Flash Fridays – The Flash #335 July 1984

This issue opens just seconds after the last one with the Flash in the TV studio having just trashed the news desk. The Flash tries to explain that he was set-up, but is cut off before he can do that, and the Pied Piper’s plan to destroy the Flash’s reputation continues apace. At the same time, two thugs and apparent demolition experts receive instructions via hidden tape recorder a la Mission Impossible about a job they’ve been hired to pull.

In a scene that wouldn’t have been seen in the 334 issues up to this point, the Flash visits his lawyer Cecil Horton and finds her emerging from naked a sensory depravation tank where chastises him for the way he has been behaving, ends with her telling him that he has to get his act together if he expects her to win his case for him. We then touch base with all of the dangling plot threads that I listed last issue, moving each one incrementally forward. 

Angry with the Mayor who keeps fighting his mental brainwashing, the Pied Piper has him take off in his plane (Piper Cub perhaps?) and then instructs him to crash it. The Mayor is barely saved by the Flash in a multi-page action scene that beautifully showcases the wonderful Carmine Infantino art aided and abetted by Frank McLaughlin. The artwork is the one unifying constant that helps to tie these issues together. It’s nice to have a familiar hand at the drawing board (what’s a drawing board?)

The issue closes the rocky cliff on which stands Cecil Horton’s house. The snooping reporter is there as are the two bombers. The last two pages show the cliff being blown up and Cecil’s house (one of those beautiful Infantino designs) being buried under rocky rubble. The last thing we see is a bloody hand sticking out from under the rocks. The blowing up both of the houses of the Flash’s lawyers is pretty repetitive, but having done similar things myself, I’m the last one to throw more stones on the rock pile.