Summary: <br> Barry Allen and Wally West continue their groundbreaking adventures as they travel through time and battle epic villains like Captain Boomerang for the first time and a team up with the Green Lantern.<br> Affiliate link included.<br> Transcript:<br> Graham: The Flash is tied to a giant boomerang, twice and Kid Flash travels back to pre-historic times, twice. We’ll talk about it, straight ahead in The Flash: The Silver Age Volume 2.<br><br> <br> Announcer: Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.<br> Graham: As I discussed in a previous episode after many of the great superhero franchises of the Golden Age flamed out in the late 40s and early 50s, Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman remain the really only consistent games in town when it came to superheroes. However, that changed when D.C. introduced Barry Allen as the Flash in Showcase number 4. The Flash was successful and with the Scarlet Speedster’s success, many more superheroes would be added to the roster of the D.C. Universe. <br> To understand what made the Flash successful, it’s important to understand what the Flash didn’t have. There wasn’t great characterization or much characterization at all. That would be something really that Marvel would bring to superheroes with the emergence of the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man later on in the 1960s. What the Flash brought was mind-blowing imagination, when it came to the use of the Flash’s super speed as well as the rogues he fought. In fact, the colorful rogues of the Flash, Captain Cold, Mirror Master, Weather Wizard and the Prankster, remain popular to this day and they were really cranked out in the early years of the Flash’s comeback. <br> The Flash: The Silver Age Volume 2, comes after the Flash’s initial three trial appearances and his first thirteen issues have introduced so much but there’s even more that gets introduced in this volume and we’re going to discuss it. This particular volume collects issues 117 to 132. I won’t try and cover everything in this book. It’s a 400-page book plus, unlike say a modern comic where you have plots that take place over multiple issues, these are all self-contained or in many cases, they are two stories in a single issue so I won’t try and cover everything. I will say that these are pretty lengthy issues when you take a look at them. Generally you’re looking at about 23 to 25 pages, which is a good length for the early Silver Age books. They get a lot shorter during the Bronze Age. <br> The first big milestone comes in issue 117 of the Flash, the first issue collected in this book and it introduces Captain Boomerang. The story begins when a corporate honcho has the idea that his company could make a really big trend out of selling boomerangs, as yo-yos had recently been a big deal and they need to hire someone who is experienced throwing the boomerang. And so our villain is hired and uses the name Captain Boomerang. That’s part of the plan and instead of taking this cushy corporate job, it’ll be like being the Marlboro Man. With plenty money coming his way, he instead turns to a life of crime using incredibly clever boomerangs in order to commit his crimes.<br><br> Flash actually thinks he’s spotted Captain Boomerang at the scene of a crime but Captain Boomerang convinces him that he’s innocent and that it would do harm to his elderly parents, who aren’t his parents but two actors playing them and gets the Flash to go away but realizes he has to get rid of the Flash and how is he going to do that? He’s going to tie him to a rocket-powered boomerang. Now when I asked my wife about this, she pointed out shouldn’t a boomerang return back to where it was thrown and that’s a good question.<br><br> However, this time the Flash to a boomerang solution is...
