Flash Fridays – The Flash #337 September 1984

The issue opens with the mayor of Central City recanting during a press conference his previous criticism of the Flash because he’d been duped by the Pied Piper. The Piper watches this on tv and vows revenge on the Flash saying that he, the Piper, is out for blood. 

Segue to police captain Frye’s residence where we see the Frye’s cat dragging the Flash’s uniform and ring out from under the couch. The cat leaves the ring behind as he hauls off with the uniform. Later, Frye’s wife phones him to say that she’s found Barry’s ring. 

Meanwhile, the Flash manages to foil and assassination attempt on the prosecutor who is trying to convict the Flash of manslaughter. The prosecutor thanks the Flash, but assures him that he still plans to aggressively pursue his attempt to put the Flash behind bars.

Cut to the Piper using his ultima-pipe to call forth some alien speed demons from another dimension to kill the Flash. The speed demons do indeed catch up with the Flash and proceed to paralyze and entwine him by stretching their bodies, and prepare to carry him off (to outer space? Another dimension? It’s never really made clear) as the Pied Piper plays “music to die by”, thus setting up a cliffhanger for the next issue. 

By this point, Cary Bates knows the endpoint for these books is only a dozen or so issues away since the Flash is slated to die in the epochal Crises on Infinite Earths event that was coming down the tracks. The Flash would indeed die in the “Crises”, but in reality it was low sales that really killed him.