UTHEORY OF : Flash Comics # 1

Time to take a look at the final DC anthology to get the tabloid-sized Famous First Edition treatment in the 1970s. Flash Comics 1. Original cover date Jan. 1940, reprinted in 1975.

That’s an iconic cover by DC legend Sheldon Moldoff. Great scene made more memorable by the Flash smiling as he catches the bullet.

Debut Flash story written by the legendary Gardner Fox and drawn by Harry Lampert, who only drew the first three Flash stories. Story and art have a more playful tone, that wld stick with the feature throughout the Golden Age. Lampert’s art is more cartoonish than action-based. Jay Garrick is a brilliant student but a mediocre football player at Midwestern University til a lab accident – caused by him leaning against equipment while taking a cigarette break (!) – causes him to inhale vapors from “hard water” overnight. Super-speed is the result.

Garrick then scores a bunch of touchdowns in the team’s next game and later decides to fight crime. As a sports fan, I’m always intrigued by how sports are depicted in comics. Garrick’s team trails 30-0 until he gets in and leads them to a 65-30 win. 65 points in football? 10 touchdowns while missing 5 extra points? And the other team is held scoreless the rest of the way? Apparently Garrick played linebacker on defense as well…

Story also has a great scene of Garrick playing tennis against himself and also introduces longtime love interest Joan Williams. Here, Joan’s dad is an airplane manufacturer. Was this part of other stories? Bad guys are a group of four saboteurs – including a mustachioed hunchback named Sieur Satan - all of whom are dead by the end of the story. Gotta love the swift justice of Golden Age comics.

The second story here is Cliff Cornwall, an aviation strip by Fox and Moldoff. Kinda stiff with Moldoff likely swiping from similar features of that era. They try to make the love interest a bit sassy, but it doesn’t do much to improve the story. Cornwall’s run wld end after 17 issues.

Next up is the debut of Hawkman by Fox and artist Dennis Neville, who wld only draw the feature a few times. Striking concept and art with Neville I’m sure borrowing from Alex Raymond’s work on Flash Gordon. The back-n-forth confusion of the Hawkman story is here right away, as four pages of this one are a flashback where research scientist Carter Hall remembers his previous life as Prince Khufu. The imagery is Egyptian, even though it’s never described as such. Love interest Shiera – also reincarnated – is here from the very start as well. Reincarnated villain Hath-Set dies at the end here, but surely returns.

The power of flight is attributed to ninth metal, which Hall already had invented. The Hawkman headpiece at times sits on his head and at times looks like a full mask. Overall, this is one of the better features here and led to Hawkman alternating with Flash as the cover feature in this title for most of its 104-issue run – the only DC title to do so.

Next up is Johnny Thunder, here described as Johnny Thunderbolt. A lot happens in this short story by John Wentworth with art by Stan Aschmeier, often credited as Stan Asch. Johnny is kidnapped as a baby and taken to a foreign country where he’s given the power to control a magic thunderbolt before returning to his family at age 5.

The thunderbolt here is just that – not the pink genie character that it would evolve into. Story is humorous in tone, mostly played for laughs. Johnny later wld join the Justice Society and last 91 issues in Flash.

Feature number five here is one of the oddest series I’ve ever come across. Flash Picture Novel by Ed Wheelan is a version of Minute Movies, a comic strip that Wheelan made to some success from 1920 to 1935. It parodied movies of the time, showing that irony and self-aware satire regarding pop culture was around long before the 1960s.

The chapter here is the first part of a two-parter titled “The Demon Dummy,” and is about a ventriloquist taking orders from - yes – his dummy. Apparently, this already was a movie cliché even in 1940. Maybe the audience of the time saw this being played for laughs, but it still strikes me as a bit creepy. Wheelan’s art is pretty basic and cartoonish, but the feature had a solid 58-issue run here, mostly after reverting back to the Minute Movies title with stories complete in one issue.

The first issue of Flash Comics wraps up with the Whip, a Western action series by Wentworth with art by George Storm. Bored playboy Rod Gaynor takes a trip to the Southwest and takes on the identity of the Whip, a vigilante hero from the previous century. The Whip’s fake Spanish accent kinda makes you cringe, but overall it’s a good story with solid art by Storm. The Whip wld enjoy a 55-issue run in Flash.

When Flash debuted, Superman, Batman and Sandman already were headlining anthologies on the DC side of the company. Superman also was headlining his own title, with Batman getting his own three months later. Flash was the first title on the All-American side to feature a superhero. Spectre wld take the cover of More Fun for DC the next month, with Green Lantern doing the same in All-American for – of course – All-American – six months later. The final two monthly anthologies – Sensation (AA) and Star-Spangled (DC) wldnt come along til 1941.

(DC and AA each wld have a quarterly anthology – DC with World’s Finest and AA with Comic Cavalcade. Superman, Batman and Robin shared the covers of WF, with Flash, Green Lantern and Wonder Woman doing the honors for CC.)

Flash comics succeeded to the point where its title character in 1941 got his own comic – titled All-Flash to avoid confusion. The Flash character and Hawkman also wld be founding members of the JSA in the pages of All-Star, with Hawkman having the distinction of being the only member to appear in all 55 of the team’s Golden Age appearances.

And if Gardner Fox’s contributions to DC history were ever questioned, consider that in Flash 1 alone he created two bedrock concepts in Flash and Hawkman that wld continue in some version to the present day, almost 80 years later…

The Famous First Edition reprint of Flash Comics 1 hit the stands in May 1975. It was the last of eight such titles that DC did until they did one of Superman 1 in late 1978 to capitalize on the Superman movie. But parts of that issue were reprinted from Action 1, which had bn DC’s first Famous First Edition in early 1974.

I’ve always wondered which comics DC wld have done next if they’d continued the series in the mid-70s. The first appearance of Green Lantern in All-American 16 might have been a candidate, but it didn’t include the modern version of the character and unlike Hawkman in Flash didn’t include any other DC features that were still in print. All-Star 12 with its glorious V for Victory cover that included Wonder Woman and Hawkman? That wld have bn amazing to see at a tabloid size, and DC already had done All-Star 3 earlier in 1975.

The final decision as in most cases likely came down to low sales. But the glory of the DC and Marvel tabloids lasted into the early 80s. They were some of my favorite comic as a comics-addled kid and remain some of my favorites as a still comics-addled adult.