Hero Profile: The Flash (Jay Garrick)

A silly, silly hat.

It’s finally here, Flash Week! The Flash. The. Best not to even risk someone thinking I mean something else. The Flash is one of the oldest, longest running, and most beloved superheroes of all time. There have been a number of Scarlet Speedsters over the years, one for each “age” of comic books. For the week I’ll focus on the four guys that have used the moniker, Professor Zoom (Flash 2’s antithesis), why the Flash is arguably the most important character in comics, and finally my review of the Flash’s new TV series. I had to shift everything over one day then I originally planned, my paying job makes watching TV premiers difficult. It’s going to be a big week, so let’s get right to it.

The first Flash was a young man named Jason “Jay” Garrick. Jay was a college student in the 1940s. He had a poor career as a college football player, but a gifted scientific mind. He was a research scientist that fell asleep in his lab. He was exposed to heavy water vapors after falling asleep in his lab. The vapors apparently activated a latent meta-gene (DC’s X-gene that gives mutants their powers), giving him superhuman speed. Jay created a rather simple costume of jeans, a red shirt with a lightning bolt across it, and a tin had with little wings on it. The hat is based on the images of the Roman God Mercury, so it makes more sense than it initially seems.

I think I'd just get queezy watching him
vibrate while standing still.

Jay’s Flash became a founding member of the Justice Society of America, the precursor to the Justice League of America, where he formed a longtime friendship with Alan Scott, the First human Green Lantern. The Flash/Green Lantern friendship is something that their predecessors continued. He spent many years being a hero, before retiring to spend his days with his wife Joan. When duty calls, though, he’s not slow about grabbing his tin hand and racing off again.

Jay’s powers are arguably the weakest of the four main Flashes, but I’ll get into that when I cover Flash 2, Flash 3 and the Speed Force. Despite this, he’s extraordinarily fast. He’s fast enough to intercept bullets, can vibrate his molecules so fast that he can become invisible, and also move others at superhuman speed without giving them super speed whiplash. It’s his vibrating ability that allows him to not wear a mask and yet still maintain a secret identity. It’s explained that when he’s working with a non-superhero he vibrates so fast his features blur. I think a mask would have been easier, but to each their own.

Got a better chance of outrunning it than me.

I’m not well versed in the changes that occurred with the New 52, the DC universe wide reboot, but I do know that they fundimentally altered Jay’s powers. Instead of being a metahuman (again, DC word for Mutant) his powers come from being blessed by Mercury himself. It also better explains why he’d wear the silly tin hat. Seriously, who willingly goes out like that?

Of the four Flashes, Jay has appeared least often in greater DC media. It’s a little counter intuitive, but it’s hard being the First when the Second is the most popular. He usually appears as a older hero, mentor of Flash 2 and such. He had a few episodes in Batman: The Brave and The Bold, an animated TV series that focused mainly on lesser known DC heroes. He’s still an older character, founder of the JSA, and a former mentor of the campier Batman.

He appears in the TV series Young Justice. His one major contribution was helping save his successor Barry Allen from being blown to bits in a superpowered explosion. He’s a happy go lucky character, even joking a few minutes after the nearly deadly situation that his wife “will kill (him) for putting on the tin hat.” His name was dropped in the live action series Smallville, as an alias for that shows main Flash Bart Allen (he’s actually #4). He appears in a few historical centered episodes with the rest of the JSA. His tin hat is kept in a museum of the JSA along with the treasured mementos of his former comrades.

I’m not sure if they have any plans to use Jay in the DC movie universe, but it’ll be interesting to see if they do.

I honestly don’t know enough about Jay to really say if I like or dislike the character. I can say that I respect him as being the original Speedster, and his contribution to comics overall. Like the first racer of a Relay, he provide a strong start for his successors. He’s a good guy. Next time, the Second, most popular Flash, Barry Allen.

Not as cool as the Batman/Superman Bromance, but it's the only one that started a trend.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_%28Jay_Garrick%29

 http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/File:Flash_Jay_Garrick_0040.jpg

 http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/File:Flash_Jay_Garrick_0092.jpg

 http://dcheroesrpg.wikia.com/wiki/File:Alan_scott_e_jay_garrick.jpg