10 Amazing Comic Books That Should Have Flopped
3. Showcase #4
Following World War II, superheroes had fallen out of favor with readers, and only Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman comics were sold with any regularity. The rest of the series, including the three titles featuring Gardner Fox’s Flash, were canceled. In the post-WWII period, horror, crime, and romance comics ruled the day and filled the newsstands. A controversy linking comics to juvenile delinquency arose in the early 1950s and nearly decimated the comics industry. As a result, publishers created the self-censoring Comics Code Authority.
In 1956, a new Flash premiered in the fourth issue of the anthology comics Showcase. His only connection to Jay Garrick was the Flash name. The Barry Allen Flash was created by editor Julius Schwartz, writer Robert Kanigher, penciler Carmine Infantino and inker Joe Kubert, but would he be embraced by the readers in the same way Garrick had been?
The new speedster had a slick streamlined costume and a slightly more scientific origin. Barry Allen was a police scientist, an early version of the CSI that is so popular today. Flash’s future adventures relied heavily on an increasingly diverse Rogues' Gallery, and the character quickly became a success and Showcase became a place for the creators at DC to try out new and interesting concepts. The creation of this Flash is widely determined as the birth of the Silver Age.