A Book By It's Cover

As the title of this post implies, I am going against an old cliche and selecting a back issue to read based solely on it’s cover.

The Flash #203 (1959 series) caught my eye when flipping through our back issue bins. The left side of the cover uses a photo background where the buildings and people have a filter applied to them which makes them look almost as if they were drawn. The Flash and half of Iris Allen are then drawn over the photo background. The contrast between the drawings and the real people and buildings makes for an interesting sight. The right side is completely drawn and is noticeably full of bright colors. This section is meant to represent the future so using a brighter color palette was a good choice. The combination of these two sides really captures the eye and makes you interested in what’s happening. Add in that Iris is trying to escape to the future, because she says that is where she belongs (WHAT!), and you have quite a cover! That’s why I picked it guys!

Enough of my art critique, how is the story? This tale, entitled “The Flash’s Wife is a Two-Timer”, is classic silver age storytelling and I really enjoyed it. The basic plot is that Iris, The Flash’s wife, discovers a locket that tells her she is from the future. Much like superman, her world was doomed and her parents sent her back in time so that she could be safe. The locket then causes her to be transported back to the future, but not before leaving a note saying she was being pulled 1,000 years into the future. I’m not entirely sure how she was able to calculate this, but luckily she did. The Flash arrives and finds the note and is alarmed. He then uses the time treadmill to travel into the future to get her back. Like most futures, everything has gone to hell. Water is being rationed, everyone lives in a weird cylinder and the country of Laos is in charge of Earth! The situation gets worse when The Flash has to battle Sirik the Supreme in order to bring Iris back to the present! Yikes, the future is a terrible place guys!

There is also a part in the beginning where Superman gives The Flash some guff about not being an alien. If I was The Flash I would have rolled my eyes, at a normal human rate. Superman would know that I purposely slowed myself down, so he could see my eye roll at his whiny cry baby speech. Superman is typically a jerk in any comic book during the sixties and seventies and he deserves this treatment.

It looks like that judging a book by it’s cover turned out to be a success this time. I encourage you to stop in the store and find some comic covers you enjoy. There may be an awesome story that you never have read before right behind those covers. We have a huge selection of back issues, so you have plenty to choose from.

That’s all for this week guys! As always, if you have any questions or comments then please feel free to direct them at uglystupidugly@gmail.com. We also have a discussion board on our Facebook page with a special section devoted to this blog. I want to hear from you people, so please feel free to contact me.

Until next time!

-Action Chad