The Golden Age Comic Blog (Hawkman page 32)

[John Moores]

Can you hit us with #14 for now, as hopefully, I'll be going back and filling in the gaps?

[SDcomics]

Can you hit us with #14 for now, as hopefully, I'll be going back and filling in the gaps?

Sure thing.

[John Moores]

On to Flash Comics #16, and Jay is blackjacked, and Joan kidnapped at the docks, as they bid goodbye to their friend Jim Dane, who is travelling to South America to mine for silver. It's the work of rebel / stereotype Jose Salvez, who wants the silver for himself of course, but who soon runs afoul of the Scarlet Speedster, who, after locating Joan and reassuring her, starts pranking the bandido - pulling his moustaches etc. Jay is never a vindictive sort, after all, more a trickster type. After Jim is kidnapped too, he and Joan are put in the bull ring, but of course Flash appears in time to dizzy the bull and save his friends. After another bout of Flash-pranks, Salvez vows to go straight - and to remove his mustachios! Eventually Jay and Joan read in the 'paper that he has replaced the rather incompetent local sherriff; a move Salvez attributes to his fear of the Flash. Ay yi yi!

Interestingly, in this issue, Jim doesn't recognise The Flash as Jay. Is Jim blind, stupid or is this an unspoken first appearance of the Flash vibrating his face to appear unrecognised? Since Jim doesn't seem to be a dummy, I'll go with the latter. And finally, Jay is taking a little more care with his secret identity...

[John Moores]

Flash's good nature shows itself once again in #17, as a crooked baseball team owner is given a chance to go straight rather than jailed. Mobster Black Ben Bogue, an associate of the owner, however, is not so lucky; he gets the regular, prankish Flash treatment. We also see Joan attempt a half-hearted secret identity protection; by claiming "Jay is almost as fast as the famous Flash!" What's it all about? A baseball team who are ordered to throw games becaue their owner has bet on the other team; of course Jay signs up for the team, wows them and hits the pitch.

Jay's a bit of a baseball buff; at the beginning of the story we see him playing a game by himself, taking the roles of a whole team. Joan is in detective mode; she knows the crooked owner, and at dinner at a restaurant, charms him for information while a jealous Jay pulls invisible tricks on him. Flash also pulls a cool super-speed trick by dismantling a gun pointed at him in seconds. Nice!


In #18, we meet yet another friend of Joan's - Brenda (Joan and Jay are the most popular people in town!), who inherited some restaurants from his father, but is now trying to keep the afloat in the face of a protection racket. Jay doesn't seem too concerned, but soon gets nagged (yes!) good naturedly into helping Brenda. Arriving at a restaurant already being visited by mobsters, he soon starts a somewhat one-sided slapstick cake fight, causing the crooks to retreat. We meet Brenda's business manager, Mr Devries, and Flash goes on the trail of the mysterious boss, Morgan. Jay initiates another food fight and forces the crooks to eat far too much food, but it all turns serious when it's discovered that Devries has been murdered and burned to death.

Psyche!, since Devries IS the mysterious Morgan, having faked his own death. Joan nearly blows Flash's seret identity in front of Brenda, and Brenda herself falls for the Flash. Women!

Of course, Devries / Morgan's attempt at playing both ends in the middle is foiled, and all is well once more.

[SDcomics]

[John Moores]

#19 features an old faithful plot - the accident / insurance fakers; Jay is plunged into it when a man claims to be injured after Garrick "hits" him with his car on his way to meet Joan. Jay's pal, a lawyer, explains the scam to him and soon the Flash is hurtling toward the hospital and the so-called injured party, who is being briefed by a lawyer. After dispensing a little super-speed justice to the faker, Flash tracks down the mastermind, the wonderfully-named Gypper Zilich, and strongarms him into giving Flash a list of places where his hirelings are going to initiate some more insurance scams. Soon Flash is doing his thing again at each venue - such as restaurant - giving out with some prankish Flash type justice, and depositing each conman or woman (including a dude who looks a little like Charles McNider's older brother; blond hair, shades, sharp-ish features) at Zilich's office.

Then he summons the police, impatiently helping them on their way at speed and burning up the tyres so that the confidence ring don't get away! Then it's back home, where Jay receives a call from his pal informing him that the Flash has bought the whole ring to book. Jay is clearly learning the benefits of a secret identity by this point.

In-joke corner: The guy who tries to scam Jay at the outset of the story is named "Hubbard"; just one vowel away from the name of Flash's artist, E. E. Hibbard.
Was Gardner Fox having a laugh at his colleague's expense? Who knows, at this late
date?

[Rod Keith]

Alright, I'm going to make the commitment to read along with this. One issue a day or two isn't too much to ask, is it?

[John Moores]

I shouldn't think so.

[John Moores]

Flash #20!

Joan mistakenly buys a utilities company at auction(!) by talking at the wrong time. It's only two dollars, so she says "what the hey!" and goes along to look at it, accompanied by Jay, of course. The previous owner, Jim Coleman, hands over the keys then leaves. Turns out his own uncle has gypped him out of everything, and so Jim attempts suicide, but is, of course, saved by the Scarlet Speedster. After dealing with some roughnecks hired by the unscrupulous uncle in Jay's typically tricksterish way, The Flash attempts to talk the crooked old man into helping his nephew. After some more super-speed persuasion of the irritating kind, the uncle sees the light and reforms. The roughnecks get honest jobs there, and Joan hands the keys back over to Jim. A typically Flash-y result, since Jay is always probably the most kind hearted mystery man of the 1940s; he'll never jail someone while there's a chance they'll reform, and never beat someone up when he can have a little super-speed fun at their expense.

The story ends with Jay and Joan hitting another auction, and this time, Joan accidentally buying... a stuffed whale. Exit an exasperated Jay!

[Hyperion]

Talk about kind-hearted!  Nowadays Joan would have had to contend with a bidding war by Stagg International, LuthorCorp and WayneTech to purchase that company 'accidentally' at auction for $2 billion and Jay would have to turn it over into a company set up to secretly bankroll the JSA.


Ahhh, for the good ole days when you could pick up anything for pennies at auction...

[SDcomics]

[John Moores]

I think Flash has the most fun yet in #21. Waiting for Joan to finish at her sorority meeting, Jay is about to take in a movie but instead finds the results of a prize draw Joan had taken part in. She could win a grand but she has to claim it within three minutes - of course, it's a scam. Equally transparent, though, is the fact that Jay rushes off to retrieve Joan, and has her on the stage collecting the $1000 bill within the time limit. Of course, the crooked manager palms it and gives her a counterfeit. Again Jay comes to her rescue, and then two thugs attempt to mug her outside. From here on in, Jay goes to town - pranking the thugs in their car...

Following the two thugs on their next assignment, Flash breaks up another racket of their boss, collecting the profits from a crooked carnival, outfoxing the "which shell is the pea under" guy and then taking his place, then making the haunted house ride a little more scary by posing as the Devil, scaring the original two thugs into reforming; finally he spins a carousel round so fast with the boss and his remaining hirelings, there to remonstrate with his ex-thugs, on that they take an unscheduled flight. He even makes sure the picture house gets a new, honest manager. A good day's work!

[John Moores]

#22 features some stereotypes all right; set in the old standby, the mysterious Chinatown, there's a few references to "slanted" eyes and the like too. There's also a furthering of a subtheme of these stories - Joan thinking she can hack the superhero stuff herself. Here, she's rescued in Chinatown from some Chinese thugs by Flash. She explains what she was doing there: she visited her doctor about headaches, who referred her to a specialist, Jan Vordyce. As she left his building, she noticed him accompanied by some Chinese men. Following them - because as the female lead in a Golden Age comic, it's her job to get into trouble - she soon found herself out of her depth, which is where we came in.

Jay visits Chinatown, and its wisest citizen, the Honourable Kai Fu, who tells of Kong, the leader of a tong of criminals, and who is also Kai Fu's half occidental, half oriental son. Flash visits this tong, which "worships" an idol wonderfully named Gorm, and sees that Dr Vordyce is in fact forced into performing surgery on regular American thugs, wanted by the authorities, making them appear Asian. That done, the thugs perpetuate a crime wave, safely unidentifiable, but Flash rescues Vordyce.

Kai Fu is killed that night, and Joan, who introduced Jay to Kai Fu, gets herself into more trouble, not knowing that the Faux-Asian crooks are on the lookout for her; she steps right into a restaurant, and is soon captured by Kong, and is about to be beheaded when Flash arrives in the nick of time and rescues her; defeating Kong and his crew, revealing the Tong leader as none other than Vordyce, who has merely been disguising himself as an Asian man to throw the law off the scent. Alls well that ends well, and Flash races off with Joan into the night.

[Marv-El]

Those Chinese. They're inscrutable, y'know.

[John Moores]

No ethnic stereotypes in #23, but we do get another old friend of Jay's, Jim Sewell, who owns some shoe-stores. Some time ago Sewell refused to sell out to the wonderfully named Leffington Funk, who was once a racketeer before becoming "honest". In revenge, Funk makes Sewell rich via inheritence - as part of plot to build up Sewell and his wife before knocking them down after they've spent a lot of cash by producing an actual heir with the same name.

Sewell turns snobby too, but worse, Funk can't wait to see him get his "just desserts", and so sends some thugs to initiate an attack on him - which is, of course, where the Flash comes in.

Foiling Funk's plans, including the recruiting of "Ape" Onslow, mobster, to wreck the Sewell stores, Jay is Johnny-On-The-Spot despite Sewell's uncharacteristic "new money" arrogrance; until Funk finally brings in another Jim Sewell to claim the inheritence. However, this Sewell is a relative, and so Onslow appears to kill both of them to tie up the loose ends. Flash takes in the whole bunch in his usual tricksterish way, including Funk, and Sewell donates the money to worthy causes and gets back to honest toil. Yes, Flash does it again.

In the introductory blurb, Jay is noted as being "swifter than the speed of light", for those keeping score. Also, Joan makes an appearance in this issue.

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