The comparative religion scholar
Joseph Campbell famously said, “The latest incarnation of Oedipus, the continued
romance of Beauty and the Beast, stand this afternoon on the corner of 42nd
Street and Fifth Avenue, waiting for the traffic light to change.”
That being the case, I suppose no
one should have been surprised to find the latest incarnation of Hermes zipping
around a comic book in January 1940, complete with winged petasos.
Created by writer Gardner Fox and
artist Harry Lampert, the Flash was among the first of the shtick superheroes.
In just two years, Superman,
Captain Marvel and their various copycats had already covered the ground of the
all-purpose superhero who wielded an array of powers. By 1940, to get ahead, a
super being had to have a gimmick. So The Human Torch burned and the Submariner
swam, Hawkman could fly, Doll Man could shrink, Wonder Woman could be female and
the Flash could run really, really fast.
College student Jay Garrick was
one of only three characters who became a superhero by smoking, by the way. In
a chem lab, while breaking football training with a cigarette, Jay accidentally
knocked over some beakers and further polluted his lungs by breathing in the
fumes that turned him into the Flash.
As wish fulfillment, speed rated
high with kids. Speed, fueled by their boundless energy, was after all the one
area where children could outdistance the somewhat worn-out adults who talked
down to them, punished them and generally looked after them. But just think
what you might do with some real
speed…
Artistic restriction can often be
the parent of creativity, and the decade of the Flash’s initial run gave the
writers plenty of time to come up with satisfying variations on the theme of
speed. The Flash could run up the sides of buildings and across water. He could
catch bullets, vibrate through walls, create multiple images of himself and become
invisible. His one power turned out
to make him nearly as omnipotent as Superman’s many. The popular character
raced around in Flash Comics, All-Flash
(a title devoted to his adventures), Comic
Cavalcade and All-Star Comics
with his fellow members of the Justice Society of America.
The feature was initially marred
by crude art, and the early adventures of this seminal superhero are difficult
to enjoy for that reason. But by All-Flash
31 (Oct.-Nov. 1947), an artist named Carmine Infantino had arrived to make the
Scarlet Speedster’s adventures a pure pleasure. Infantino would carry the
character, in his second and even more successful incarnation, right through
the 1950s and 1960s.
I’m sure, dear reader, that you already
recall the other two characters who
got their super powers from smoking. But at the risk of appearing pedantic, I
will remind you of them. In 1963, the Japanese robot superhero 8 Man restored
his powers with “energy cigarettes” carried in a cigarette case on his belt.
And in June 1974, Daily Planet editor Perry White acquired Superman-like powers
from some cigars given to him by grateful alien mutants.
No comments:
Post a Comment