Jay Garrick
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Jay Garrick is a fictional character, a superhero in the DC Comics universe and the first to use the name Flash.
Character history
The Flash
Jason Peter GarrickJSA #87, Sept. 2006 was a college student prior to 1940 who accidentally inhaled hard water vapors after falling asleep in his laboratory where he had been smoking (later stories would change this to refer to heavy water vapors). As a result, he found that he could run at superhuman speed and had similarly fast reflexes. After a brief career as a college football star, he donned a red shirt with a lightning bolt and a stylized metal helmet with wings (based on images of the Roman god Mercury) and began to fight crime as the Flash.It was explained decades later that the helmet belonged to Jay's father, Joseph, who fought during World War I. His first case involved battling the Faultless Four, a group of blackmailers. In the early stories, it seemed to be widely known that Garrick was the Flash. It was later explained that Jay kept his identity secret without a mask by continually vibrating his body while in public so that any photograph of his face would be blurred.
Justice Society of America
The Flash soon became one of the best-known of the Golden Age of superheroes. He was a founding member of the Justice Society of America and served as its first chairman beginning with All Star Comics #3 (Winter 1940). He was always based in the fictional Keystone City. He left the JSA after issue #6, but returned several years later (issue #24, Spring 1945) and had a distinguished career as a crimefighter during the 1940s.Several pieces of retroactive continuity fill out early Garrick history. A story explaining the retirement of the JSA members, including the Flash, explained that in 1951 the JSA was investigated by the House Un-American Activities Committee for possible Communist sympathies and asked to reveal their identities. The JSA declined, and Garrick, who had recently married his longtime girlfriend Joan, retired. A trained scientist, he ran an experimental laboratory for several decades. All-Star Squadron Annual #3 states that the JSA fought a being named Ian Karkull who imbued them with energy that retarded their aging, allowing Garrick and many others - as well as their girlfriends and sidekicks - to remain active into the late 20th century without infirmity. The 1990s Starman series notes that the Shade prompted Garrick to come out of retirement in the 1950s, but the details of his activities during this time are hazy at best.
Earth-Two
Garrick emerged from retirement in 1961 to meet the Silver Age Flash, Barry Allen, from a parallel world. Garrick's world was dubbed Earth-Two, while Allen's was Earth-One. The rest of the JSA soon joined the Flash, although their activities during the 1960s (other than their annual meeting with Earth-One's Justice League of America) are unrecorded. That he and Green Lantern (Alan Scott) are good friends is clear, however.
Garrick was a key member of the JSA's 1970s adventures (as chronicled in All-Star Comics and Adventure Comics), as well as helping to launch the careers of Infinity Inc. Following the Crisis on Infinite Earths, all the parallel worlds were merged into one, and Keystone City became the twin city across the river from Allen's Central City. (One story suggested that Keystone in this merged world had been rendered invisible and wiped from the memories of the world for many years through the actions of several supervillains.)
21st Century
In the early 21st century, many of Garrick's JSA cohorts have retired or died, but Garrick remains active with the latest incarnation of the group. He is physically about 50 years old thanks to the effects of several accidental anti-aging treatments, but his chronological age is closer to 80. Out of the three original JSA members still on the team (along with Alan Scott and Wildcat), Jay takes a more fatherly approach with his teammates and with the DC superhero community in general. After eating lunch with Wally West and Nightwing (Dick Grayson) in one issue of The Flash, Grayson remarked that he "wants to be like [Garrick] when he grows up".Infinite Crisis and One Year Later
Jay and his wife Joan currently have guardianship of Bart Allen after Max Mercury's disappearance. During the events of Infinite Crisis Jay stated that the Speed Force is gone after a battle in which many speedsters, living and dead, wrestled Superboy-Prime into the Speed Force and disappeared. Jay was left behind when he reached his limit and could not follow. Bart Allen returned, aged several years, and confirmed that the Speed Force had been destroyed and that Jay, as a metahuman, was once again the "fastest man alive." Jay claimed that without the Speed Force, his own power is less than before: like Wally West in the Crisis on Infinite Earths aftermath, he can only run close to the speed of sound.
Recently, in the Outsiders: One Year Later story arc, a clone of Garrick appeared as an antagonist, created by the Brotherhood of Evil. He appeared to be in his late 20s or early 30s and was apparently brainwashed into working for a militant dictator. The clone was defeated by the combined efforts of the Outsiders. He possesed Jay Garrick's super-speed, but none his memories, nor expertise. His unconscious body was placed in the custody of Alan Scott, now Checkmate's White King.
Powers and abilities
As the Flash, Jay can run and move his limbs at superhuman speeds, and possesses superhuman reflexes. He also has an aura that prevents air friction from affecting their bodies and clothes while moving. Unlike Barry, Wally or Bart, Jay is a metahuman and while he had a connection to the Speed Force, it was not on the level of the other Flashes. Jay did possess the ability to 'steal speed' from other speedsters. Since the Speed Force dissapeared following Infinite Crisis, Jay's top speed is the speed of sound.Jay's status as a metahuman with natural speed is somewhat of a retcon. During the "Dead Heat" miniseries, Jay's connection to the Speed Force was disrupted by the villain Savitar, and he, along with many of the other speedsters, was totally powerless.
Other versions
In the Elseworlds book , Jay Garrick was portrayed as a post-WW2 United States intelligence agent stationed in Turkey, working under the code-name Mercury. He was instrumental in bringing down the story's rogue Superman.Other media
- In the Justice League episode "Legends", the creators chose to use an analog called The Streak rather than Garrick, who wore a football-style helmet rather than a WWI helmet.
- Jay's helmet appears in the Flash museum, in the Justice League Unlimited episode, "Flash And Substance".
- Jay appears in comic book animated form in Justice League Unlimited #12 to help Wally/Flash and the other JL members against Mirror Master.
- In the 1990's Flash live action TV series, the villain The Trickster paints a statue of Mercury red and yellow as a way to mock the Flash (Barry Allen). The statue resembles Jay Garricks costume.
- In Smallville, one of the aliases used by Bart Allen is Jay Garrick.
References
External links
- [Alan Kistler's Profile On: The Flash] - An analysis of the history of the Flash by comic book historian Alan Kistler.
- [Golden Age Flash Toonopedia entry]
- [The Flash: Those Who Ride The Lightning] - Fan site with information about the super-speed characters of the DC Universe.
- [The Unofficial Flash Biography]
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