We open on our own Earth, where Flash writer Cary Bates is driving to a class reunion, plotting his latest Flash story, when he drives through a strange fog. When the fog lifts, he finds himself in Central City on Earth-1. Not only that, but he finds himself on the front line of a confrontation between the Flash and his old foe the Trickster, which the villain escapes from thanks to his newest weapon. Recalling Schwartz's own encounter with the Flash years ago, Bates realizes the reverse has now happened to him. Also, since the story he'd been thinking up had the Trickster as the villain, Bates blames himself for the villain's latest crime spree, and must plot out a way to stop him before he can strike again.
The Flash (Vol. 1) #228 (July-August, 1974) - "The Day I Saved the Life of the Flash!" Cary Bates (writer), Irv Novick (pencils), Tex Blaisdell (inks) To defeat one of his most wily foes, the Flash joins forces with an unlikely ally...his own writer. When Barry Allen became the new Flash for a new generation of readers in Showcase #4 (October, 1956), he was immediately established as a fan of his predecessor's Golden Age comic book exploits. (A neat shout-out, in my opinion, acknowledging what came before instead of just chucking it all out the window.) However, according to the landmark tale "Flash of Two Worlds!" in Flash #123 (September, 1961), DC's Golden Age heroes existed on their own parallel Earth, known as Earth-2, while the new versions introduced in the Silver Age lived on Earth-1. Apparently, the authors of the comics on Earth-1 were dreaming about events that actually took place on Earth-2, and that was the inspiration for their stories. (Ah, comic books...) The Flash (Vol. 1) #123 (September, 1961) - "Flash of Two Worlds!" Gardner Fox (writer), Carmine Infantino (pencils), Joe Giella (inks) With this setup, I suppose it was inevitable that the Flash would make his way to our "real-world" Earth, where he's the one who's a comic book character. Such a story was indeed published in The Flash #179 (May, 1968), where he needed DC editor Julius Schwartz's help getting back to Earth-1 after getting stuck on ours. And naturally, DC eventually followed up on this idea by flipping the premise around, in this case having the Flash meet his writer at the time, Cary Bates (who had also written the story where the Flash met Schwartz - in fact, it was Bates's first time writing the character). Bates had been writing for DC since he was 17, and this story is part of his impressively lengthy run (heh) on the Flash. Of the 246 issues of the first Flash series, he wrote over half of them. He's also written for Superman, Supergirl, and the Legion of Super-Heroes, making substantial contributions to their mythologies. In the 1980s, Bates wrote the Silverblade mini-series about an aging Hollywood star whose youth is restored by a magic totem that also lets him transform into any character he'd ever played on-screen. WARNING: Here be spoilers! Read further at your own risk! We open on our own Earth, where Flash writer Cary Bates is driving to a class reunion, plotting his latest Flash story, when he drives through a strange fog. When the fog lifts, he finds himself in Central City on Earth-1. Not only that, but he finds himself on the front line of a confrontation between the Flash and his old foe the Trickster, which the villain escapes from thanks to his newest weapon. Recalling Schwartz's own encounter with the Flash years ago, Bates realizes the reverse has now happened to him. Also, since the story he'd been thinking up had the Trickster as the villain, Bates blames himself for the villain's latest crime spree, and must plot out a way to stop him before he can strike again. For all the "wow, I just wrote that sentence" chuckling I did while summarizing the issue, I enjoyed this one a lot. It's nothing more than what it clearly sets out to be - a fun, self-contained little story that doesn't bother trying to take itself too seriously. The idea of a writer interacting with their own characters has been done numerous times before and since, but it works in this context. The techno-babble of how Bates traveled to Earth-1 and how he's able to thwart the Trickster kinda goes in one ear and out the other, as most techno-babble does, but it wasn't enough to ruin the story for me. (My biggest quibble is that I don't get why Bates didn't tell the Flash who he really was, since he knows the Flash met Julius Schwartz once.) It's also a quick (heh) read, only 12 pages long - the other half of the comic dedicated to a Green Lantern back-up feature (a common practice in the 1970s and 1980s for DC heroes who didn't have their own titles at the moment) - which is nice if you don't have the time to read a story that's being stretched over half-a-dozen issues. As for the art, I've always been a fan of Irv Novick's work on Batman, and his style is generally a good fit for the Flash, this story being no exception Also, any comic that features a hero taking on one of their core villains is a win in my book - in fact, it was seeing the Trickster on the cover that caught my interest - and the Trickster was a good choice for this story. Thanks to his use of toy-based weapons, he's a little less predictable than the likes of, say, Captain Cold or the Weather Wizard, and it makes sense he'd have a new one capable of stumping the Flash. If you're only familiar with Mark Hamill's multiple portrayals of the Trickster, his Pre-Crisis incarnation might be a bit underwhelming, but otherwise, he's a welcome presence in this comic. On a personal note, this is one of the first Pre-Crisis issues of The Flash I ever bought and read, snagged while on a memorable (in good ways) family vacation in Toronto, and I'll always associate this comic with it. (I got some great comics on that trip, some of which are still favorites to this day - including several other issues of The Flash.) It's a happy reminder how fortunate I am that my family's been so supportive of my comic collecting hobby in various ways. The Flash (Vol. 1) #179 (May, 1968) - "The Flash -- Fact or Fiction?" Cary Bates (writer), Ross Andru (pencils), Mike Esposito (inks) As a fun bit of trivia, this wouldn't even be the last time Bates wrote himself into a comic book. A year later, in Justice League of America #123-124, in a story Bates co-wrote with Elliot S! Maggin (yes, he really used an exclamation mark in his pen name), Bates was actually the villain of the story, and Maggin had to help the Justice League and Justice Society defeat him. (I haven't had the chance to read this story yet, but I found out about it while doing my research for this review, and I figured people in the know would want me to bring it up.) Justice League of America (Vol. 1) #124 (November, 1975) - "Avenging Ghosts of the Justice Society!" Cary Bates & Elliot S! Maggin (writers), Dick Dillin (pencils), Frank McLaughlin (inks) As of when I'm writing this, "The Day I Saved the Life of The Flash!" hasn't been reprinted in any trade paperbacks yet, but it shouldn't be too hard to snag for a decent price. If you want to see the Flash in action and get a feel for what his Bronze Age comics were like, this isn't a bad one to start with.
1 Comment
Scott Rowland
5/26/2023 08:32:01 pm
Nice write-up of an issue I remember from my youth. This story made me desperate to get the Julie Schwartz issue, which I enjoyed too.
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