Showcase # 4 had a 12 page story titled "Mystery of the Human Thuderbolt" (origin and his battle with The Turtle). The 2nd tale was 10 pgs, "The Man Who Broke The time Barrier".
The only extra large Showcase would be #100. DC 32 pg comics from the mid-50s thru the 60s would typically have 22-25 pages of story

So, I was out of town for work, and that huge Flash Omnibus was just too big to take, so I settled for his 'sidekick', Elongated Man (Showcase volumes travel alot nicer)... some early thoughts:

- Man, that costume is bad!   The later one was a heck of alot better, IMO.  Then there's that hair... he looks like a girl quite often, in fact.   It does get better quickly, but the first couple stories are bad.  The saggy gloves bug me, too.

- I like the determination and ingenuity of his origin, but just one question... if soda from the grocery store can give you fabulous powers, why are there not whole towns of Elongated Men in the DCU?   It's a pretty darn useful power.

- The Secret Identity thing... he wears a mask, but yet he introduces himself to Flash right away.... who calls him 'Ralph' in public.  Then he gets married, and it's in the paper.. gee, that's not going to be to hard to figure out, is it?  I try to let it go, but it does pick at my mind a bit.  


So....

Flash #112:

Flash gets jealous awfully easy, I'll be looking for that when I read the non-Ralph stories.   Ralph us much more a standard action hero here than his later incarnation as a detective.  In fact, he's better at it than the Flash early on.  It's kinda silly that he can beat FLASH to anything, but I understand the needs of the story and all.  

The whole 'man of the year' thing was pretty cheesy, but it was nice to cement their friendship... again, needs of the story.

Story: B-
History: B (1st Elongated Man)

Flash #115:

So, in his 2nd appearance, Ralph retires.  Yup, that's pretty weird.  Apparently, he'd been doing circus routines to make money since Flash #112, and he's got enough to travel the world.  His first stop, the jungle where the fruit that he extracted his powers from.  When he gets there, he finds some aliens, of course, who are trying to shrink the entire world to take it over.  He calls Flash for back up and they save the day.

Boy, did they love to shrink stuff in the 60s!  I'm a little surprised the Atom didn't turn up.  This is a little before his creation(about a year to be precise), but it seems like he should turn up.  It seems they're not quite sure just how good his powers are... in the origin, it says he can stretch 'at will', but then they quickly put him in a situation where he can't stretch far enough... he eats a fruit and is able to stretch a bit farther... I wonder if that'll ever come up again.

Story: B
History: C-

Flash #119:

Ralph gets married!  Sue is called a 'debutante' and is drawn signifigantly prettier than I remember her from the Giffen-Dematteis days (which is when I remember her most).  They're honeymooning in the caribbean when Ralph (and lots of other divers) start disappearing.   Sue calls Flash to save the day.   Turns out undersea aliens called the Breda are tossing them in a big tank and fishing for them, and turning those they catch into slaves.

Flash gets himself caught, too, but needs Ralph to save the day... and Ralph has lost his memory due to the zap that captured him.   Flash tickles him (yup) to make him stretch instinctively, and that somehow makes his memory come back.  The two start a slave rebellion (with the cool set up of Ralph riding piggyback on Barry and massacring the bad guys).   They take out the heavy artillery easily and force the aliens to surrender.  Fun story, with better art

Once again, a one time alien comes and goes (at least, I think they're one time).  They're really selling Barry and Ralph as buddies hard (Barry is the best man at the wedding), I guess one can assume they hang out off panel

Story: B+
History: D

Flash #124: 

Flash is worried that Captain Boomerang is out of prison, and writes to Ralph to ask him to come visit.   Capt. Boomerang starts showing up to look at stuff that would be good to steal, making sure Flash is around as an alibi when a boomerang comes out of nowhere to steal the stuff, and vanishes before Flash can catch it.  Apparently, Captain Boomerang was able to invent time travelling Boomerangs that he can apparently throw to appear anywhere he wants and any time he wants. 

Unfortunately, in doing so he passes the boomerangs through another dimension, where the inhabitants thing an invasion is coming, and decide to attack first.   Flash and Ralph (who arrives just in time), let the good captain help fend off the invaders, which they do with the piggyback trick and some well-thrown boomerangs.

The next boomerang comes through, and Flash and Ralph are able to team up and grab it before it disappears, and Ralph points out that they can check it for prints to see if Capt. Boomerang had anything to do with it (His first bit of detecting!).  Another good one, if the 'one time aliens taking over the world' has to be told over and over again.

Story: B
History: B- (perhaps the first bad guy being good for a bit?)

Yeah, there were quite a few times like that, actually. 

I think the weirdest was when they showed a lady getting shot out of a cannon, and he Ralph stretches up and catches her... besides the ridiculous speed that would require, the lady probably should have broken her neck from whiplash.

Sure, he made an extract, but anyone could do that, unless no one else ever figure out the connection, which I guess is possible, but if so, they should have said so.   The blood type thing makes a bit of (comic book) sense, probably they added that when people like me started wondering why everyone wasn't stretchy   I'm not saying it's any weirder then most Silver Age origins, that's just what struck me.

Back to Flash (at least for today..)




2 twelve pagers again (which I really like the best, I think)


Secret of the Empty Box

Iris and the rest of the city are all looking at a giant box they appears in the park.  Barry decides that it's a distraction to allow someone to commit crimes and races around to find them... and so he does... twice, both with identical men... meanwhile, the box is a matruska box, with smaller boxes inside.   After the 2nd one he guesses it's a double distraction to rob the bank next to the park, and again he is correct, and busts a 3rd identical thief... the final box has the 'master' crook in it, and the day is saved.  Meanwhile, Iris thinks Barry is the 'slowest man alive' as he took all day ot get her lunch.

Each crook had a gimmick power for Flash to solve, which was fun, even if the solutions were wildly variable in science accuracy and Flash's power (more on that in a minute).

It continues to be striking how similar the Barry/Iris relationship is to Clark/Lois (and even Ted Knight and his girlfriend).. it seems that the convention of the girlfriend not knowing the secret ID is a convention that tried to make it from the Golden Age to the Silver.. I'm not sad it didn't last too long.

The Coldest Man on Earth
Captain Cold!  We get an origin, and the first Flash/Cold fight... it seems unusual to get a villain origin story (rather than a quick monologue)... is this a first?   Or did Lex or some Bat villain eventually get one in the golden age at some point (I know Lex didn't through 1944, but there's lots after than, and I haven't read any Golden Age Batman to speak of). 

The science here is REALLY bad... Cold events his gun by accident, but then apparently can adjust it in different ways.   Then there's the 'absolute cold mirages'... yeah.   Despite that, it was a fun story made more so knowing in hindsight it's the first appearance of a classic villain.


Flash's powers are so inconsistent it's getting to be jarring, though.. in the first story, he almost falls to his death trying to run from one building to another on a phone wire that the bad guy cuts, and he just makes it by running 'super fast' up the falling wire.

Then, in THE SAME ISSUE, he is shown easily jumping from one rooftop to another, and the text box explains how he can easily do so with his super speed.   I understand they didn't care much about consistency, but that's in the same darn issue!!  Very annoying.
Overall, though, fun stuff. 

One other thing that's gnawing a bit, why are superhero costumes refered to as 'uniforms'.  Captain Cold, if you didn't know he was a super villain, isn't wearing a uniform, he's just dressed for the arctic.   Does it become a uniform later, when it identifies him as a super villain?  Sure, but it's not at first sight, which is what Barry says when seeing him.

It's interesting how fast a statue quo can be established for alot of things (Iris, Barry being always late, picking up crimes on the radio, the costume-ring, etc.)

Story: B+
History: A (2nd Flash, 1st Captain Cold)

So it was pretty unusual, but not the first... I kinda suspected a Bat-villain or two got one (Superman didn't really have any recurring villains, other than Ultra/Lex). Good to know.

The exception that proves the rule? Not really. Nearly every Golden Age Flash and Green Lantern villain's first appearance told their origin, including Vandal Savage, Solomon Grundy, The Fiddler, The Thinker, and The Harlequin. Same with Wonder Woman's rogues gallery and most of the JSA's foes like Brain Wave and Degaton. It was part of Sheldon Mayer's editorial style.

Cei-U!
I summon the AA way!