Posts tagged silver age

Well, DC Comics’ New 52 is just over a year old now, and the company’s latest gimmick is to publish a bunch of #0 issues to explain the origins of the various heroes/concepts in their books. One of these is the concept of Earth 2. The series is meant to show, well, a second Earth with vastly different heroes than our own. That’s all well and good. In fact, alternate worlds/realities have always fascinated me. The story that made me aware of the concept is the first story of the original Earth 2. Not only is it a fun story, it also explained the concept of how two Earths can exist far better than the recent Earth 2 #0 did. I want to share it with you all, so here’s the Secret Origin of Earth 2!

As our story opens, Barry (Flash) Allen is late (again) for a date with his sweetheart, Iris. As he arrives at the Central City Community Center, Iris is indeed incensed. Luckily for our bow-tied boychick, Iris isn’t mad at him, but rather the magician that was hired to give a group of orphans a show at the very same community center. Relieved to be off the hook, Barry immediately apologizes, but offers to get his pal, The Flash to fill in. What a guy, he gets to blow off his lady friend and impress her at the same time! Anyway, The Flash speeds in and entertains the roomful of waifs with a variety of speed-based tricks including playing a game of tennis by himself. That’s not as impressive as it sounds. I can do the same thing, provided there’s a wall handy. Anyway, the show goes on, and Flash ends the show by emulating an old fakir trick. He uses his speed to keep a rope in the air, then he climbs it and then…

This is also how he avoids paying the check in restaurants.

The Flash does reappear, but when he does, it’s in an empty, flat field. He surmises that he was vibrating so swiftly that he may have inadvertently created a wormhole and transported himself outside of the city limits. He’s not entirely correct, but as we’ll see, he’s closer to the truth than he thinks. Barry soldiers on, but nothing is looking familiar. Thinking he may have also traveled backward in time, he dashes over to the local newshawk to get a copy of the paper. From that he finds the date is correct, but he is now in Keystone City. Barry, being a police scientist, has a hunch, and checks the phone booth to see if “he” still lives in KC. It turns out “he” is actually Jay Garrick. So Flash decides to zoom on over (as Barry Allen, natch), and tell the original Flash he knows who he really is. This seems like an ill-conceived idea to me. Anyway, he does regale Jay, and his former girlfriend, now wife, Joan Williams-Garrick with his the aging speedster’s own origin. I won’t repeat it here, but you can check out the Secret Origin I wrote about it here. After their stunned reaction, Barry reveals that he too is a Flash, and recounts his origin, which I told in my way in the very first Secret Origins column here. Barry-Flash then does his best to explain his theory of “What the holy heck is going on around here!?”

Well, um, thanks for simplifying that for us lay-people, Flash.

This is actually pretty cool. It’s still very comic-booky, but the writer, Gardner Fox, knew his science. This theory is actually based on the Bose-Einstein condensate. Who said you can’t ever learn anything from comic books? Anyway, back to the story, Barry-Flash explains to Jay that he knew of his exploits thanks again to Gardner Fox. You see, Fox said the original Flash stories came to him in his dreams, so obviously his brain was tuned in to the vibrational frequency of this other Earth. Science! Furthering this early example of meta-fiction, Fox stopped writing Flash stories in 1949, the very year Jay says he retired! Anyway, with all of the “scientifical” explanations over with, Jay mentions he was actually going to come out of retirement because of a strange rash of robberies that have befuddled the police of Keystone. No one knows who is perpetrating these crimes, but we the readers quickly find out!

Why thank you villains, for your succinct exposition!

And as is the custom in 60′s-era comics, both the villains and heroes split up to pad the story cover more ground. Jay get the first crack at the villains, specifically, the Thinker. Yet, the Thinker is of the old school. So confident is he that the Flash he knows is a pushover, he leaves a rather obvious, if not completely ludicrous clue which Jay finds toot suite.

The thinking cap is amazing. Not only can it fool people’s minds, it can also give animals vocal cords!

And so, Jay-Flash makes a beeline to grab the Thinker, and he does, kind of. Unfortunately, it’s just a mental projection. The Thinker pulls this trick on Jay like, 10 more times, until Jay is nearly exhausted, his endurance not being what it once was. So tired is he, that he is felled by a door slammed by the Thinker at the speed of thought. Oops!

Meanwhile, Barry-Flash is canvassing the city when he comes across a strange inky blackness on the city’s waterfront. Going to investigate, Barry finds the blackness is actually enveloping a yacht. but he can’t do much about it, seeing as he can’t see a thing. Thankfully, this is a silver age comic, and physics don’t always apply, so Barry is able to use a spectacular speed stunt to dissipate the darkness…

“There’s no WAY the Flash could outrun a boat!”

As you might have guessed, the Flash uses his incredible velocity to run across the surface of the water, but the Shade is a tricky devil and casts his darkness on the water as well, only this time, he also mixes oil with the darkness… somehow, and Barry can’t keep his footing, allowing the sinister shadow to get away.

Going 0-2 against the nefarious crooks, both Flashes meet back at Jay’s apartment to come up with a new game plan. Namely, a team-up. They speed off together into the city. While they do that, the FIddler is playing his hand (and his violin). The Fiddler uses the literal discord of his maniacal music to cause distractions so no one will pay him any mind/ While he rides around in his gigantic car. That happens to be shaped like a violin. Villains don’t do “inconspicuous”, OK? Anyway, due to the Fiddler’s machinations, the Flashes are momentarily pre-occupied with saving civilians, giving us the in-comic version of one of the more famous covers in comics history.

“You knock him out, and I’ll get his wallet!”

Eventually, the Scarlet Speedsters track the Fiddler to his hideout, and are about to storm the building. Meanwhile, the Shade and the Thinker are comparing notes, and discover there are two Flashes to deal with. Unfortunately for the good guys, the Fiddler already knows that…

“I have the strangest feeling that I’m dancing like a puppet!” Image by Kerry Callen

Not only is he making his puppets dance, the nefarious Fiddler is also making them steal jewels for him! Laden with treasure, the terrible trio are set leave. The Fiddler commands the Flashes to stay motionless for 24 hours. You have to love old-time comic bad guys, especially in Flash. They don’t want to kill anyone, then just want to be rich. Inexplicably (well, not really, since it’ll be explained in a second) the Flashes are free, and use their new-found element of surprise to take out the triumvirate of terror in an incredibly fun sequence.

“Curses, how could I overlook that incredibly convoluted reasoning!”

Actually, it does make a bit of sense. Earlier, the Fiddler ordered the Flashes to ignore the smaller jewels and focus on the more elaborate treasures. Instead of tossing them aside, the Crimson Comets actually stuck them in their ears, causing the pitch of the Fiddler’s music to change just enough that it allowed them to break his control. Makes perfect sense, right?

So with the day saved, it has come time for the speedsters of two worlds to say their goodbyes.  They return to the empty flat field outside of Keystone and we’re left with a status quo that will define the DC Universe for the rest of its days, both in terms of multiple earths and of having character legacies! And on a personal note, I was even more hooked on comics than before thanks to this story.

Even I’M surprised I didn’t make ONE vibration joke in this whole column!

This story first appeared in The Flash v1 #123 September 1961. It was reprinted in The Greatest Team-Up Stories Ever Told & Flash Archives Vol. 3. It is not yet available digitally.