Flash Comics

    (DC, 1940-1949)
©1946 J.R. Publishing Co. (DC)

Flash Comics began in 1939 and soon became a mainstay of DC’s super-hero line. In issue #1, the world met Jay Garrick, a chemistry student who accidentally broke a container filled with gases he had been experimenting on. The room filled with the strange vapors and Garrick barely managed to escape before losing consciousness. When he awoke, however, he found his body chemistry altered by the gas he had inhaled, and became transformed into the Flash, the fastest man alive.

In addition to its title character, Flash Comics introduced the world to Hawkman, Black Canary, and Johnny Thunder (a boy who could summon a “pet thunderbolt” by calling out the magic words “Cei-U” [“Say you!”]). The series ran successfully until 1949 when it fell, a victim of the declining sales of super-hero titles. The Golden Age Flash appeared as a Justice Society member in All Star Comics for a few more years, then vanished for over a decade.
Jump to issue:
  NotesWriterArtist