and move their limbs at superhuman speeds, and possess superhuman reflexes. All possess an "aura" which prevents air friction from affecting their bodies and clothes while moving.

Barry Allen possessed several other abilities which Jay Garrick and Wally West have not always been able to duplicate. He could "vibrate" his molecules through solid matter, could run on thick snow clouds and could travel through time and to other dimensions with the help of a "cosmic treadmill". Most unusual was Allen's "complete control of his molecules" allowing him to vibrate through solid matter,and on one occasion when transformed into a mirror, "melt" himself and reform as a human to defeat the Mirror Master.

Wally West has been shown to have a connection to the "Speed Force ", an extradimensional energy source, which provides his powers and gives him several other abilities: He can create his costume out of pure speed energy, and can either impart his high velocities to other people and objects or steal the velocity they posess. Wally is able to vibrate through objects but doing so will cause them to explode.

Other media

The Flash has appeared on television, most notably in a short lived CBS series during 1990 where he was portrayed by actor John Wesley Shipp aided by special effects and a molded costume. His most famous opponent in the series was The Trickster played by Mark Hamill. This foreshadowed Hamill's subsequent success at playing the Joker in Batman: The Animated Series.

The Flash has also appeared in Superman: The Animated Series, and is a member of the Justice League in the Justice League animated series, voiced by Michael Rosenbaum.

The Flash has made a guest appearance in the television series Smallville, in the fourth-season episode "Run" (first aired October 20th 2004). He is represented as a self-centered teenager who uses his powers for personal gain. He goes by the name "Bart Allen" (the second Kid Flash, also known as Impulse), but is shown to be carrying multiple ID cards also identifying him as "Jay Garrick" (Golden Age Flash), "Barry Allen" (Silver Age Flash), and "Wally West" (Current Flash).

David Goyer, writer of the Blade trilogy and Batman Begins, announced plans in December, 2004 to write and direct a major motion picture starring Ryan Reynolds as the Wally West version of the Flash. The film will be released by Warner Bros. sometime in 2006.

Related characters

As the first super-speed hero in comic books, The Flash spawned a variety of imitators and conceptual descendants. These include:

• Quicksilver, a member of The Avengers.
• Johnny Quick, another golden age superhero, and his modern daughter Jesse Quick
• Johnny Quick, a silver age supervillain from a parallel world
• Lightning , a member of the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents.
• Max Mercury, another golden age superhero
• The Whizzer, the name of two superspeed heroes from Marvel Comics. One is from the Golden Age and the other is a member of The Squadron Supreme.
• XS , a member of the 30th & 31st Century Legion of Super Heroes.
• Johnny Bukowski, a.k.a. "Johnny B," a character from the short-lived television series, The Misfits of Science.

External links

• Golden Age Flash Toonopedia entry http://www.toonopedia.com/flash1.htm
• Silver Age Flash Toonopedia entry http://www.toonopedia.com/flash2.htm