Unca Cheeks the Toy Wonder's Silver Age Comics Web Site!
(Part Two)
All right... all right. You can just knock it off with all of the smug
titterings and what-not of general derision, out there. It was the two
hundred and sixty-eighth issue of THE FLASH, by this point. You go to
the same well that many times yourself, and see how bloody often you make
it back home with a full pail o' water. 
The twin notions of Comic Book Characters Being Cognizant Of Their Own Fictional Status and the readership's willing suspension of disbelief in same were both plot points which the series would touch upon more than one, in the course of its legendary Silver Age "run." Why, precisely, the writers thought this character, in particular, was so uniquely well-suited to this sort of storyline is anyone's fair guess, this late in the game.
However: in all fairness, it must be granted them... the conceit most assuredly did make for some of the most memorable and worthwhile stories in all of the FLASH canon.
Exhibit "A": the story "The Flash Stakes His Life On -- YOU!" (FLASH #163; you can see the cover on Page One of THE CLASSIC SILVER AGE COMICS COVERS: How They "Worked" (and Why), if you'd like; it's at the very top of the page.) involved a chubby, balding Mad Scientist-type by the name of "Ben Haddon," who perfected a device which (in his own words):
"Today it spread a certain radiation over this city! The effect was immediate! It erased all memory of you from the minds of the people here! And since our own belief in ourselves is based on how others feel about us -- you began at once to lose your identity!
"Your contact with reality was shattered! You began to fade away!"
I imagine this must be another one of those "Flash Facts" I keep hearing about.
In any event: Our Hero -- now reduced to flitting aimlessly about Central City in spectral, wraith-like form, unable to be decently seen, heard or interact by/with any other living creature -- discovers that Professor Haddon's evil, mind-altering rays were unable to remove the memory of a "Flash" from the steadfast consciousness of a little girl whose dolly (may God strike me blind if I fudge even so much as a hairbredth) he rescued from "drowning," earlier in the same story. [see panels, accompanying]
Working in tandem with said adorable urchin, the Flash manages to both capture the rogue scientist, and (simultaneously) resurrect the city's mass "belief" in his own corporeal existence. And it really is a nifty li'l tale, by the way.
(Although -- now that I think of it -- Mr. Big-Shot Super-Hero never does
get around to lecturing Little Miss Goody Two-Shoes that, all things being equal,
seedy river wharfs are a really awful place for helpless, innocent wee
kiddies to be loitiering about with their dollies in tow. Geez... doesn't
this kid have a freakin' home to go to...?)
Another nice'un, however -- along a similar vein --was FLASH #179's "The Flash -- Fact... or Fiction?," in the course of which the speedster is rudely catapaulted -- waaaaiiiit for it -- right here. In OUR world! [see cover, accompanying]
Unable to devise a workable strategm by means of which he may return, once more, to his own "fictional" reality... the Flash turns to the one man on the planet he knows will listen to him (if only for five minutes) without either laughing outright or checking his spandexed pockets for loose vials of thorazine.
Once again: you just have to see this one with your own eyes. [see panels, below]
Yup; when all else fails... throw yourself on the mercy
of your title's editor
(a species renowned worldwide, by the way, for its inherent nobility and willingness
to go along with the far-fetched sob stories of any/all wayfarers passing through
their appointed offices. Now I know we're dealing with science
fiction, here.)
Finally: no discussion of the Silver Age FLASH comic could possibly count itself complete without reference to the repeated "Flash/Superman" races held throughout the late 60's/early 70's,in order to determine which worthy could most credibly assume the mantle of "The Fastest Man Alive." [see cover, accompanying]
There were three such contests, in all; the matter being decisively resolved in the pages of the two-part "Race To Save Time" [WORLD'S FINEST #198 and #199], as convincingly refereed by Dennis O'Neil (writer) and legendary comics maestro Dick Dillin (artist).
The two
comics icons were forced to to race one another to a specified location,
in order to thwart the timestream- consuming mechanations of a robotic,
space-faring species known as "the Anachronoids." The results of
said footrace -- once and for all, forever
and ever, world without end,
amen -- are reproduced below, in all their epochal glory:
(Too bad the Flash hadn't the presence of mind, at
the time, to make a little "side wager" with ol' Supes, re: the distribution
of... ummmm... "affections" regarding certain comely female reporters for THE
DAILY PLANET, while they were at it with all of this chest-puffing and whatnot
about Which Dog In the Yard Can Run the Fastest. Again: I'm just
sayin', is all.)
If the Silver Age FLASH comic never quite achieved the operatic storytelling
"highs" of such DC contemporaries as (say) GREEN
LANTERN, or THE JUSTICE LEAGUE... it nevertheless
was a consistently clever and engaging title, with its own unique and distinct
"voice," overall. It was blessed with two successive long-time scribes
(John Broome, and -- later -- Cary Bates) whose manifest respect and regard
for the title character kept the book from straying too far afield from its
chiefest strengths: consistency of character (Barry Allen was a
marvelously realized individual, as portrayed throughout the bulk of his comic's
lengthy "run")...
... and: the intuitive awareness that: when
all else fails... "Flash Facts" can be cobbled up out of thin air at the drop
of a face mask.
I'm just sayin'.
THE FLASH
PAGE ONE
Classic Heroes of the Silver Age: PAGE THREE
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