Flash Fridays – The Flash #338 October 1984

The issue opens with the Flash entwined by the Pied Piper’s speed demons that he had conjured from another dimension. As they drive the Flash towards some power lines. The Flash manages to avoid his doom by going into a tornado-like spin that sends the speed demons into the power lines instead. The Flash then goes to to the hideout of the Pied Piper (no explanation is given as to how he knows where it is, he just shows up) gives PP a good shakedown while capturing him. Writer/editor Cary Bates has been establishing the fact that the Piper aka Henry Rathaway has been struggling with mental problems, and his capture by the Flash pushes him into a mental collapse. 

Joe Scudder aka the Mirror Master and “Digger” Harkness aka Captain Boomerang watch the Piper’s capture on the news and concoct a plan to break PP out of the Breedmore Mental Hospital where he’s being retained. Cut to brief interlude #1, we see Captain Frye with the psychic he hired to find Barry Allen. The psychic has hit a dead end with Barry’s belongings until Frye hands him the ring belonging to the Flash that his wife had found under the couch. The psychic suddenly exclaims that he’s getting some very strong emanations. Annnnd… we’re right back to the Mirror Master and Captain Boomerang showing up at the mental hospital dressed as policemen to break out the Piper. They find that PP is pretty much a babbling idiot and happy to be where he is. As they are leaving, an orderly who thinks they are policemen calls them into the padded cell where the gargantuan Dufus is being held. 

Cut to brief interlude #2 where we see a CPA Nathan Newbury (Stan would have approved the name) walking through the park in Central city and getting struck by lightning from a rouge cloud on a clear day. He appears to be fine, but in a caption we are told that he has undergone a drastic metamorphosis, the purpose of which will be apparent soon. Cut to interlude #3 talking with her student assistant as she prepares for the Flash’s trial. She says that she may have found an interesting president. Cut to interlude #4 where we see the Flash hiring a private investigator to check into why his lawyer Cecile Horton hates him.

We’re now back at the A plot with the Mirror Master and Captain Boomerang. The pair has gathered the Trickster, Weather Wizard and Captain Cold as they concoct a grand plan to get rid of the Flash. The idea is to break Dufus out of the mental hospital and and equip him with some futuristic armor to help him take out the Flash (and I don’t mean on a date). The armor is supplied by an unknown figure known as the Monitor. This appearance straight out of the leftest end of left field seems out of joint and it is. The Monitor is Cary Bates obligatory tie in to the massive Crises on Infinite Earths story arc that will roll across the entire DC line of comic books. Most of the creators obliged, but it’s especially bittersweet for Cary since the story will kill off his character and book (for more on this see my Crises of Infinite Crises post). As the armored Dufus, now called Big Sir because Cary came up with a better name, charges off to confront the Flash, we end with the Flash and Cecile agreeing to bury the hatchet as the trial of the Flash is about to begin. But first, Big Sir.