Ending With Iris

Over at Silver Age Gold, there's a post on what a bee-yatch Iris West (later Iris Allen) could be. As I mentioned in the comments, that's true on one level. But if you look at it from the writer's viewpoint, she's a perfect comedic foil for Barry. She thinks he's the slowest man on Earth, while we know (from the cover) that he's secretly the fastest man alive. I noted that this gave the writer a nice little ending for his story.

How common was this ending? I was surprised when I looked.

In Flash #105 the first story is Conqueror from 8 Million BC; here's the ending panel:

The second story is the Master of Mirrors. It too features an Iris finale:

The typical setting is Barry and Iris having dinner at a restaurant, so I won't keep posting those.
In Flash #106, the ending to the first features Barry and Iris at the zoo; the ending to the second has them at Iris' apartment. Flash #107? The opening story ends with Barry alone at home, but the second story ends with the Flash visiting Iris at her office. In Flash #108, the opening story ends with Iris and Barry eating a picnic lunch in the park, while the backup tale has them at a restaurant. In Flash #109, the ending of the opening story shows Iris angrily checking her watch, as Barry is late for another date. The closing to the second story does not feature Iris at all.

In Flash #110, Barry screws up and the Flash arrives for a date with Iris:

The second story is the first Kid Flash tale, but it too has an Iris ending.

The ending to Flash #111's opening tale has Barry getting a rival for Iris' affections:

More on Dr. Summers later. The second story in this issue is a solo Kid Flash tale, so Iris is not featured at all.

Flash #112 has the introduction of the Elongated Man, and ends with the Ductile Detective and the fastest man alive at a banquet, shaking hands as only superheroes can do:

But in fact the panel before shows her introducing the two heroes to the attendees at the banquet. The second story again doesn't count as it stars Kid Flash.

Flash #113 has two stories, both ending with Iris. Here's the first:

And in the second, Barry reclaims his woman from the wiles of Dr Summers:

In Flash #114 Captain Cold gets the, err, hots for Iris, but the first story ends with her and Barry, and the second is another Kid Flash tale.

So putting it all together, in the first 10 issues of Flash, there were 20 stories. Three of those were Kid Flash solo tales and therefore I'll deduct those from the total leaving 17. Fifteen of those stories, or 88% of the total, ended with Iris. And it's not like it stopped, from 115-120 Iris only missed the denouement of one Flash solo story.

So it appears obvious that Julius Schwartz and John Broome approached Iris as essentially a character who told us the story was over. That's not to say that she didn't have some significant scenes early in comics, but in a lot of cases that was to establish the basis for the final conversation between Barry and Iris.

How does that compare with some of the other DC girlfriends? I'll try to take a look at it in the near future.

Update: I meant to mention as well that closing a story with a domestic scene like those is a very common practice. For example, every episode of Welcome Back, Kotter, would end with Kotter telling his wife a joke about one of his uncles, just as every episode of Hill Street Blues would conclude with Daniel J. Travanti and Veronica Hamel sharing a quiet moment together.

Single Issue Review: Flash #156

These panels set the stage:



I love that little gag in the opening panel. Of course, the representatives are unconvinced until the alien demonstrates his powers, by turning everything in the room to gold. Somehow the representatives manage to restrain themselves from grabbing up everything in sight long enough to put out a call for the Flash. But he refuses to turn himself in.

The alien reveals that Barry Allen is the Flash in an effort to assist the authorities in their effort to capture him. Well, of course we pretty much assume that somehow now everybody will forget that Barry Allen is the Flash, so it creates an interesting puzzle for the reader: How do they get him out of this one?

At this point I'm thinking that the alien must not be who he appears to be; the most obvious candidates are Professor Zoom and Abra Cadabra. Since they are from the future they would know the Flash's secret identity. The turning the room into gold looks like a magic trick, which says it must be the latter.

Well, it made sense, but in fact the story is quickly revealed to be quite different. The alien is part of a group of tyrant aristocrats who have been defeated in a battle by their former serfs. They realize where they went wrong in the crucial moment, and plan to go back in time using the Flash and rectify that mistake.

They initially tried to take over Flash's mind, and came close. But he realized that their mind control only worked on him when he was traveling at very high speeds. So he had to slow down enough to prevent the mind control from working, while still going fast enough to accomplish his goal of creating a machine to defeat the mind control mechanism.

But now the alien's time limit is running out:



Wow. That is characterization done right! Kid Flash comes through:



So that Barry can use his full super-speed to foil the plot of the tyrants. But there remains the problem of everybody on Earth knowing Flash's secret identity.



Double wow. As you can probably guess, Iris gives her consent and the Flash eliminates the memory of his identity being revealed to everybody on the planet. As I covered in the past, Barry doesn't quite live up to his promise, but in another way he does.

Comments: A terrific story, absolutely a classic. Wonderful characterization in this story for Barry, Wally, and Iris. The usual superior artwork from Infantino combines perfectly with John Broome's fascinating script.

Weddings Bells Are Breaking Up That Old Gang of Mine...

Initially, almost all superheroes were single. This is quite common in fiction as it allows for additional storytelling elements like romance and physical attraction.

But the negatives of not being married became apparent when Dr Wertham published Seduction of the Innocent, with its implication of gay themes in Batman's relationship with Robin. So when the Silver Age started, many of the new DC heroes had longterm girlfriends. Ray Palmer had Jean Loring, Barry Allen had Iris West, Hal Jordan had Carol Ferris (more or less; she was mostly interested in Green Lantern). Hawkman and Hawkgirl broke new ground for the Silver Age; they were a married couple right from the beginning.

Aquaman did not have a girlfriend in his Silver Age debut, but he rectified that situation with Aquaman #11, when Mera debuted:



When she returns in Aquaman #13, the Sea Sleuth is not shy about expressing his feelings:



Nor is she timid about pushing matters forward a bit:



And for once there was no extended engagement:



I believe that Aquaman and Mera were the first superhero couple to get married in a comic book; as noted earlier Hawkman and Hawkgirl were married when they first appeared in the Silver Age and the Elongated Man and Sue Dibney were married just prior to their appearance in Detective #327.

However, they were not the only couple to wed during the 1960s. Reed Richards and Sue Storm tied the knot in the pages of Fantastic Four Annual #3 (1965):



The final major wedding of the decade was announced rather tastefully:



In two of the stories, there was a usurper to the groom. The Flash's mortal enemy, Professor Zoom attempted to marry Iris in Barry's place as shown here:



And in the Aquaman story, Oceanus kidnaps Mera and attempts to make her his bride. Oddly, there is no similar effort by the Submariner to prevent Sue Storm from marrying Reed Richards.

Why so many weddings in the mid-1960s after none before? I suspect that the comics writers were taking their cue from TV shows, which had discovered around the time that a marriage (and/or a new baby) gave sagging programs renewed ratings.

Update: Turns out there was another wedding which the baddies tried and failed to break up.



And there actually was one wedding that failed to come off due to the actions of the villains; in Hulk 124 Bruce Banner and Betty Ross were standing at the altar when the Leader's ray transformed Bruce back into the Hulk: