 | The Flash races 'Beyond the Speed of Life'! |
The Flash - 'Beyond the Speed of Life'By Cary Bates and Irv Novick
Published 1971
While I read mainly Marvel Comics, I'm a big fan of the scarlet speedster. The Flash not only had one of the weirdest rogue's gallery (a dude who uses mirrors? a psychic gorilla? an Aussie throwing deadly boomerangs?), he also stars in the most absurd adventures. It's common though that most of the Flash's outlandish stories were published in the 60's, but this one disproves that statement entirely as it could be the strangest one I have ever read.
The story opens with Barry Allen using his super speed to escape kissing his wife goodbye before changing into the Flash in order to follow a compulsive hunch. The crooks Captain Boomerang and the Trickster are also compelled to a specific location where they murder the Flash by garotting him with a rope as the Justice Leaguer races into their trap. It soon becomes apparent that all of this was the doing of the evil Gorilla Grodd, who used his massive intellect to mentally control the actions of all three men.
Why didn't Gorilla Grodd just kill the Flash? Because he has failed so many times now that he is gun shy and fears failure. What a convoluted way to kill your enemy.
But of course the comic doesn't end there. The Flash awakens to find that he has become something of a ghost and has traveled beyond the Speed of Life in order to assist a kind of galactic policeman called the Sentinel. The Sentinel is faced with an impossible task, to stop the Devourer from destroying the universe. Most of the issue takes place in a psychedelic realm where objects and creatures are seen as the mind translates them rather than as they really are. For instance, the Flash sees the Devourer as a giant rat eating at the stuff of the universe. He then sees the Devourer as a jet of fire, a dinosaur, a jackhammer, etc.
Knowing that his actions will have unpredictable effects on the Devourer, the Flash starts performing random speed tricks that for some reason hurt the Devourer, causing it to appear as the Flash's wife begging for mercy. Rather than succumb to the illusion, the Flash performs faster and faster, finally driving the Devourer (as represented by a larger than life illusionary image of the Flash's wife) to a wreck of tears. Saving the universe from destruction, the Flash manages to get himself brought back to life only to find that his enemies are squabbling over his corpse, still warm from their contrived murder attempt.
As if reading a comic in which the hero is wrenched from death into a different plane of existence wasn't weird enough, seeing the Flash cause an image of his wife pain by flipping in circles... which saves the day... tops it.
This was published in the early seventies when DC released their monthly books as oversized affairs sporting the claim 'still only 25 cents', so most of the mega-sized issue is devoted to reprints or back-up stories such as the Kid Flash special. This means that the reader was treated to an Elongated Man adventure courtesy of John Broomer and Carmine Infantino. I was also entertained by the many letters to the editor from Mike Barr and Martin Pasko (both comic professionals).
As a blogger and collector, I tend to focus mainly on new and upcoming comics, but whenever I delve into the back issue bins it's worth the trip.
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