Flash Fridays – The Flash #346 June 1985

So last issue we saw someone with superpowers escape from heavy police lockup in the far future, and, in this issue, the identity of the villain is teased through the entire story until it’s finally revealed in the very last panel. Unless, of course, you happened to look at the cover and see the Reverse-Flash running away from a gun toting Captain Frye. So much for building suspense. Nevertheless, the issue is still pretty exciting in its own right, as if writer Cary Bates, knowing that the end of the Flash’s Silver Age run is in sight is leaning in the the work with a renewed vigor. We pick up the thread up in the Courtroom of The Flash’s trial seconds after his attorney has pulled back his mask thinking she was revealing the face of Barry Allen, but instead uncovering a visage no one has seen before. Fiona, Barry’s former fiancé, suffers a relapse breakdown and is taken back to the mental hospital. After checking in on Fiona in the hospital, the Flash meets with his counsel Cecile Horton and reveals he truly is Barry Allen but that just prior to the face reconstruction surgery that he had in Gorilla City, following the bashing by Big Sir, he requested that Solovar’s surgeons not only repair his face, but reconstruct it into an entirely different image as well. As he recounts telling Solovar, “For all intents and purposes… Barry Allen’s life is over.” A moment that made this Silver Age reader clutch for just a second. Because of the delicacy of Fiona’s condition, he says that Barry Allen/Flash can never appear in her life again. Fiona agrees to keep his secret.

The scene shifts to the next morning and the bus carrying the jurors from their hotel to the courthouse. The bus is accidentally run off the road and into a river. The jurors all panic except for the accountant Newbury (the bald guy with the large mustache) who assures everyone that they’ll survive. And they do because the Flash dives into the water and pushes the bus to the shore. 

Quick cut to a purse snatcher stealing a woman’s purse in broad daylight and in the presence of Captain Frye who runs in pursuit with his gun drawn. When Frye runs into an alley, he finds that the perp has already been caught by… the Reverse-Flash…( surprise?) who announces that he’s back amongst the living and that he plans to murder the Flash! Coming up next, at long last the verdict.

Final thought.

So I don’t consider myself superstitious, although I do the perform the occasional wood knock because, well, why not? However I do believe in coincidence as per this: There is a Funky reader out there who picks up a volume of the The Complete Funky Winkerbean every year the second it drops on Amazon. He then proceeds to send it to me for my artygraph, and I’m always happy to oblige. Let’s call him Funky’s Faithful Fan. So I wrote him into a Crankshaft script (which of course means into the Funkyverse) and yesterday asked him to send me a pic for reference, which he did. When I finished this Flash Friday issue, I found that there is a well considered letter on the Flashgrams page from back in the day by none other than FFF. How cool is that? So, again, I do enjoy coinkydinks… especially when they’re that amazingly cool.