Baby We Were Born To Run

This month marks the 59th anniversary of the cover date of Showcase #4, the issue that introduced the world to the Silver Age, namely the Silver Age incarnation of the Flash. Barry Allen was similar to his predecessor Jay Garrick in the sense that both were scientists whose origins involved chemical reactions to their bodies that enabled them to tap into super speed (hard water/heavy water in Garrick's case, lighting bolts and a chemical bath in Allen's). But the difference lay in how the characters were presented, as Allen's adventures were purely of the science fiction variety, involving time travel, alternate dimensions, aliens, and evil dopplegangers of the sort that Garrick--a purely "costumed adventurer" type from the same cloth as the Phantom and Crimson Avenger--never quite encountered until after his reintroduction to the world in Flash #121's "Flash of Two Worlds" story. 

But Barry Allen remains the version of the Flash most associated with that moniker, so much so that even though Jay Garrick had a more visually interesting costume and Wally West and Bart Allen could tap into the youth market (through appearances on Justice League/Justice League Unlimited and Smallville respectively) its always Barry Allen that conjures up images of the innocence of the Silver Age and superhero comics in general. Allen was inherently a good guy, with a job as a police scientist, a relatively stable home life, and the love and support of his girlfriend Iris West. The introduction of Wally West as Kid Flash only strengthened the image of Barry as the go-to good guy that everyone looked up to (Batman even said that had things in his life gone a different direction, Barry Allen would be the man he'd most like to be). Barry also serves as the example of superhero comics not needing to always be dark and gritty to be entertaining. For the first quarter century of Barry's comic existence, his adventures, while nothing to sneeze at with villains such as Gorilla Grodd, Captain Cold and the Rogues, Professor Zoom, and others bedeviling him, were lighter and filled with the type of fun that you could find in a Marvel Studios film, with a healthy dose of drama, humor, and fantasy thrown in. The mistake, starting with Zoom's murder of Iris and escalating with Barry losing his job on the Central City Police force and being put on trial for Zoom's murder, were for the most part directions that did not need to occur to the character and, while "The Trial of Barry Allen" remains one of Barry's best tales, had it been told in more recent times it likely would have been considered on the level of what "Emerald Twilight" did to Hal Jordan: the ruining of a character (the ending, with Barry and a resurrected Iris heading off to the future, is probably one of the most beautiful and elegiac in all of comics).

Barry's death in Crisis On Infinite Earths #8 is the type of farewell most characters don't get, especially long running ones like Barry Allen: faced with the obvious nature of his impending death, Barry goes head first to buy the heroes as much time as they need to stop the evil plans of the Anti-Monitor, knowing he was going to die but knowing he was going to die being the hero that he always was.