The death of Barry Allen, The Flash, in Crisis #8 marks the last time a mainstream superhero death meant anything – to us at least, and maybe you feel the same. Maybe you’re sick of everyone from Superman to Colossus coming back to life over and over again. (F@$& you, Jean Grey!!!) But here, in the ten-page scene we share with you today, Marv Wolfman and George Perez kill off the Flash like they mean it. For good. (Or at least for 23 years until the next Crisis thingie brought him back in 2008. Sigh.) And, they do it in a way that makes his death matter.
To say this scene affected us in 1985 would be putting it mildly. It burned an intense trajectory across our 12-year old brain. In fact, we used it to get into Drama Club in 7th grade. For the try-outs, we converted the scene into a monologue for Flash, giving it a ‘dramatic reading.’ We may not have been a great actor, but we could memorize lines like nobody’s business – and had no fear of the stage.
So, yeah, we got the lead in the first school play of 7th grade: a singing role as Rumplestiltskin. Not only did Barry Allen save the universe, he got us a part as a mad dwarf. This cemented our involvement in drama club throughout junior high. Thank you, Flash. Without your noble sacrifice, we would have never played Rumplestiltskin, Gandalf, a crazed serial killer, and a kid who dressed up as a maid to get the girl.
Come to think of it, Flash – if you could use your time powers and erase that last one for us, that’d be swell.
Collector’s Guide:
– From Crisis on Infinite Earths #8; DC Comics, 1985.
– Reprinted in Crisis on Infinite Earths Absolute Edition, 2005.
– Reprinted in Crisis on Infinite Earths Hardcover, 1998. Limited Edition, includes Poster and Slipcase.
– Reprinted in Crisis on Infinite Earths TPB, 2000.
ed2962 said:
Cool! A classic comic book death.
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IMSTILLAKID said:
I’m working on a post which will touch on this briefly as well. As a former Drama Class geek myself, I can certainly appreciate your bit about using it as a monologue! I enjoyed this post!
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Mars Will Send No More said:
Thank you for dropping by and commenting! Let us know when you post, and use our images if they’re helpful. This drama club story gives just one example of how comic books formed the basis for our relation to so many other art forms. How many readers have similar stories? Might make a nice coffee table book topic.
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IMSTILLAKID said:
That’s not a bad idea! I see you’re into comics, check out my comics page at this link:
http://powboombang.wordpress.com/
I created several different blogs under my Imstillakid brand – one for comics, one for horror movies, one for my own personal artwork, and a couple of others including this one. I’m in the research and image collection stage of my comic post I mentioned earlier – probably have it up in a week or so.
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