Flash Fridays – The Flash #255 November 1977

Jul 10, 2020

So, picking up from where we left off last issue, Mazdan, a criminal from the far future, had altered The Flash’s mind so that he’s seeing illusions. The Rogues gave the Flash a ‘Rosco’ award which was a potential Trojan Horse. Stacy Conwell was conjuring demons in her bedroom. And… I guess that’s it. Last issue left us with a lot of questions, and here are some of the answers:

Let’s start with Stacy, Barry/Flash sees her conjuring up another demon, but this particular problem is immediately written off as one of Mazdan’s mind tricks. Turns out that Stacy says that she was merely practicing some of her old cheerleader routines, and that her magic wand was merely a baton. (Please permit me a slight digression here, as something of a quasi expert on batons, especially the flaming kind … they are the exclusive province of majorettes, not cheerleaders) So that takes care of that, and Mazdan doesn’t appear in the rest of the story.

As for the ‘Rosco’ award, seeing it causes the Flash to run backwards (although, he saw it quite a bit in the last issue and that never happened). So the Flash solves that particular problem by wearing contacts that make him see the ‘Rosco’ backwards thus enabling him to run forwards.

As for Mazdan … who knows. Everything wraps with the Flash capturing the Mirror Master, taking his costume and heading off to visit the Rogues. The last page also promos the fact that the Golden Glider will be joining the fray as well. I don’t know if the thinking here was to imitate Marvel with all of its ongoing subplots, but here the result is merely confusion. A lot of things are being thrown at the story, with little thought given to whether they will even mesh. We’re not seeing thoughts here, just afterthoughts.

But.

In the midst of this mess fest, there appeared a beautifully executed panel of the Flash running backwards that has to stand as one of the finest (pre computer) impressionistic and sublime renderings of super speed that I’ve ever come across. It’s a gem and a nod to artists Irv Novick and Frank McLaughlin for this jewel among the dross. Since one of my pet peeves is someone describing a piece of art that I can’t see, I’m including it here for you to enjoy. Just part of the job.

 

Some Other Posts We Thought You Might Like