Before I start today’s column, let me apologize for the hiatus, let’s just say I was trapped in the Speed Force. Speaking of, I’m coming up on the first anniversary of doing these Secret Origins columns, and my first subject ever was The Flash. While the column has evolved a bit since then, I thought for a (near) one year anniversary, I’d revisit the Flash family with the guy who started it all. So hold on to your silver, wing-tipped hats for the Secret Origin of Jay Garrick, The Golden Age Flash!
Our story begins at Midwestern University, an Ivy league school if ever I’ve heard of one. “Unknown” student Jay Garrick is trying to get a date with the lovely Joan Williams. Luck isn’t on Jay’s side though. Joan refuses to go out with our hero, because he has potential to be a great student, and a football star, but he’s just a scrub. As she puts it, Jay is “an old washerwoman.” Ouch.
"Run fast AND stand still! My advice may not be the best, now that I think about it."
Regardless of his (lack of) football prowess, Jay is the determined sort. If he can’t get ahead on the gridiron, he will excel in his studies. And so, Jay finds himself in the science lab, tirelessly working on experiments in hard water. Now, I don’t know if the 1940’s definition of hard water is different that it is today, but I don’t think there is much to be learned from water with high mineral content. Heck, if you were to ask the average person what hard water was, they’d answer “Isn’t that ice?” I don’t think we’ll ever really know though, because of the silliest origin sequence this side of Bouncing Boy!
The Surgeon General left the warnings for potential superpowers off the pack.
As a result of Jay’s inhaling smoke, he’s forced to… inhale smoke. That is, the fumes the hard water gives off are too much for Jay and he is forced to breathe them all night as he becomes unconscious. Eventually, he’s found the next morning. While he was in a coma for weeks, doctors then weren’t like doctors today, so was treated well and got better. While Jay is in bed convalescing, his professor and his doctor are talking about some really, really garbage science about how hard water makes a man’s reflexes speed up. So Jay, having practically bathed in its essence, will be “the fastest thing that has walked the Earth!” I can imagine it now, The amazing adventures of Power Walker! Jay decides he’s all better when he sees his unrequited love, Joan out the window. He’s off like a whirlwind, literally! He gets to Joan before she can take another step. Yes friends, the first thing Jay does with his powers is to try to impress the girl. Honestly, this is probably what any of us would do, but still, not exactly heroic is it? Neither is Joan’s response to these new advances…
Even in the 40's guys would do incredibly irresponsible things because a woman tells them to.
Before you know it, it’s time for the state game! Jay’s raring to go, but he’s still warming his buns on the bench. His coach still thinks of him as a scrub, after all. Jay laments that he’ll never get on the field unless everyone else is injured. Inexplicably this happens. I don’t want to imply that Jay broke a bunch of his fellows legs using super speed, but man, that guy wants a date really badly. When Jay is finally on the field, he’s greeted with boos and catcalls. Jay shuts everyone up quick as a Flash though, when he zips around the field like a road runner on uppers. Single-handed, Jay brings the team to victory from a 30-point deficit. After the game is over, he basks in the glow of victory.
"And in this age of no drug tests, I'm off with no consequences. the '40's are awesome!"
Now the story takes a bit of a time jump, Jay graduates with honors, and is going to be an assistant professor at New York’s Coleman University, while Joan is off to help her father research “atomic bombarders“. Apparently in the intervening time, we can infer that Jay has forsaken using his powers for personal gain (now that he has what he wanted) and gained a social conscience, because one night, as he reads the paper…
So the true Secret Origin of this Flash, he just decides to up and fight crime one day.
We then cut to some gangsters complaining about how the Flash has disrupted their operations, and then Jay putting his costume away. It feels like a complete cop-out to have the Flash’s true first adventure not shown. Instead, we’re treated to Jay playing tennis with himself. It’s a time-honored Flash tradition, but he’s doing this as Jay, and wouldn’t you know it, Joan just happens to be along and recognizes his fast moves instantly (she’d know, after all). Joan starts to explain that her father has been kidnapped, but just then, a car passing by fires a gun at Joan! Quicker than you can blink, Jay pulls off another time-honored Flash gimmick…
"How can you pull off yellow pants with having a monkey companion?!"
Before Jay can learn about Joan’s missing dad, we have an interlude with a quartet of evil men, who are now sure with the “death” of Joan, their prisoner, Major Williams will surely give away the information they need for his Atomic Bombarder. Mr. Williams is a canny bloke, though. Even though he thinks his daughter dead, he knows she wouldn’t want him to give away war secrets! Since interrogating the major is an exercise in futility, one of the four decides to visit Joan’s house in the guise of an undertaker to hopefully find some clues. Sadly for him, he asks Jay is he knows the “dead girl”, playing his hand much too soon. Joan reveals herself as well, and the villain freaks out and leaves. Joan explain the sitch to Jay, and he gives chase as only he can.
Two things, Jay. A) You can't exceed the speed of light, and B) Did you even bother to get the license number?
By sheer luck (or the advantages of moving at the speed of light), Jay manages to find the “undertaker” and follow him back to his hideout. When he gets to the lair of those who call themselves the “Faultless Four”, he makes his presence known. As you might guess, bullets start flying, and The Flash uses his speed tricks to pluck bullets out of the air again. After this display, Flash decides to not waste his time on the bad guys, and rushes around looking for Joan’s daddy. He isn’t having a large amount of luck, having searched the entire compound to no avail. Suddenly, he notices a trap door. That couldn’t possibly be a trap, could it? Nah, it’s is a freaky mirrored room where Major Williams is being kept, though.
Super speed piggybacking, fine travel for the distinguished gentleman.
The Flash zips the major back to the waiting arms of Joan, because the gangsters wouldn’t possibly try to get them again! To is credit, Flash zooms back to eavesdrop on the quirky quartet, and learns of their inexplicably insane plan. Even more inexplicable is that the Flash lets them go ahead with it! What is this nefarious plan you ask? One of the four is going to fly above the crowds of Coney Island raining down machine gun fire, to throw off suspicion that they’re going after the Williams’ again. Genius in its simplicity, isn’t it. I think the Flash is addicted to plucking bullets out of the air, because he does it yet again…
"Yippee! Maybe there will be more bullets to catch!"
The Flash effortlessly rescues Joan. The villains, clearly desperate, try to retreat back to their hideout. Flash is there in no time, and he’s ready to end this, even going so far as to say “No Mercy”. When he does face the foursome in their den of deviousness, the de facto leader, Mr. Satan throws a switch that’ll kill everyone in the room, Flash included. The thing about the Flash though, is he’s very fast. and follows Satan outside. The other three are quite dead though. Satan is at his wit’s end now, and tries to escape in his new car. He apparently equates newness with speed. Of course the Flash gives chase, and Mr. Satan just gives up the ghost, as it were in a most grisly way…
It looks like he's just standing there watching the guy die, actually.
And so, Jay meets back up with Joan as the adventure comes to an end. Major Williams is astonished by the great feats of the Flash and would love to know more about him. He asks his daughter what she knows, but with a wink and a promise, she keeps Jay’s secret better than he ever has in this story. Maybe she’s a keeper after all!
The Golden Age Flash’s career would last throughout WWII, and he’d lose his hard edge after a while to become the upstanding speedster we know today. If not for Jay Garrick, we never would have had any other Flashes, practically no Silver Age of comics, and certainly no concept of multiple Earths. Whether anyone realizes it or not, Jay Garrick is the linchpin that ties the DC Universe together, even today. Here’s hoping he’ll surface in the New DC Universe sooner rather than later. It has been said it’s not speed that counts, but endurance, but if history has shown us anything, The Golden Age Flash has both in spades, and I’m sure we’ll see him again!
This story originally appeared in Flash Comics #1 January, 1940. It has been reprinted countless times, such as the Golden Age Flash Archives Vol. 1. It is also available digitally.
