Entry #2

What got me interested in Flash Comics? I grew up on Bronze Age DCs. Also ‘Conan The Barbarian’ had a sway on this once skinny boy envious of the all the interest girls shown the bigger boys. I was introduced to Flash Comics through the CGC GA boards. My first purchase was #40. I like the series because it represents the early days of the pre-hero DC universe with the back-up stories, along with ‘new’ superhero characters the Flash and the Hawkman. Unlike Superman and Batman, these superheroes have private lives that they share with their female companions, and occasionally with old friends. As a plot devise, this frees Gardner Fox from the obstacles that at times makes Superman and Batman stories redundant. World events creep into the stories – although it isn’t until 1944 that both the Flash and Hawkman hints at a world at war in their regular monthly strips. The backup stories like Johnny Thunders and the Ghost Patrol are lighthearted comedic adventures that can be enjoyable to read. Like the Sunday Funnies section of old, to read Flash Comics is similar in that each story has a distinct flow to it, month-after-month. It was after reading about three or four issues that I got curious to learn more about DC Comics during the 1940s.

By the end of the decade, Flash, Hawkman, and Black Canary gives us glimpses of what Silver Age superheroes will look\feel like in the future. It seems odd after reading the last 12 issues of the series why it ended. Those are some of the best issues of the whole series.