Flash Fridays -The Flash #330 February 1984

Behind another cool Infantino/Anderson cover, the march towards the trial of the Flash continues. Writer Cary Bates spends the first part of the issue showing us glimpses of how the Flash’s world is falling apart… an orderly trying to tape Fiona talking to herself as she’s strapped to a bed in a padded cell so he can sell it to the press, the big city lawyer deriding the Flash’s choice of legal counsel while being interviewed on TV, the Flash in a meeting with said counsel as they look at what an uphill struggle the his defense will be. 

And then Grodd. Bates finally gets to the meat of the book as the police send the Flash on a search for Angelo Torres, the young man who along with his mother had been saved from a burning building and who had been recruited against his will into Grodd’s street gang. As the Flash searches for Angelo, Grodd the gorilla lures him into the nether dimension where he plans to kill him. In that nether dimension, the Flash finds Angelo and Grodd’s gang. The nether dimension is a fantastical place which is mostly empty except for some very spare floating strips of land (Infantino is no Steve Ditko) where everything seems to be controlled by Grodd. For example, the gang members battle with the Flash, but they do so in bulked up Marvel style battle suits. Throughout the fighting, Grodd has been draining the Flash’s speed form his body until he’s about to fall at which point Grodd exclaims… “when you fall… you will be mine!”