How the Flash saved Comics.

Sups in the good ol' days.
Golden age's are great.

It’s time for a History Lesson. Stop that groaning, History is interesting.

And you know what they say, “Those who don’t learn from History are doomed to repeat it.” It’s true, trust me.

Eobard Thawne, the Reverse-Flash? How did you get in here?

Are you really asking the guy who can race across time and space, as well as vibrate through solid objects, how he got somewhere?

Fair point. I take it you want to help with this?

Indeed. I was a Flash fan before his mortal enemy, and lover of history. Even alternative history. Besides, building hype for him builds hype for me, too.

Alright, let’s get to it. Most of the information I’ll be dispensing was gathered from Stan Lee’s How To Write Comics, which is part how to guide and part history lesson. I recommend it to anyone interested in either bit of subject matter. Now, on with the facts. 1938-1950 approximately marks the Golden Age of Comic Books. During this time we see the first comics being made, as well as the start of some of the big name heroes you all know and may love, like Batman, Superman and Captain America. And for those twelve years, things were pretty good. With things like Captain America punching Hitler’s tiny mustached face on the cover of this first issue, how could it not? But like every Golden Age, this one met it’s untimely end.

I hate red tape.

Between 1950-56 was what equates to a Dark Age. What triggered this was concerned parents, blaming children’s delinquent behavior on popular media, with the violence of comic books being the root cause. I’m from the future and arguments like this still go on. And they are still pretty stupid arguments.  Congress, jumpy at any point in American History, began investigating the problem to see if there was credibility to these claims. In the meantime, sales dwindled as parents stopped flitting the bill for “evil” comic books. They haven’t even come up with bad guys of my caliber yet. Could you imagine what would have happened if those fifties tightwads had had a modern Joker, or Deadpool?

I shudder to think of it. Trying to reverse the plummeting sales of this recent dilemma, the publishers that survived the first runs of bad press banded together and gave the angry people what they wanted. Which, you guessed it, made things really sucky for those of us that love Superheroes. The publishers formed the Comic Magazine Association of America and created the Comics Code Authority. Think of it like the rating system from the Motion Picture Association, but instead of offering a wide variety of material for young children to adults, they scrubbed any sort of violence and horror from comics, and just gave us what is equivalent to a ton of bad G movies.

How can this image fill you with anything but
American pride?

Fewer titles with poorer content didn’t help matters and the comic industry dwindled further. When Archie comics is the best thing you’re allowed to offer, I can’t imagine how anyone could flourish. That was until a few editors at Detective Comics, Inc. came up with a bright idea, to dust off an old hero, The Flash. Rather than have Jay Garrick return to do the hero thing, they decided to create a new character with his own background, style, and quirks who used the same moniker. Sales were encouraging enough for DC to try it again, and again, and again and before you knew it, the Justice League of America was a thing. Which I suppose is both good and bad for guys like me. Great evil makes great good and all that.

The success of DC comics and their return to writing about people in brightly colored costumes dishing out vigilante justice inspired a young(ish, he was 30 something at the time) writer by the name of Stan Lee to team with veteran comic book artist Jack Kriby to do the same thing with an old character by the name of the Human Torch. Yep, the Fantastic Four started the Marvel Universe as we know it today.

Over the years the Comics Code Authority waned in strength until it became virtually non-existent. It was still a thing until the early 2000's, but it had as much real power as the Queen of England after the 1980s. Now, we comic book villains have free reign to do as much evil craziness we want. It’s good to be a villain.

The cover that revived my favorite subject.
Thank you, Flash.

This revival of Comic book heroes and the Superhero as a whole was all thanks to the Flash’s ‘rebirth.’ Sure it could be argued that if they’d started with reviving the Green Lantern or Superman that the result would have been the same, and yet, would it? Had Marvel started out with Hulk or Captain America over Ironman would the Marvel Cinematic Universe be as big as it is today? Why am I asking you? Thawne, would you please check out a parallel world or two and tell me if that’s the case?

Be right back.

Give him a sec... and he’s back.

I’ve got Forty Eight universes where, yes, starting with someone other than Flash had the same result, and Fifty Two where comic books never really recovered and the biggest forms of entertainment are reality TV and bad YA novels like Twilight. See, without comics all fiction suffers.

I think he made up that last part, but there you go. Now you know a little more about comic history, and also a little more about the Flash’s overall importance to the genre. I hope this has been an informative and fun jaunt down memory lane.

If you need me, I’m going back to one of those parallel worlds and see if I can get a Flash revival going. AHahaha!

That doesn’t seem too evil.

If I can get comic books to be as big in these alternate worlds as here, I’ll get to enjoy the almost thirty years of Barry Allen death a dozen times over! Sounds pretty evil to me.

You’ll be bored out of your skull Thawne! Whatever, I’m talking to a fictional supervillain, probably time to end this one. Next time, my review of The Flash, airing on Tuesday, October 7^th. Here’s hoping it’s awesome.

 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comics_Code_Authority
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comics_Code_Authority
 http://marvel.wikia.com/Captain_America:_The_Classic_Years_TPB_Vol_1_1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_%28Barry_Allen%29#mediaviewer/File:Showcase4.JPG