The Flash: The Silver Age Vol. 2 by John Broome

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This book collects Issues 117-132 of the Flash, but that's barely sufficient to describe the massive amount of imaginative work in here. The Flash is the character who started the Silver Age of Comics because of the utter fantastical imagination applied. While this doesn't have as many firsts in it as the previous book, it does feature the first appearance of Captain Boomerang, the Top, and Abra Kadabra, and most importantly, the first-ever cross-over between the Flash of Earth One to Earth-Two.

The book is too massive to summarize. There's too many great ideas to cover them all.

Some highlights including Captain Boomerang trying to execute the Flash by tying him to a giant boomerang...twice! You have the Top imprisoning the Flash in an atomic grenade. You have a brilliant Flash and Green Lantern team-up. And then an encounter with an interdimensional TV producer whose trying to cause mayhem on Earth in order to create entertainment and won't let the Flash stop them. You have the Flash and Kid Flash travelling back in time to prehistory. The best one is Flash #125 which has aliens planning an invasion in the 23rd century and to accomplish they remove all radiation from the Earth during pre-history. So Kid Flash travels back to pre-history while the Flash runs to the 23rd century. It's massive fun.

The Kid Flash stories are all fun. They're kid wish-fulfillment as he uses his powers to solve crimes and problems in his hometown of Blue Valley, although in addition to his Flash team-up, he battles the Weather Wizard alongside Elongated Man, who also appears in many Flash stories.

Bottom line: if you love imaginative stories filled with fun and amusing uses of superpowers, memorable villains DC is using to this day, this book is for you. It contains the stories that laid the groundwork for the DC Universe.



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