[Dr Kain]

I made a great achievement last night. I read the final issue in the Silver Age Flash Omnibus, which means I have now read an entire comic era of a character. It was wonderful. The entire era of Flash was nothing but pure joy. It might not have been as story driven as the Marvel comics I have read from that era, but it was still a blast to read through. Sure, not every issue was great, as there were a couple of stinkers sprinkled throughout, especially this one chunk of issues after John Broome took a break (or something) and the artwork got weird. The inks didn't look anything like Giella's inks and Flash's proportions got chunkier while his lightning logo went across his chest horizontally instead of vertically, so that was annoying.

I love the two parter issue when he fought the Samuroids though because it was so bad with how they had the Japanese characters speak. The story itself was interesting, but damn. Some of my other favorites include the first appearance of Captain Boomerang, the one where Captain Cold and Heatwave first teamed up and they caused their own defeat, the formation of the Rogues, this one horror tale where Flash helps a possessed woman, a lot of the Mirror Master stories were great, and of course, the first team up with Jay.

On the other hand, there were stories like these 3 bumbling idiots who accidentally turn their car into a bouncing ball and this one story where Barry thinks he failed to save Central City from being nuked only to have to help out this lady whose scientist is . Those ones did nothing for me. Another oddity is that a lot of the stories in the last quarter of the book have none of Flash's rogues involved. There's a Captain Cold story and an Abra Kadabra one, but other than that, the last like 20 issues are set against regular criminals or aliens. The formation of the Rogues story is the last one to feature the Top, Captain Boomerang, and Mirror Master. I'm not sure if it was due to them just having run out of ideas (hell, Captain Cold suddenly becomes obsessed with getting a girlfriend halfway through this era), but it took me by surprise.

Regardless, I highly enjoyed spending the last 2 and a half months reading this era of Flash and I hope DC doesn't take too much longer to bring out the first volume to the Bronze Age so I can continue my read through of Barry's run before Crisis.