ShareThis"I've got the strangest feeling I'm being turned into a puppet."
Those are words from Barry Allen in 1962, who was The Flash for 30 years before being killed in 1986. We'll get to that quote in a minute, but first let's talk about Barry, who has returned from death and to a new ongoing title called "Flash: Rebirth."
Rising from the dead isn't unusual in comics, but this resurrection is dogged by some controversy. Because Barry Allen isn't just any character, or even just any Flash (there have been several). He holds a special place in comics history.
Few would believe it now, but there was a time when superheroes weren't popular in comic books. That time was the '50s, when only Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman managed to star in ongoing titles. Other superheroes popped up here and there, but usually not for long, or as back-ups.
Until 1956, when DC editor Julius Schwartz decided the time was ripe to revive a '40s character named The Flash. Ditching everything about the original character except the codename and powers, he joined with writer Robert Kanigher and artists Carmine Infantino and Joe Kubert to create Barry Allen, a young police scientist who gained super-speed and donned a sleek, red bodysuit to fight crime in four issues of a tryout book called "Showcase." Sales were terrific, and Barry was awarded his own book in 1959.
Then the brakes were off. Barry's success launched a fertile wave of creativity called the Silver Age of comics, a superhero boom that dominates the medium today.
DC writer Tom Peyer, writing in the foreword to "Flash Archives" Vol. 5, explains the fecundity of the period this way: "The strict censorship in force back when comics were a children's medium gave us the Silver Age's wildest imaginings."
And I think no book represents this idea better than "Flash," which raced merrily from one ludicrous concept to another, which Barry invariably addressed with the sincere earnestness of Beaver Cleaver and the clinical seriousness of a career scientist.
The best jokes, Peyer says, are those delivered with a straight face.
Like puppet-Flash. Yes, the Scarlet Speedster was in fact transformed into a puppet in 1962. The transformation itself wasn't all that strange for this particular book, but I think the quote that leads this column, taken from the cover of "Flash" No. 133, was.
It's strange enough that a man could be turned into a puppet. It's stranger still that said puppet could think. But strangest of all was that the man in question appears to know what it feels like to be turned into a puppet!
Perhaps Barry did. That was "Flash" for you.
But Barry was killed off in a cosmic hoo-ha called "Crisis on Infinite Earths" in 1986 to make room for a younger, hipper Flash. His end was heroic and satisfying, he was quickly replaced, and it seemed Barry's race was run.
But this is comics, and he's back. Some fans aren't happy -- they like the current Flash (Wally West, the former Kid Flash) and feel that Barry's death made "Crisis" the important event that it was. Barry's return, they wail, cheapens all that.
But DC dismisses those concerns. Geoff Johns, who has become something of a rewrite king at DC with successful relaunches of the muddled Green Lantern and Hawkman franchises, is at the helm of the new series. In an interview he said, "'Flash: Rebirth' is in the same style as 'Green Lantern: Rebirth,' ... where we're going to the core of what The Flash is all about, and then building the universe out from there."
DC head honcho Dan DiDio said: "One of the things that's great about the series is that Geoff found a brilliant way to contemporize Barry, to make him extremely relevant to the universe, and more importantly, not at the expense of any other Flash characters. From that standpoint, I think that fans of The Flash, whatever incarnation that would be, should be excited about the 'Rebirth' series."
It's hard to say now, because the first issue of "Flash: Rebirth" was mostly set-up. But I'm willing to give it a chance.
And if you want to see Barry in his heyday, the aforementioned "Flash Archives" Vol. 5 (DC, $49.99) is on sale this month, collecting "Flash" comics from 1962-63.
And, yes, you will believe a man can turn into a puppet.
(Contact Andrew A. Smith of the Memphis Commercial Appeal at capncomics(at)aol.com or visit www.captaincomics.us.)
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