Flash Fridays – The Flash #336 August 1984

Writer Cary Bates takes his time addressing the bloodied and buried hand on the cover and instead leads with the Flash and Central City’s mayor who the Flash has just saved from a plane crash. As he quizzes the mayor, Flash begins to understand that the mayor was under some kind of mind control, and, when he finds the horn shaped listening device planted by the Pied Piper and examines it in the police lab, he knows who the culprit is. Before the Flash can act on the info, Captain Frye comes in a tells him about the avalanche at his lawyer Cecile Horton’s house. Upon arriving at the scene, he finds that the bloodied hand belongs to Gigi, the assistant to the photographer who was there to get some paparazzi photos. 

The Flash begins to desperately dig through the rubble when he remembers Cecile’s sensory deprivation tank. There’s an old idiomatic theatrical saying which says that a gun in the first act goes off in the third. Well the same thing apparently applies to a sensory deprivation tank which we saw in the previous issue. The Flash saves Cecily and she momentarily hugs him in gratitude, until she remembers her hatred for him.

The Flash then visits the photographer in the hospital, gets photos of the guys who set off the bombs, and follows trail to the person who hired them, N.D.Redik the celebrity lawyer. He hired them to kill Cecily as well as Peter Farley the Flash’s first attorney. Realizing that the jig was up, Redik tries to commit suicide by jumping out a window. The Flash of course saves him, but he has a great attack and dies anyway. The story ends with Cecily visiting and unmarked grave and still vowing revenge on the Flash.

Bates satisfyingly ties up a few threads this issue thus clearing the deck to focus on the upcoming trial of the Flash. To be continued.