The recent release of on-site photos of The Flash's costume during filming of the new Flash TV show on the CW have generated some comments about the somewhat unflattering costume, making comparisons to Flash's unfortunate encounter with being turned into a puppet, which produced one of the best covers of the Silver Age, in my opinion.
Thanks to My Pal Hoy alerting me to those pix, they also inspired me to post this overview of Flash's most amazing power from the Ask Mr. Silver age column from CBG #1604 (May 2005):
Flash’s amazing molecules!
Super-speed is nice, but nothing beats having
complete control over all of your atoms!
Dear Mr. Silver Age:
I think Barry Allen’s super-speed was such a great super power! Can you think of a better one?
Pietro M.
Wundagore Mountain
Mr. Silver Age says: I change my mind frequently on which super-power would be the best, Pie. Near the top of the list certainly is the ability to stop time, as super-speed provides in a way—except I have to type, talk, write or stand in lines at much slower speeds, so it’s not as handy for making deadlines or grocery shopping as I’d like. On the other hand, I could stand in many lines at once by zipping back and forth faster than the eye could see, so that’d be a help.
But in fact, I think Barry (The Flash) Allen had a much cooler super power than simply being able to move really, really fast: He had complete control over every molecule in his body!
To be sure, Barry had many super powers that usually aren’t mentioned. His aura, of course, often was noted as protecting him from friction and fire, and that’s a cool power on its own.
But Barry was nearly invulnerable in another way, too. After all, running around the world, whether it takes six months or a sixth of a second, requires a lot of steps. To do it that fast meant The Flash had nearly invulnerable hip, knee and ankle joints. And while he couldn’t fly, his ability to run over the ocean or run up the sides of buildings in a blink of an eye was nearly as good.
Control over his molecules was said to allow him to vibrate through solid objects, which he used frequently to escape traps. Being able to walk through solid objects would be almost as cool as super-speed itself, especially when I lock myself out of my car.
But being able to turn off the electrical charge between molecules so you can slide your molecules past another object’s molecules is only one part of having complete control over them.
The Scarlet Speedster’s most famous uses of his molecular mastery came one on top of the other fairly early in his career. The first occurred when he performed a magic trick for a theater full of kids in Flash #123 (Sep 61). He climbed a rope and disappeared!
But rather than simply climbing down the rope and running away at invisible super-speed, he had vibrated his molecules to hide himself—and vibrated right on over to another world, called Earth-Two.
After meeting Jay Garrick and pounding on a few Earth-Two villains, he vibrated back to his own mis-numbered Earth. That little meeting of the molecules led to all kinds of Crises for him and his JLA buddies for many years to come.
A mere two issues later, Flash created his most useful gadget, The Cosmic Treadmill. It allowed him to control where in time he ran to, running one direction to go into the future and in the other to head to the past.
While in those other times, he had to maintain his internal molecular vibrations at the properly attuned frequency. If his molecules stopped vibrating, he returned to his own time.
The Treadmill proved useful on many occasions—as did the ability to return from a time when there was no treadmill by simply stopping all that molecular vibrating
But Flash had even more molecular mastery than simply vibrating really fast.
An example of that complete control can be seen in The Flash #133 (Dec 62), when Abra Kadabra used that amazing 64th-century science to turn The Flash into, um, a puppet.
The scene of his puppet-turning is right there on the cover, in one of my all-time favorite images. Because not only does Abra turn Flash into a life-size, jointed, wooden marionette, he does it through a two-dimensional poster image of himself! I can’t wait for 64th century scientists to explain that one!
The scene also includes one of the most hilariously redundant and understated lines of dialogue in The Silver Age: “I have the strangest feeling I’m being turned into a puppet,” The Flash mused. And don’t we all know that feeling? That image and dialogue combined to create one of my favorite Silver Age covers (as I listed in CBG #1603).
Abra quickly strung up his foe and made him perform various activities before putting him into his puppet show, where he was kicked around by Captain Creampuff.
Fortunately, as The Flash took it on the chin (literally) on the stage, he realized that he had “perfect control over all the atoms and molecules of my body, including my brain!” Editor Julius Schwartz’s helpful caption explained, “The freak accident which gave Flash super-speed also endowed him with this amazing secondary capacity!”
Amazing, indeed! It’s interesting that Julie realized that this power really had nothing to do intrinsically with super-speed. But it sure did help out on occasion.
That was certainly the case this time, as The Flash focused on his brain and shot its spare molecules down into his uniform, making it fill out enough to give him control of his body again so he could pound on Abra and reverse the marionette magic…I mean, science. To punch out Abra’s lights, of course, The Flash had to focus all of his spare molecules into his fist.
No wonder The Scarlet Speedster was such a cool super-hero. He not only had super-speed and perfect control of his molecules, but he had some spare molecules in his brain! And he knew how to focus all of them wherever he might need them! Is there any wonder why I love The Silver Age?
Even when Barry wasn’t controlling his own molecules, he found ways to make molecules bend to his will. In #135 (Mar 63), he was working with his identically dressed nephew, Wally West, to investigate some alien machines. The Flash touched one and, as Kid Flash ran in to the room, a lightning bolt shot off Flash’s chest to create a new, spiffier costume for Wally.
Barry admitted he’d been considering a new design for Wally’s uniform, and the machine had given him the power of mind over matter, at least long enough to alter Wally’s costume.
Jumping jets! How long would you wear a costume whose molecules had just been rearranged? I’d at least make sure I had on clean underwear. The Fantastic Four’s costumes of unstable molecules had nothing on Wally.
Most heroes might find that this perfect molecular control of their bodies wasn’t all that much of an aid in defeating criminal masterminds, but most heroes aren’t our boy The Scarlet Speedster. This power once again came in mighty handy a few months later in Flash #140 (Nov 63), when Captain Cold and Heat Wave teamed up to bombard Barry with intense heat and cold simultaneously. As a result, one side of his body became frozen, and the other side was on fire.
“But like all true champions, The Flash is at his best in an extremity!” the caption told us. He simply turned all of the molecules in his body into super-conductors. That allowed the excess heat on his right side to flow over to his left, frozen, side, and vice versa.
Thanks to that control, The Vizier of Velocity could kayo his two rogues in only a page.
CC and HW teamed up to molecularly mess with Flash another time as well, in #193 (Dec 69). To make a long story (as usual) short, the Captain blasted The Vizier of Velocity with his absolute cold gun, which involved “stupendous forces,” he informed us.
In this case, Flash’s extremities—arms, legs and head—were separated from his body, creating what Cold called a “jigsaw puzzle” of flashiness. CC then took the Flash pieces and framed them on his wall!
Not only is that pretty ghoulish, but it leaves the door open to complete the jigsaw puzzle, wouldn’t you say? Fortunately, the captain didn’t receive his rank thanks to his brainpower.
Sure enough, when Heat Wave showed up, he was ticked off that Cold had done the deed by himself. So he blasted Flash’s framed body with his heat gun—which reassembled Flash’s molecules properly. Kids, don’t try this at home!
A few issues after his two rogues had first teamed up against him, Flash used his vibrating molecules not only to escape a trap but used them as a full-fledged weapon against another rogue.
After confronting The Weather Wizard in #145 (Jun 64), The Scarlet Speedster was caught by his foe’s “instant weathering” ability, which somehow coated The Flash with brick dust, immobilizing him (don’t even ask). But as WW gloated, he was smacked upside the head with the dust as it flew off our hero!
The Flash later explained to news hen Iris West that when he saw the pellets flying at him to encase him, he began vibrating internally, which protected him from the pellets. He remained in full control of his movements, so all he had to do was vibrate at ultra-speed to fling the pellets at WW to knock him out. Oookay.
In the very next issue, The Mirror Master tried to take control of all molecules with his mirrors. He created a weapon that allowed him to switch his normal legs with Flash’s speedy legs, thereby allowing him to run circles around our hero.
Fortunately, Flash remembered that, as the caption told us, “every atom of Flash’s amazing body is imbued with super-speed!” In other words, he doesn’t just run fast with his legs, as we all knew, but could move any part of him really fast.
So he ran on his hands quickly around MM to knock him out. It didn’t work, since Mirror Master still had Flash’s feet and could run away, but it showed that a little thing like having half his molecules switched with a bad guy’s own didn’t put The Flash down for the count.
In Flash #152 (May 65), Barry discovered that sometimes he vibrated his molecules a bit too much. When The Trickster shot a barrage of steel needles at him, he vibrated really fast, causing the needles to pass harmlessly through him.
This is the same principle as when a straw passes through a tree trunk during a hurricane when blown fast enough, the caption explained, as it did on many, many occasions. Frankly, I’ve never seen a straw blown through a tree trunk in any hurricane, but I suppose we’ll have to take their word for it that it happens.
Vibrating saved The Flash from instant needle death, but it didn’t help him trap The Trickster. As The Scarlet Speedster ran up to Tricky, he forgot to stop vibrating—and his punch went right through the rogue. “The Monarch of Motion backs up—and this time,” the caption told us, he managed to slow down those darn molecules enough to make contact.
That’s the beauty of being The Fastest Man Alive: If you screw up catching the villain, you can back up and do it again before he can blink his eye, much less move out of the way.
In the next issue, Flash needed that perfect control yet again, when Professor Zoom managed to make it illegal to travel at super speed within Central City (long story).
Thus, when Zoom used his own illegal speed to rob a bank, Flash refused to follow suit and break the law. Instead, he rationalized, the law forbade only traveling at super-speed, it didn’t outlaw vibrating your molecules at super-speed.
So he used that power to vibrate through the floor and away from Zoom to escape from his foe. Once again, the caption explained that “One of Flash’s major accomplishments is that he has absolute control over all the molecules and atoms of his body.”
I didn’t realize it was an accomplishment, but I suppose that since no other speedy person has demonstrated such absolute control, it took some doing to perfect it. We won’t even think about how he practiced. Getting your molecules stuck halfway through a wall has got to sting.
Flash used his perfect molecular control in the opposite way in #164 (Sep 66), when he began giving off destructive vibrations that wrecked everything around him. As he felt the vibrations building up in him the next time to catapult him out onto the street, he put on his costume so no one would recognize him when he vibrated through the wall of his apartment and onto the street.
But then, as he shot down the street, he managed to slow his vibrating molecules enough to ram himself head first into a brick wall, knocking himself out. That stopped his momentum and the vibrations (which also caused the cops to arrest him for vandalism).
The vibrations turned out to be a weapon being used by The Pied Piper, who stupidly revealed his plot to The Flash. That, of course, ended that problem pronto.
Flash’s absolute molecular control was put to good use yet again in #172 (Aug 67) when Gorilla Grodd put him into a bear…er, I mean, a gorilla hug.
Grodd tried to squeeze the life out of The Flash, but all he did was squeeze until he was holding an empty costume. Grodd assumed he’d squeezed Flash out of existence, which shows that even intelligent gorillas aren’t all that intelligent.
Instead, Flash had simply vibrated out of his costume while in the vise-like grip of an incredibly strong gorilla. Now that, my friends, take absolute control of your molecules!
Flash explained that Grodd’s grip held the uniform while allowing him to slip free. He circled around and kayoed Grodd in his Barry Allen suit. Which brings up the question of whether Barry actually wore a suit coat and bow tie beneath his form-fitting Flash costume, or whether he flashed home and got dressed up so he could return and pound on Grodd in style, at least style a la Barry.
Neither of those explanations really gets the job done, so it’s probably best not to think about what really happened after that costume came spurting out of Barry’s ring. Fitting that costume back into the ring after it’d been spit out was a pretty good super-power, too, now that I think of it.
The full extent of Flash’s impressive molecular control was shown off in just a few panels early in #176 (Feb 68). First, he avoided a hail of bullets from a double-barreled shotgun by vibrating so they passed harmlessly through him. Next, he vibrated through the wall to confront the gunman.
Then, he sliced the gun into little bits by vibrating his hand through it, in the same way that a straw can penetrate deep into yadda, yadda, yadda. That was all pretty cut and dried by this point in Flash’s career, of course.
What wasn’t so usual was that after handling this run-of-the-mill crook, Barry had to return to the hospital, where his wife, Iris, was being watched closely because she was having fever-induced hallucinatory dreams that might harm her.
Hoping to end the dreams, Barry changed to Flash and ran so fast he picked out the band in the velocity spectrum that held the Dream Dimension. There, he located Iris’ dreams about The Flash and vibrated his real body at just the right speed to merge with Iris’ dream-Flash to help her escape. Whew!
And that, I’m happy to say, is where we’re shutting down this overview of Flash’s molecular mayhem. Because frankly, if he used his vibratory power to do something even wilder than merge himself into his wife’s dreams, I don’t want to know about it.
Even if we discount that vibrating-into-the-Dream-Dimension stuff, it’s apparent that one of The Silver Age Flash’s most formidable, if perhaps little-appreciated, powers was his complete control over every molecule in his body. Especially those extra brain molecules.
SIDEBAR:The Scarlet Shape-Shifter
For a man with perfect control of his molecules, The Flash certainly wound up having his shape rearranged by a lot of enemies. In addition to Abra Kadabra’s puppeteering and Mirror Master swapping legs, others also played havoc with The Scarlet Speedster’s molecules:
Mirror Master started his molecule-mastery of The Flash early, when he shrunk The Vizier of Velocity to Atom size in The Flash #109 (Nov 59).
The story doesn’t note whether the shrinking involved compressing his molecules or just eliminating some (including, no doubt, those extra ones he carried in his brain). Barry ultimately reversed the mirror process to return to normal.
In “The Day Flash Weighed 1,000 Pounds!” in Flash #115 (Sep 60), Gorilla Grodd used a ray beam to turn our hero into a life-size Weeble (fortunately, his costume could swell to contain his enormous rotundity).
He escaped his fat fate by using a dehydrator, since the 800 extra pounds were all water weight. That’s what I always claim, too!
During his first-ever team-up with his future bud in Green Lantern #13 (Jun 62), Flash had to elude The Emerald Gladiator, who was mind-controlled (long story). He managed to do it (those yellow beach umbrellas do come in handy) until GL power-ringed Flash and swelled the upper half of his body.
That made Flash top-heavy and too slow to avoid GL. Too bad Flash didn’t think to shoot some of those extra molecules down to his legs to balance things out!
When Flash became “The Heaviest Man Alive!” in Flash #132 (Nov 62), his body stayed as slim as usual, so apparently his existing molecules just gained more mass.
The villain made him so heavy that Flash broke through the sidewalk. Fortunately, he figured a way out and kayoed his foe anyway.
The Flash had some more big-head fun in #177 (Mar 68), when The Trickster managed to make The Scarlet Speedster’s head swell up like a balloon. Rather than make him super-smart (as would’ve happened to Superman, trust me), Flash’s oversized noggin gave him headaches, especially when Tricky bounced some spitballs off it.
The Trickster explained that Flash’s head would continue to swell until it burst like the aforementioned balloon, a neat physiological trick to be sure.
Again this time, Flash used the original ray machine to eliminate his big head rather than shift his molecules around. Even so, it’s got to be nice to know you’ve got an emergency escape plan in your scarlet back pocket when your molecules go haywire.
SIDEBAR: Molecular mayhem with The JLA
The Flash didn’t get a respite from his molecular mayhem even when he hung out with his JLA compatriots.
In JLA #25 (Feb 64), Flash (along with the rest of the team) had his molecules torn apart by an alien de-adhesion beam. Fortunately, The Atom’s molecules have been treated with emanations from his white-dwarf star (don’t ask), so he wasn’t vaporized.
He used GL’s ring, which conveniently fell off Hal’s finger rather than disappear, to return the heroes’ atoms, but he was too weak to get it all right.
So Flash’s upper-body molecules were attached to GL’s legs, while Flash’s legs (which Mirror Master would covet only a few months later) went to Superman.
Thankfully, avoiding lots of reader giggles, The Atom focused closely (I'll bet) and kept all of Wonder Woman’s atoms in one place, and she later managed to rearrange everyone else.
Flash had another molecular mishap hit him in JLA #36 (Jun 65) when the team was ambushed by Brain Storm.
Paralleling kids in the local hospital they’d just visited, the heroes were struck with various disabilities: Hawkman got asthma, Green Arrow became armless, Superman went blind and GL stuttered. And Flash? Flash had his molecules rearranged so both of his legs were joined into one.
Sadly, he apparently forgot he had complete control over every molecule in his body, but the one-legged speedster joined the rest of his handicapped teammates in pounding BS anyway.
Flash's molecular-mastery memory loss wasn't that surprising, as many members of the JLA seemed to become a little dimmer when they teamed up, requiring more help to defeat a challenge than might have been necessary in their own titles.
It wasn't quite as bad as later incarnations of the team, where they seemed to have trouble completing a crossword puzzle without Batman's help.But it did make it clear that even the Master of Molecules got by with a little help from his friends.
-- MSA
Replies
Which brings up the question of whether Barry actually wore a suit coat and bow tie beneath his form-fitting Flash costume, or whether he flashed home and got dressed up so he could return and pound on Grodd in style, at least style a la Barry.
Neither of those explanations really gets the job done, so it’s probably best not to think about what really happened after that costume came spurting out of Barry’s ring. Fitting that costume back into the ring after it’d been spit out was a pretty good super-power, too, now that I think of it.
Thinking back without looking it up, I think they explained somewhere that his Flash costume somehow super-compressed his civilian clothes and yet allowed them to remain unwrinkled. The ring, IIRC, had some kind of enlarging gas when the costume was needed followed by shrinking gas when it was time to put it away. I don't think they ever explained how he came up with that. I think the aura was an early retcon (like Superman's baby blankets) to explain why he and his costume didn't burn up.
Hoping to end the dreams, Barry changed to Flash and ran so fast he picked out the band in the velocity spectrum that held the Dream Dimension. There, he located Iris’ dreams about The Flash and vibrated his real body at just the right speed to merge with Iris’ dream-Flash to help her escape.
Barry could have gotten a nasty surprise if she wasn't dreaming about him! Was this before or after he belatedly informed his wife that he was the Flash?
Reading about Barry shooting out excess molecules and being shattered to pieces only reinforces the theory that he was no longer human. It's just not natural! ;-)
Actually, Ray Palmer wore his Atom suit over his street clothes as well--how did these guys not sweat to death while exerting themselves in the summer? For that matter, how did two layers of constricted clothing not hamper their freedom of movement?
It's some of those things we weren't supposed to really think about. Ray shrinking down and instantly becoming the Atom is a cool picture, but it doesn't really stand up. Whereas Barry, who did so many things faster than the eye could see, had no use for a magical ring, but it looked neat to see it open and have that uniform expanding. We never did see it shrinking down to go back in.
But even then, I questioned the dye that squirted out to color Wally's hair each time, no matter where the ring was when he pressed it. That made no sense to me, and I accepted that 64th century science could turn Barry into a puppet! Just put on a cowl already!
-- MSA
Ray's outfit became intangible and invisible when he grew to full size. So maybe his civies became intangible and invisible when he shrank. By the rules set out in the comics, I would have thought that his civilian clothes would explode--unless they were made of the same white dwarf star matter as his costume.
In the '90s, in flashback stories, they showed Ray at full height in his costume. If I give them credit for intelligence and not retconning the rules of his suit, then I must assume that Ray had two costumes--one for full height and one for shrinking--which he wore at the same time.
It was weird that, at all the JLA meetings, Ray remained tiny, while all his friends towered over him. He could have just grown to full height, so they wouldn't look down on him. But having him appear small next to the other guys made for better pictures.
Since Barry had an aura that protected him against friction, his costume probably adhered to his body. The fabric under his costume, would have been compressed to become much thinner than fabric when it's loose. Since he was resistant to any heat, I doubt that he would have felt warm (even though pressure increases temperature).
He had an incredibly flexible body.
You'd think Wally would have been able to change the color of his hair by altering the vibrations of its molecules to reflect a different frequency of the spectrum...Of course, then he'd go back to being a redhead whenever he was knocked out.
Mr. Silver Age said:
Great column, Mr. SA! Barry's absolute control over his molecules later got him out of a jam in the first Flash cliffhanger I ever read, when The Molder (a briefly villainous Elongated Man with new powers) managed to turn him into a melted glob of flesh. Flash used his molecule mastery to fashion a little lightning bolt out of his body in his last moments of consciousness, a signal to Iris to zap him with electricity. The next issue she did just that, and ZZAP!, he was back in action!