March 31, 2006
Proteus brought the upright beast
When Gen. Edward Bragg nominated Grover Cleveland to be Democratic candidate for president in 1888, he said that the American people loved him most for the enemies he had made. The DC Comics superhero the Flash must therefore set a record for the least-loved long-running character in the four-color world. It's not just that he travels through time with a Cosmic Treadmill; that the original character's death was the capstone on the most baroque storyline in the history of American comics; or that he was played by Dawson's dad on a dreadful t.v. show. It's the bad guys.
Batman faces distorted reflections of his own warped psyche: the researches into the theory and praxis of fear conducted by the Scarecrow; the three-steps-ahead planning of Denny O'Neil's eco-terrorist Ra's al Ghul; the Manichean worldview of Two-Face. Superman, the All-American boy, fights the military-industrial complex personified in the body of evil billionaire (and ex-president) Lex Luthor. Wonder Woman fights the very gods of Mount Olympus. Despite a history dating to 1939, including some lovely, loopy early stories written by Gardner Fox, the Flash's rogues' gallery doesn't measure up. He fights people like sinister violinist the Fiddler, ice-skate wielding villainess the Golden Glider, and Australian menace Captain Boomerang. It denotes a certain lack of seriousness -- or perhaps something in the water at DC -- when the most you can do for a nemesis is a superintelligent gorilla.
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