Posts tagged nostalgia

I saw a Spanish FLASH cover on Facebook today, and that was the sub-title. It’s amusing me more than it should. I suppose it doesn’t sound funny if you speak Spanish, but I don’t, so it sounds funny. For those not in the know, The Flash is “The Fastest Man Alive!” so I assume that’s what the above translates too, but according to Babel Fish, it translates to “The Alive Fast Man But!” But online translators tend to suck, so…

Anyway, I came across the cover because I’ve been in a Flash mood today. I had forgotten how much I like that guy (or rather guyS, since there are a billion Flashes, all cool). Before the Great Comic Purge, I collected him fairly religiously, starting regularly with Waid’s run, but then going backwards to volume 1, managing to get most of those as well. One of my earliest introductions to the Flash was FLASH #346. I’m not sure where I got this issue, possibly from the same place I got the other two I reminisced about previously.  While #257 was apparently also in my life, I would have to blame #346 for sparking my desire to collection volume 1 issues, if anything just to see how THE TRIAL OF THE FLASH turned out!  (And if I recall correctly, it turned out oddly, but that’s besides the point.)

Here’s what I THINK I remember about the issue that struck my young brain as entertaining:

• The Flash was on trial for murder.  What the heck?  Superheroes murder?  Superheroes get arrested?  Gah!
• The Flash’s lawyer wanted him to reveal his identity on the stand.  Oh no!
• The Flash has a new face and doesn’t look like Barry Allen anymore!
• His old face got beat up really badly by a mace(?) weilding supervillain, so he got it fixed at Gorilla City.  Superheroes can get beat up? No way!
• The villain Flash supposedly killed shows up at the end with a big splash page, and not only does he have The Flash’s powers, he wears his costume, only with reverse colors!  (My love for villainous opposites officially begins here!)

Of course, it turned out the returned Professor Zoom was really Abra Kadabra, and that one of the fat jury dudes was really The Flash’s supposed dead wife Iris, and then she and The Flash end up moving to the future where they live happily ever after for a few weeks, and volume one of THE FLASH is over.

Here are some reasons to love The Flash:

• The guy has one power (speed), but uses it so diversely that he makes guys like Superman seem like lazy chumps.  Not only does he run faster than lightning spit, but he can shift his molecules to pass through objects and shrug off physical attacks, create whirlwinds with his pinky, absorb vast amounts of knowledge via speed reading and travel through time courtesy of his cosmic treadmill invention (and later, under his own power)!
• Speaking of time travel, he does that.  A-lot.  And I like it because I dig time travel, even if it doesn’t always make sense.
• His roster of villains is second only to Batman.  Heck, they’re so cool, they have a name…The Rogues!  (I didn’t say it was a clever or original name, but still!)  And two of them come from the future (see previous point), so that’s also cool!
• He has his own museum. Quicksilver doesn’t have his own museum.

• The Flash isn’t just one person, oh no…it’s a legacy!  There seems to be a Flash for every generation, from WWII all the way up to the 853rd century!
• He’s so fast, he answers all his fan mail personally.
• The Flash is the ultimately wish-fulfillment.  Both Barry Allen and his prodigy, Wally West, wanted to be like The Flash when they grew up, and they got their wish!  (Both bizarrely struck by lightning in the same lab with the same chemicals, but hey! that’s 60’s DC for ya!)
• He told off Green Arrow once, which is cool because I don’t particularly like Green Arrow.

• Barry Allen ushered in the Silver Age of comics books with SHOWCASE #4.
• The Flash seems more fun than most superheroes, possibly because when you move faster than the speed of light you don’t have to worry too  much about death and stuff.  Not that he hasn’t come close the death, of course, and actually Barry DID die for a good while there, but it seems like most adventures don’t pose much of a threat.  More cerebral challenges, than anything else.
• And my brand new reason, as of today…he’s officially FASTER THAN SUPERMAN!

Okay that’s just a stupid Fanboy reason, but whatever!  Hey, if you’re only power is speed, you’ve gotta be able to beat Superman, otherwise what’s the point of your existence?  It’s also a fresh development that will probably get proven wrong by the next Superman writer to come along, but oh well.

And now for some inexplicable reason, I feel like slamming Superman some more, so here:

And here:

The End.