Okay, Gang, we’re in full wayback mode now. This issue not only brings back the toy magnate Willard W. Wiggins, but we also see the return of his most notorious creation, Captain Boomerang. Writer Cary Bates isn’t simply borrowing from the past anymore, he’s taken out a full thirty-year mortgage on the era. As I mentioned when I wrote about issue #304, Bates is tapping the vein of my golden era. When W.W. Wiggens and the good bad Captain first showed up in issue #117, I fell in love with the artwork I was seeing in this book. I still contend that it was some of the finest art to ever grace a comic book. So seeing the Flash, Boomerang and W. W. together again and being rendered by Carmine Infantino once more is a sight for happy eyes.
Also back on the scene is Colonel Computron once again seeking to hand W.W. Wiggins “the fate he so richly deserves”. Colonel C, a living walking talking computer is possibly Basil Nurblin, a disaffected Wiggins Toy Corporation employee, or Francine his disaffected wife, or Luna his disaffected daughter. Colonel Computron crashes a birthday party cum police fund-raiser which Barry happens to be attending and goes after Wiggins. Barry changes to the Flash (we get the standard shot of Barry touching his ring and the uniform shooting out which always made me wonder how he managed to get his uniform back in there) and goes after Colonel C. He manages to save Wiggins, but barely escapes with his own life.
We later see Digger Harkness aka Captain Boomerang planning to go help Wiggins if Computron attacks him again. Boomerang feels that he’s in debt to Wiggins for having created his Boomerang persona and that he owes it to his former boss to help him out (see the blog post for issue #117 for the complete back story replete with beautiful art). When Captain Boomerang and Wiggins meet, the Flash, suspecting the worst, tries to capture Booms. But he escapes and flies off on an expanding boomerang. The Flash informs Wiggins that he trailed Colonel Computron’s residue (don’t ask me what that is) to the employee entrance of Wiggins company. He tells Wiggin’s that when Colonel Computron isn’t trying to kill him, he’s working for him. Meanwhile, Colonel Computron captures Boomerang and says if Booms helps him get rid of his nemesis Wiggins, he’ll help Booms annihilate the Flash, and so they strike a deal, and we’re left waiting until the next issue to see that turns out.
