Comic Title: Flash Comics #1
Publisher: DC (All-American Comics, Inc.)
Address: 480 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY
Cover Date: January 1940
On Sale Date: November 10, 1939 Newsstand Date November 10, 1939
Source: House Ad, Action Comics #19, Page 44, More Fun Comics #50, Page 64,
Detective Comics #34, Page 64, Adventure Comics #45, Page 64

Copyright Date November 20, 1939
Source: Library of Congress, Periodicals 1967
Copyright data submitted 27 years after publication

Frequency: Monthly
Cover Price: $0.10
Page Count: 64
Editor: Maxwell Charles Gaines

Title: (Origin of the Flash)
Pages: 15

Feature(s):
Flash (Jay Garrick of Earth-2)

Writer: Gardner F. Fox
Artist: Harry Lampert

Reprinted In:
Great Comic Book Super-Heroes HC (1965)
Great Comic Book Super-Heroes SC (1965)
Famous First Edition F-8 (1975)
Secret Origins of the Super DC Heroes HC (1976)
Secret Origins of the Super DC Heroes SC (1976)
Greatest Flash Stories Ever Told HC (1991)
Greatest Flash Stories Ever Told TPB (1992)
Golden Age Flash Archives Vol. 1 HC (1999)
Millennium Edition:Flash Comics 1 (#39) (2000)
Flash Comics (DC Direct Flash) #1 (2004)
Flash:A Celebration of 75 Years HC (2015)
Flash:80 Years of the Fastest Man Alive the Deluxe Edition HC (2020)

Feature Character(s)

• Flash (Jay Garrick; origin revealed; first appearance; next appearance in Flash Comics #2)

Supporting Character(s)

• Joan Williams (Jay’s girlfriend; first appearance; next appearance in Flash Comics #2)
• Major Williams (Joan's father; first appearance; next appearance in Flash Comics #3)

Villain(s)

• The Faultless Four (Serge Orloff, Duriel, and Smythe; a group of evil scientists; all die in this story; no further appearances)
• Sieur Satan (appears to die in this story, but apparently he survived; next appearance in All-Star Squadron Annual #3)

Other Character(s)

• Professor Hughes (Jay’s college professor; no further appearances)
• An unnamed doctor (no further appearances)

Comments:
This story relates the origin of the Flash, Jay Garrick.

This story was not originally titled.

Synopsis:
Jay Garrick, student at Midwestern University, is involved in a lab accident and inhales the fumes of hard water gas. The fumes cause Jay to develop tremendous speed, enabling him to move and think at super-human rates.

Jay graduates from college and moves to New York to become an assistant professor at Coleman University. There, he begins a career as the Flash, a super-hero who battles gangsters.

Jay’s college sweetheart, Joan Williams, visits Jay and enlists his help in locating her missing father. Joan’s father, Major Williams, has been kidnapped by the Faultless Four, a group of scientists working for a foreign power. Jay rescues Williams from the villains who want the secret of the Atomic Bombarder. In the process, the Four are all killed, leaving Williams safe.