Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities The Flash (Barry Allen)

I think the Barry Allen Flash series had some of the best covers of the Silver and Bronze Ages.

As Lash would surely agree, you can't go wrong with a cover featuring a good ol' super FAT-ASSing!!!!

... coming right up!

I find the leg switching one hilarious ... now Barry knows how frustrating it is! HA!

I love the big head and skinny body!

Of course he's here to save the day. I thought this costume was fantastic!

We all know Barry LET Supes win!

We done to Barry Allen! Legion World's favourite Justice Leaguer!

I figured I'd share a tidbit (with anyone who doesn't read the "Non-Legion Trivia" thread in Spaceopoly) I found out this week when I read a collection of Silver Age team-ups involving Earth-2 characters: Iris West Allen and Joan Williams Garrick each had the same, unique-to-their-dimension engagement ring! It's all in Flash 151, and I thought that was SO cool!!!

Man, I miss the old, great multiverse and the Justice Society!

I love the Cary Bates run on the Flash. It's probably the best Flash run besides the William Messner-Loebs run with Wally.

I picked up the latter third of the run when I was a kid. I found the Infantino art to be more challenging than a lot of art, but I do recall a strong continuity to the story even then. I recall really hunting for a missed issue to fill a gap in the story.

I's only been recently I've read the lead up to the trial and it's aftermath. It is a huge storyline. I can see it outstaying it's welcome with some readers, as it does last for years. But to even attempt such a storyline deserves huge amounts of credit. There's no shortage of tension each issue, so it's not a storyline that stutters along.

The Trial of the Flash, in my opinion, is a misunderstood story. Most people trash it for it's bizarre twists and drawn out narrative. However, I think it's easily among the best Flash stories since those same seemingly non-sensical story turns are actually the kind of crazy stuff the Silver Age was made of and was fitting for the final story of a character who kicked off that same era.

I just finished the Showcase Presents The Trial of the Flash TPB tonight. Other than issue 350, I'd never had the opportunity to read this run ever before. It was certainly all over the place! I don't know where to start, really. So many crazy twists and turns! I honestly don't know at the moment whether I love it or pretty much dislike it.

I will say it is very complex and convoluted, both of which actually surprised me. I always thought it was more or less straightforward. But that it ain't!

Kappa--and anyone else--I'd love to hear your thoughts on the story. Maybe then, I'll be able to crystallize my own, and I'll chime in with my own--!

I've never read "The Trial of the Flash", mainly because I can only take Carmine Infantino's post-1960s art in small doses. Depending on the feedback to Lardy's post, I may or may not read it.

^ I agree re: Infantino. I was first exposed to him via his 80s art in places like Flash and The Brave and the Bold and I was like "What am I not seeing in this art that makes everyone praise him as a master?".

It wasn't until much later that I saw his early art and was blown away by how good it was. He's very much like Giffen I think in that for some reason he adopted a very different (and IMO much worse) style later in life.

I've also never fully read The Trial of the Flash. I've been building up my back issue collection over the years and am still missing a couple of chapters of this. I'm looking forward to it because I've heard good things but one aspect of it I was never keen on was the weird new face he was given. I just can't get behind that.

As I mentioned in my earlier post, I think that the strength of this arc was Infantino's involvement and the wacky turns that the story took. Barry Allen was the spark that started the Silver Age and this story truly feels like a sendoff to that batshit insane era of comics in a way that I feel is much more fitting than Crisis on Infinite Earths a few months later. Not every turn in the story makes sense, but it reads like a soap opera, where it leaves you on a cliffhanger each issue and you have to know where it goes next.

Infantino's art, as Fanfie alluded to, had changed drastically since his Silver Age days, and while I don't think it fit every book he worked on in the 80's (*cough Marvel's Star Wars cough*), I think his presence adds a greater meaning to the story. His old style was very clean and simplistic, whereas his 80's style was blocky and his characters appeared very "stretched" for lack of a better word. The art reflects the story, with the blocky figures reflecting how Barry Allen had changed since his inception.

Yeah, for all the bad things DC has done since 2003, it was nice a few years ago when they reprinted a lot of classic stuff in full-color one-shot specials. The Flash one was all classic Broome/Infantino stories, and I treasure my copy of it.

I'll have to disagree about his run on Star Wars. I read the Omnibuses that contained his work on it last year. While at first his work was jarring, I really came to appreciate his take on the universe and the element of fun that his work added to it. He and Archie Goodwin really did some special work on the book, imo.

Now, on the Trial era I don't think the B&W format of the Showcase Presents book does Infantino any favors. Flash is by its nature a colorful book with a bright cast of villains, so the format loses a lot. Believe me, seeing Barry and Zoom fight it out in B&W is no pleasure! It seems like this would have been quite a feast for the eyes in color.

But, aside from that, it seems his line is a bit more inconsistent than it was on the earlier Star Wars run. Sometimes it looks fabulous, and others it is indistinct. His work there is also especially light on backgrounds. But I kind of like his style with faces and the sometimes-wacky wavy hair that everyone has.

One thing I definitely didn't like was Infantino's take on Grodd and the other denizens of Gorilla City. I don't need the hyper-realistic and kinda scary modern take, but Infantino's I found really distracting in a bad way.

Honestly, though, it's gonna be a little hard to discuss Trial in depth and it's wacky turns without revealing lots of spoilers! I feel like we'll almost need permission from Fickles and any other interested parties to go into them. I don't really want to spoiler-box too much when discussing a story over 30 years old.

You certainly have my blessing, Lardy. Spoil away!

Well, let's start at the beginning, with the least excessive but still puzzling element that's at the story's foundation: the alleged crime that Barry commits. Barry is originally charged with manslaughter and is then upgraded to murder 2 as the trial begins.

It's really odd because no one ever seems to doubt that Fiona was in immediate mortal danger. It's hard for me to believe that any agency would charge Flash under those circumstances, much less upgrade it to a manslaughter charge. As much manipulation as there was going on to affect the trial's outcome, there was never any indication that the D.A. himself was being manipulated. And if you factor in that the Flash himself had been the city's iconic hero and a paragon of the JLA, it makes no sense that Flash ever went to trial or was even arraigned and indicted.

I know. For the Flash, even this was pretty edgy a thing to have happened in his life, and having circumstances where Zoom was more clearly murdered would have been pretty extreme for the time. For what was still a more innocent age, I suppose it made more sense.

In a way I wonder if this was cary bates' way of having the Silver Age put the Bronze Age on trial.

I read a while ago that Bates knew the end date of the title very early on, due to the planning around Crisis. I might have read that the trial extended accordingly to fit this schedule, allowing for all of the twists and turns.

To follow up on thoth's point, Bates apparently knew well in advance the book would end at a certain point so he went with a "throw everything at the wall" approach to the book.

That's something I've been wondering about as I read the Showcase edition: Just HOW much of a heads-up did Cary have regarding when the book would end and Barry's death? Did he know right when he killed of Zoom and initiated Barry's legal woes? I mean, 323-24 featuring Flash and the Reverse-Flash's final battle was over 2 years before Barry's death. I've no doubt that a lot of planning went into Crisis (though not so much for its immediate aftermath, obviously), but I'm more doubtful that it was determined all that far in advance. More believable is that Cary got the word well into the storyline and had to extend it quite a bit. (Re-reading thoth's and Kap's posts, this seems to be the implication.)

I'd certainly be curious to read any article(s) you guys have seen if you can find it and provide a link.