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The Thirteen All-Time Coolest FLASHStories of the Silver Age (Part Three)

Fair warning, campers'n'camperettes:

This comical-type book, here, is one of Unca Cheeks' three all-time favorite FLASH stories evereverEVER.

Unca doesn't give two wet farts in the proverbial rain barrel how gosh-

darned Goof City it is.

This story -- This. Story. -- is nothing shhort of a freakin' masterpiece, all right?

... pretty much because it's Citizen Numero Uno of Goof City, as a matter of fact.

Consider yourselves warned, in other words...

... and then some.

"The Plight of the Puppet Flash!" [FLASH #133; December, 1962; John Broome, author; Carmine Infantino, artist] opens up with an interior shot of the Central City Governor's mansion; a scant five minutes prior to the end of said politico's term in office.

"In another five minutes, Jackson," the Governor informs a favored flunky; "... my term of office will be over! Is there any last-minute duty I should take care of?"

"You've done a fine job during your four years, sir!" said underling brown-noses, shamelessly. "You're leaving a clean desk for your successor!"

[UNCA CHEEKS' ASIDE " [...] during your four years, sir," huh? In other words, then a "one-term wonder," is what we've got, here. A sitting incumbent who couldn't even swing enough votes to get his fleshy and aging hinder re-elected, f'chrissakes. Oh, yeah. You go, Mayor LaGuardia, sir.]

"Meanwhile," the following caption seamlessly exposits; "... in the state penitentiary, not too far away..."

... a grey-clad, pipe cleaner-thin figure hunches over an industrial sink overflowing with crud-infested dishes and silverware; scrubbing and rinsing his anxious little heart out.

"If my plan works," said scarecrow muses; "... it must work during the next few moments! And it will... as sure as my name is Abra Kadabra!"

"To be sure," the malcontent magus observes, continuing; "... I don't have the kind of equipment I learned to work with, back in the 64th Century! But a good magician makes do with whatever props are at hand!"

Said "props," in this particular instance, are the buffed-to-a-high-and-

glossy-sheen pots and pans Ol' Abra's been meticulously arranging, within the (comparative) privacy of the prison scullery; incomprehensible coruscations of energy playing back'n'forth amongst 'em, creating [Pick One] -- ":

A.) "... a powerful hypno-ray... that I can magically direct... and control!"

B.) "... a gigantic, blood-crazed 64th Century bunny rabbit!" (Hey... once a third-rate stage magician, always a third-rate stage magician, right...?)

C.) "... carton after CARTON of Lucky Strikes and Camel non-

filters! Emaciated and effeminate lil' ol' me ain't gonna be The Human Soap-On-A-Rope in the prison shower room tonight, by golly!"

D.) "... more dirty dishes! It's all part of my long-range master plan to RUUUUUUULE THE WOOORRRRRRRRLLLLLLLD! MWAH-ha-ha-

haaaaa -- !"

... and -- one breathless moment before the cloock in the Governor's mansion chimes fini to What'shisname's political tenure -- said public servant suddenly bolts upright, in his seat, and loudly declaims:

"I know what I must do, before my term of office expires! I've got to pardon Abra Kadabra!"

"But... your excellency," the outgoing official's loyal aide de camp exclaims, thunderstruck; "... are you sure...?"

[UNCA CHEEKS' ASIDE "[...] your excellency"...? What the hell kinda freaky, whacked-out system of government do they have going here in Central City, anyways, f'cryin' out loud? Who was their last governor, anyways Evita freakin' Peron -- ?!?

[I'm just sayin', here, really. That's all.]

"There!" the Governor gleefully chirrups, just as the clock tolls the hour. "That was my last official act! See that the warden at State Penitentiary gets that right away!"

"Errrrr... yes, sir!" the startled spear carrier unenthusiastically concurs.

Cut to the following day, with a plainly incredulous Barry [FLASH] Allen staring, goggle-eyed, at a newspaper headline blaring ABRA KADABRA RELEASED FROM JAIL!, and wondering "[...] why Abra Kadabra was so suddenly released, after being in jail only a few months!

"I have a hunch," the stern-visaged police scientist concludes, "[that] something is wrong!"

Come Visit Scenic Central City "Where The Moronic Blue Line Stands On Constant Guard For You... and You... and YOU."

"I'm afraid there's no doubt of it, Flash!" the prison warden later confides to the Scarlet Speedster. "Abra Kadabra's pardon is official! And, what's more, the governor can't withdraw it, because his term of office expired just one minute after he signed the pardon order!"

"It's almost as if Kadabra planned it that way!" the Central City Comet keenly intuits. (Yeah. Almost, like. You big, red goober, you.)

"Meanwhile," the following caption enthuses -- you know, there really couldn't have been a Silver Age of Comics without the word "Meanwhile"; really and truly, there couldn't have been -- "in a sumptuous apartment rented by the magician" Abra is preening and flouncing before a full-

length mirror, like the flamboyant, futuristic fruit basket he genuinely is.

"Ah!" he coos, admiring whatever the hell it is he's using in place of an actual physique. "I must never go back to jail! I can't stand the uniform they give you there! This attire suits me much better! Much better!"

(Not as much as -- say -- Audrey Hepburn's "Holly Golightly" get-up, from BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S, mebbe... but, yeah "better.")

"And I won't ever go back!" the clotheshorse conjuror continues. "Because I shall -- as they say, in this quaint century -- 'go straight'." [Insert Knowing, Smart-Alecky Retort, Here.]

"The trick, as I understand it, is simple," Abra posits, sashaying his way out onto the terrace. "All I have to do is make sure I stay just inside the law in my activities! And my fertile brain -- and 'futuristic talents' -- will take care of the rest! Ha, ha!"

"... and, even now," the calorically-challenged caliph concludes, gazing out over the nighttime skyline of downtown Central City; "... just standing here, I'm getting a sensational idea!"

Seconds after that some hapless city pedestrian feels a splashing on his hat, and wonders -- briefly -- why the weather report that evening hadn't mentioned anything about the possibility of rain.

A few days down the road, then; and we're be-bopping right alongside cute couple Barry Allen and wife-to-be Iris West, out painting the town red in their own hedonistic and inimitable style.

"I don't know why you have such a dislike of this performer we're going to see, Barry!" Iris kvetches to her fellah. "The whole town's talking about Abra Kadabra and his amazing puppet show!"

MMMmmmphh. *snicker*.

Excuse Unca for just a second, here, all right, campers...?

[::Striding quickly from the room, Unca Cheeks enters a side room and shuts the door behind him::]

MWAH-ha-ha-haaaaaaaaaa -- !!

"The whole town's talking about Abra Kadabra and his amazing puppet show!" Oh, yeah. This is one hot, happenin' town, huh? A major, urban metropolis (ostensibly)... and the "smart," "sophisticated" citizenry, thereabouts, are all a-buzz and agog over a form of "entertainment" traditionally ranking just one notch above Episcopalian Pot Luck Suppers and Communal Amish Quilting Bees on the standard Thrill-O-Meter, overall.

I mean... what's second place, re Central City's so-called "night life," circa 1962, anyways? Yahtzee? A hot'n'heavy game of lawn darts, mebbe? Amblin' on down the road a piece over to Clem's place, and watching him whitewash the freakin' barn -- ?!? GAAAAAHHHH -- !!

[::Unca Cheeks re-enters the room, cool and composed::]

I'm just sayin'. That's all.

"Oh, how I'd love to tell Iris the truth," habitual liar Allen fumes, silently; "... which is that as my alter ego, the Flash, I have every reason to suspect Kadabra is still a crook at heart! But I can't speak of it... so I must suffer in silence!"

Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Tell Mommy where it hurts, Mr. Macho.

"They say Abra Kadabra's idea of using life-sized puppets for his show is simply terrific!" an aging Bert Lahr lookalike enthuses, as the theatre lights commence to dimming.

"I've heard he uses different famous public figures for his models!" said middle-ager's paid escort burbles, by way of response. "I got a tip his latest creation is a show with... the Flash!"

All I know, is you can keep your Gotham City; your Metropolis; your bottle city of Kandor; and your erotically repressed and suspect Paradise Island, even --

... Central City is the weirdest freakin' place in the entirety of the known DC Comics universe.

I mean bar none, bay-bee.

"HaHaHa!" the audience yodels, as one, at the (thankfully) once-in-a-

lifetime sight of an oversized wooden pastry chef whacking an oaken Flash simulacrum a good'un with several handfuls of Oreo "Double Stuff." " 'Captain Creampuff' -- the bizarre 'villain' created by >Abra Kadabra -- has just hit 'Flash' with one of his exploding cream puffs, in order to make his escape!"

Yes, my beloved kids'n'kiddettes this here fractured fable marks the very first recorded instance ever of a "Hostess Fruit Pies" advertisement within a mainstream American comic book.

"Kadabra is deliberately pulling the strings," a coldly furious Barry Allen seethes; "... so his puppet-Flash keeps getting battered by the 'villain'!"

[UNCA CHEEKS' ASIDE Get it? Huh? "Captain Creampuff"...? "Battered"? GET it? Huh? HUH -- ?!?]

"And it amuses the spectators," the angst-ridden Allen continues; "... because [Pick One] -- ":

A.) "... it's so odd to see Flash get beaten! The audience thinks it's all a huge joke!"

B.) "... let's face it a wispy-thin feller tarted up like a giant blood clot with legs IS pretty funny-lookin', really. Even without the fey li'l wings on either side of his close-cropped cranium."

C.) "... they all finally suspect that I've been Doin' the Unseen, Super- Speed Nasty with all of their womenfolk, each and every night! Those gutless bastards -- !"

D.) " [a la the immortal Gene Pitney] ... 'cause it's a shame and a pity... with a town without pity... cannnnnnnn DOOOOOOOOOO -- !"

"... but I don't trust Abra Kadabra," the sullen speedster concludes. "He has some ulterior motive for deliberately undermining public confidence in [the] Flash by this silly spectacle! I've got to do something about it!"

"It was a riot, Barry," a still-cackling Iris later remonstrates her slow-

simmering beau; "... even if you didn't laugh it up at all!" (Boyoboy... can't you just feel the love for Central City's resident super-doer in this room, huh...?)

"There's nothing illegal about what Kadabra's doing," a grim-visaged Flash (reluctantly) admits, later on, in the privacy of his own apartment demesne. "Therefore, I can't stop him by force!"

(UNCA CHEEKS' TRANSLATION "There's nothing illegal about what Kadabra's doing! Therefore, I can't pistol whip the mother-grabbing so-

and-so into a bloody coma. Not legally, anyways.")

"Yet I must prevent him from turning the Flash into a laughingstock," the Crimson Comet self-servingly concludes; "... or the power of Flash against crime will be seriously weakened!"

(UNCA CHEEKS' TRANSLATION "Yet I must prevent him from turning the Flash into a laughingstock -- not that regular go-rounds against the sorry, spandexed likes of Captain Boomerang and The Top haven't already taken care of that, to a significant extent -- or my God-

given right to suck up the mindless adulation and worship of these pitiful, powerless Central City drones might come to a sudden, shrieking end! No more self-aggrandizing Flash Museum; no more city-sponsored freebies! Nothing! Nada! ZILCH -- !")

Armed with this newfound (if -- admittedly -- petty) sense of resolve, then the Flash sets out to reclaim his ragged reputation as Central City's Self-Appointed Savior Deluxe, by launching into a whirlwind, one-man anti-crime wave.

Said promotional pogrom quickly boosts the Scarlet Speedster's stock with the way fickle Central City populace; with the end result that Abra Kadabra's one-man tribute to the life and artistry of Shari Lewis plummets in popularity, correspondingly.

"They don't laugh," a perplexed prestidigitator pouts, confounded by the cavernous, crickets chirping emptiness of an anything-but-packed house, evenings later. "They don't applaud any more!"

"I can't stand not to be applauded!" the tacky thaumaturge continues, sulkily. "I can't stand failure! I get enough of that in the ol' bedroom arena, f'chrissakes! That's how I got 'involved' with life-sized Flash puppets in the first place! I -- "

... ohhhhhh... all right, then. Killjoys.

"I can't let Flash triumph over me!" the loser loremaster resolves, in conclusion. "This has become a personal duel between the two of us! But my foe will find he did the wrong thing in tangling with Abra Kadabra!"

Shortly thereafter, then we witness our high-velocity hero loping his way past a full-length poster of Abra, his own bad self; gesturing with dark and silky confidence towards the viewer with his ubiquitous wand.

"Odd!" the Scarlet Speedster muses, staring intently at his arch-foe's ferret-y features. "That painting of Kadabra... so life-like... as if it were staring at me! Those eyes... gripping me!" And so on, and so forth, shooby-dooby-doo-wah, doo-wah.

"The next instant," the following caption carols, rapturously -- as he's bathed in the eerie luminescence of the poster's darkling discharge -- the Flash (courtesy of scripting maestro John Broome) has occasion to utter one of the single, all-time greatest lines in all of Silver Age DC Comics history.

"I... I have the strangest feeling," Our Hero observes, "that I'm [Pick One] -- ":

A.) "... being turned into a puppet!"

B.) "... undergoing one of the most shameful and humiliating moments of my storied, spandexed career!"

C.) "... developing one holy hell of a world-class woody!"

D.) "... about to verbally hectored and harangued by a know-it-all talking cricket. In a top hat. And spats."

Abrupt Scene Change, here; and -- the next thing we know -- ol' Abra is a-chortlin' and a-chucklin'; with the Flash dangling before him, loose-

limbed, in a spider's tangle of strings.

"Ha, ha!" the sociopathic stage magician gloats. "Take a look, Flash... and see what my 64th century magic has reduced you to... a puppet!"

"And what is your reaction to my brilliant feat of using the real Flash in my puppet show?" a gleeful Abra continues; artfully manipulating the speedster's strings so that the latter is forced into the odd and unnatural circumstance of lauding the former's skimpy and shriveled loins, via standing ovation. "Applause, of course!"

Oh, no. No peculiarly glaring self-esteem issues here, py yimminy.

That very evening, then Mr. The-Silver-Age-Starts-Here is treated to a great, heaping side platter of Psychologically Painful and Traumatizing Public Humiliation, courtesy of swishy sous chef Abra Kadabra; in the greasy, all-but-indigestible form of another one of AK's numbingly unfunny "puppet shows"...

... this time, with the Flash forced to "stand in" for himself, in the role of "Judy" to Captain Creampuff's "Punch.

"Possibly this is the lowest point in my entire career!" a mortified Scarlet Speedster undersells, whilst undergoing the unique experience of having his splintery, cheaply-daubed hinder booted by an oversized Chef Boy-R-Dee simulacrum.

Oh, yeah. Just possibly. I s'pose.

[UNCA CHEEKS' ASIDE ... although, actually Unca could easily see credible argument(s) being advanced on behalf of any one of the following "low points" in the Flash's storied storybook career, come to think:

[A.) "Running For the Border" ... in which the Flash is forevermore humiliated and disgraced in the eyes of his fellows within the super-hero community, after losing a winner-take-all foot race versus a teensy-tiny li'l mousie. Wearing a teensy-tiny li'l sombrero. And shrilling "Ariba! Ariba!" repeatedly, in a teensy-tiny voice.

[B.) "Running (But Not Getting Anywhere)" ... in which a nausea-

wracked and gasping Barry Allen makes a whopping and gargantuan pig out of himself, during the local Taco Bell's "Five-Chalupas-For-A-Buck" promotion; thereby permanently cementing his four-color reputation as "The Fastest Skidmark Alive."

[C.) "Too Much Speed (And Not Enough 'Force')" ... in which a newly-wedded Barry and Iris Allen are forcibly (and frustratingly) reminded that "faster" isn't always "better."

[D.) Any issue in which the Flash takes longer than two, three panels, max, to take out Captain Boomerang; The Golden Glider; or The Top.

[I mean c'mon.]

"Suddenly," a drunken and desperate John Broome expostulates, via caption; "... a thought occurs to the belabored and transformed hero!"

Okay. Everybody brace themselves, now.

This is where the hellish and inevitable hurting begins, right here.

"There is one part of my body that is the same," The Fastest Pinocchio Alive observes, in sudden realization. "My brain!"

[UNCA CHEEKS' ASIDE ... okay. Make that "two parts of my body," then.]

"I have always had perfect control over all the atoms and molecules of my body," the Flash continues, cheerfully making up brand spanking new super-powers as he goes, without so much as a by-your-leave; "... including my brain! [...] I've started shooting spare molecules down into my uniform... and their speed is causing the air around them to expand... so that the uniform is being filled out... the way gas fills a balloon!"

... and Unca defies even so cerebral and sagacious a gent as the learned "Per'fesser" Quentin Long to make something logical (or even reasonably coherent, for chrissakes) out of the slap-happy and pseudo-scientific likes of that, by golly and by gadfrey.

Well, in any event -- what with "stray molecules" shooting over here, and the very air "expanding around them" over there -- the Flash's piney physique commences to swelling and filling out more freakishly and abruptly than that of notorious fitness guru Susan Powter; giving rise to the (oddly dispassionate) cry, from the auditorium's cheap seats:

"Look! The Flash Puppet has broken loose from its strings!"

Lumbering spastically across the stage, then, towards his animatronic arch-nemesis; a seething Flash kaBONKS the latter atop his white-capped noggin, confessing "I've been wanting to do that for a long time!"

"I can't manage my super-speed," the cordwood crusader confesses, lurching towards an (understandably) incredulous Abra Kadabra on legs every last bit as flexible and stride-worthy as an oaken pair of end tables. "In fact, I can barely move... !"

Fortunately for Our Hero, however -- this being Page Fourteen of a fifteen page exercise in Applied Dementia -- the the slack-jawed stage weenie doesn't do anything as outrageous and/or innovative as (say) dodging; running away; or even (God forbid) waving that tres dopey wand-type thingie in the Scarlet Speedster's general direction; affording the latter all the time he needs (and then some) to amble on over at a top speed of approximately 5 M.P.M. (Miles Per Millennium), and smack him upside de haid bone, as well.

The story lopes its way to an end, then; with the Flash grabbing hold of the unconscious Kadabra's wand and playing with it for awhile, until he (the Flash, I mean) is feeling like his regular butch, buffed-out self once again.

Ohhhhhhhhh... you all know what I mean, here.

"The show's over, folks!" a smugly triumphant Flash informs a disappointed and embittered crowd of theatre-goers. "Abra Kadabra is going back to jail!"

[UNCA CHEEKS' ASIDE ... although the question practically begs itself, at this juncture on what charge, precisely...?

[What Unca means, here, is it ain't 'zactly illegal -- I'll betcha; betcha a dollar -- to go 'round staging Lame and Awful Puppet Shows; even in as demonstrably whacked-out an urban open-air asylum as Central City, f'chrissakes.

[... and, as for that whole He-Turned-Me-Into-A-Big-Wooden-Newt business there weren't any witnesses, really; reducing the provable particulars of that down to the level of "He Said/He Said," insofar as any halfway reputable court of law might reasonably be concerned.

[I mean all Kadabra has to do, here, is lie his slatty little buns off, really.

[He's a super-villain.

[He can probably... y'know... handle that, if pressed.

[I'm just sayin', is all, here.]

This story -- in all of its splendiferous and unabbashed full-bore, gibbering lunacy -- is as picture perfect a representatiion of everything that was joyous and waycool and F-U-N, re the FLASH comics of the Silver Age, as any story ever published.

Period.

For a more "serious" and straightforward example of same, however...

... be here next time out the gate, Mousketeers.

We're gonna cover a nifty little something entitled "Vengeance of the Immortal Villain!"

Trust Unca on this'un, people:

... it's anything but a puppet show.

SPEED READING (Page One)

SPEED READING (Page Two)

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