BEING A SLIGHT EXPLANATION OF THE REAL STORIES
OF SOME COMIC BOOK "SUPERHEROES" IN THE WNU

Part One
Marvelous, Fantastic Heroes

The Flash

A good example is the Flash, the super speed character whose exploits began in the thirties and continues to be documented, although different people have inhabited the suit. Does the Flash exist? Not currently but he did. The reality of the situation is that there was only one Flash who operated for a three or four year period and stopped. As portrayed in the comics, the Flash was a young man named Jay Garrick. He was an engineering student at a small Midwestern United States College. One night circa 1934, when he was working with a Chemistry Professor of his on Gibberne's accelerator formula, a lightning bolt crashed through the laboratory window, striking the experiment causing the vessels to explode. A minute amount of the accelerator splashed Jay's face. He immediately felt his body's metabolism accelerate. The Professor was killed out right; Jay attempted to carry the Professor to safety but Garrick overcome by toxic fumes. Awakening in the hospital he found that his metabolism was higher than normal but not up to the level of most people that took the accelerator drug. The gas had worked as a retardant. Garrick donned a hat resembling Mercury's and fought crime in the Philadelphia area for approximately three years. He discovered that the infusions of accelerator and retardant gas took a tremendous toll on him. They aged him beyond his years, although only 25 when he retired as the Flash, he looked and felt as if in he were in his mid-forties.

    Upon retiring he destroyed his notes and formula so as not to be tempted to resume his career again.

    A highly fictionalized account of his origin and career appeared in Flash Comics. While it is entirely possible that he did run into Superman once or twice in his short lived career, Garrick was not a member of the fictional Justice Society of America nor were there any subsequent Flashes after Garrick.

All rights reserved. The text and design of this page are ©  2001 by the author, Dennis E. Power. No
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MARVELOUS, FANTASTIC TIMELINE
A WORK IN PROGRESS

 

Batman
Black Panther
Captain America
Daredevil
The Flash
The Flash II

The Four
The Five
The Green Arrow
The Hulk
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