Flash Fridays – The Flash #349 September 1985

Behind one of the finest covers of the entire Silver Age Flash run, we pick up the story with the jury foreman Nathan Newbury (whose body has been inhabited by what appears to be the Reverse Flash) announcing that the Flash is guilty as charged. The Flash is handcuffed and put into a police car as a reporter tries to interview Nathan Newbury who becomes indignant and then rushes off in a blur. Once out of sight his form reverts to that of the Reverse Flash.

We then follow the reporting of the news as it is heard by Dexter Myles at the Flash Museum, Barry Allen’s parents, the Elongated Man Ralph Dibney and his wife Sue, and Wally West/Kid Flash. Writer Cary Bates is still doing his best in these final stories to touch bases with as many of the Flash characters and tropes that he can logically include. 

Once that little montage is done, the story turns to the Flash in his cell as he’s visited by Captain Frye and Cicely Horton. They find the Flash in his cell lying on his bed resigned and even welcoming his fate after all of the turmoil he’d been through. Once the Flash is alone, the jury foreman Nathan Newbury appears in his cell, telling him that he knew that the Flash was innocent all along. Newbury then takes the Flash by the hand and together they disappear from his cell, and reappear in the court room where the trial had been held.

Before we can learn more, we cut to a cave outside of town where we find the Rogues Gallery imprisoned in a glass cage. Suddenly, the Reverse Flash shows up to gloat and inform them that capturing all of them was one thing, but that his crowning glory was still to come. Back in the empty courtroom, Nathan Newbury informs the Flash that he’s someone from the future, and that the Flash has been observed for some time. The Reverse Flash’s dying before he was born created had made the time stream unstable and that someone needed to to go back and minimize the damage by showing that the Flash was truly innocent (I don’t get it either, but let’s just go with it).The future had always shown that the Flash was innocent, but the disruption in the fabric of time caused the Flash to be found guilty (okay, now I sorta get it… maybe). So a psychic essence was sent back to occupy the body of Nathan Newbury to manipulate his way onto the jury and help assure a verdict of innocence. He then tells the Flash about his taking the jury into the time stream and how they were attacked by the Reverse Flash and how RF took over Newbury’s body in much the same way in order and brainwashed everyone in order to ensure a guilty verdict. 

The book closes as the Reverse Flash is striding up to the cave where the Rogues are imprisoned, when suddenly he turns into… Abra Kadabra. Other than the fact that the Reverse was now using a wand, I didn’t see that coming. I probably should have when mu Faithful Funky Follower called that out on a Flash Grams page. Stay tuned for our final Flash Friday.