The Flash #195. Fugitive From Blind Justice!

It's time to get out your stick of rock and don your Kiss Me Quick hat because it's the return of the feature in which I look at the comics I bought in Blackpool in 1972, when I was just starting out on the reading journey that would lead to me becoming the least-informed comic book blogger on the internet.

I've already tackled Captain America #135, X-Men #44, Action Comics #402 and Teen Titans #33 and now it's time to look at the very first Flash comic I ever owned.

I've mentioned, before, my obsession with costumes in these early reads and it was the same again for me with this one. The comic's combination of red and yellow (just like Red Raven and the Angel) and the lavish use of lightning motifs impressed me no end when I was eight.

But I cannot fail to acknowledge that, like Captain America, the Angel, Red Raven, and Kid Flash in Teen Titans, the tale features a man who's sporting wings. Is this coincidence or was I magnetically drawn to pinioned pugilists back then?

I cannot say.

This is what happens.

It's 1970 and the Flash is signing autographs outside a Jerry Lewis telethon, establishing that Jerry Lewis exists in the DC universe, even though it's clearly not our universe.

Someone else who exists in the DC universe is Jack Kirby's long-standing accomplice Mark Evanier who's among the lucky youths the Flash gives an autograph to. He also gives autographs to a bunch of other people but I don't recognise their names, even though I suspect that they too are real people.

No sooner has he done that than he's blinded by a camera flash in the local park.

It turns out it was no accident and now, with the hero temporarily sightless, a bunch of gangsters can blow his brains out.

Except they can't - because, just as they get a bead on him, a dog appears and chases them off.

Who is this mystery canine with the civic-minded streak?

Sadly, the Flash doesn't get to find out because, the moment he regains his sight, the pooch runs off and, obviously, the Flash can't chase after it because, erm, er...

Anyway, the next day, the Flash's alter-ego Barry Allen finds out the dog's called Lightning and has been sentenced to death for killing his millionaire owner Philip Bentley.

Can our hero prove Lightning's innocence and save him from the firing squad?

No, he can't.

After twenty four hours trying to do so, he settles, instead, for just kidnapping the dog and heading back to the scene of the crime with him.

And it's a good thing he does because no sooner have the pair got there than they discover Bentley was killed by his own brother - and by the mobsters who tried to kill the Flash the day before. Holy Incredible Coincidence, Batman!

Ignoring the killers' gas attack, the Flash and Lightning soon mop up the wrongdoers, and the Flash gets a confession from the victim's brother by threatening to set the dog on him. I'm no lawyer but I'm not convinced a confession secured by threatening the accused with a good savaging is legally valid.

Not that the judge cares. He's perfectly happy to lock the men up on such dubious evidence and, not only that, he's happy to let Barry Allen legally adopt Lightning, even though he doesn't have a clue who Allen is.

This does make me wonder whether Lightning was ever mentioned again. He was certainly not in any of the Flash stories I ever read.

Leaving aside the unanswered question of Lightning's seeming super-speed in parts of this tale, there is one other oddity about the story, and that's that, after the Flash kidnaps the dog, the pair of them rescue a drowning blind man. There seems to be a fairly heavy hint in this section that the man's only pretending to be blind, which leads you to assume he'll be revealed to be the killer but nothing ever comes of it and it's not mentioned again.

That sensational tale of canine capers was brought to us by Robert Kanigher, Gil Kane and Murphy Anderson and we're clearly in luck this month, as we get not one but two tales in this issue; the second being delivered by Mike Friedrich, Gil Kane and Vince "The Eraser" Colletta.

Thinking about it, this might be the only time I've ever read a tale in which Kane's inked by Vincent, and the combination of the two men's styles lends the adventure a far more cartoony look than I'm used to from the penciller.

In it, Barry Allen's haunted by nightmares about roller coasters and has been ever since he went on one as a teenager. This fear's led to him refusing to ever board one again, until, many years later, he's chaperoning a police station sponsored basketball team and is nagged to go on it by them.

Wouldn't you know it, barely have they got the thing started than he spots disaster ahead.

The track's buckled!

Not for long it hasn't because, moving so fast that no one can see him, Allen changes into his Flash outfit and fixes it.

Quite how he does this isn't totally clear. He seems to be hammering it back into place with his bare hands. Just what are the Flash's hands made of that he can bend steel with them?

Anyway, that's that crisis dealt with, that phobia cured and that issue finished.

Is it as pleasing to me as those recently reviewed Captain America and X-Men tales?

Not really.

To be honest, although nicely drawn and competently written, it's not a particularly memorable issue, which might explain why, up until I re-read it yesterday, I could only recall that it mentioned Jerry Lewis and featured a roller coaster. Call me an animal hater but having seen too many Lassie films means I'm really not that interested in crime-fighting dogs and I'm not sure I buy a super-hero comic to find out how its star overcame his fear of fairground rides. Overall, I'd say it's an OK issue but fairly run of the mill.

As far as I can remember, this only leaves one comic left to review that I bought in that fortnight, and that's Brave and the Bold #96. Will it impress me?

Tune in to find out...

In the meantime, the other named people the Flash stops to sign autographs for in this issue are called Irene Vartanoff, Peter Sanderson, Angela Adams and Ken Tracy. Am I right in assuming they're real people, or are they just made up?