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Jay
Garrick Saved My Life
(originally published in the Fall,
1999 issue of Once Upon A Dime)
Gather 'round and I'll tell you the story of how
Jay Garrick saved my life.
The year was 1978. I was 10 years old and had just
received the greatest birthday present of my young
life: the Synco Junior Scientist chemistry kit.
My parents had cleared out a corner of the garage
for me to use as a sort of mini-laboratory, and
I spent that first humid afternoon of the summer
mixing the blue and yellow liquids into thin clear
glass vials then dutifully hanging them over the
three tiny bunsen burners.
My attention wandered while I waited for the chemical
reactions to commence, and I began to dig around
through the old books and magazines that had been
piled, over the years, into the far corner of the
garage, right beside a box of my father’s
old army fatigues. Four years’ worth of Readers’
Digest… a few TV Guides from the previous
winter… a torn New York Post announcing Neil
Armstrong’s walk.
I pushed aside a few more papers and books, and
noticed, from the bottom of the pile, strange streaks
of blue and red peeking out at me. I moved aside
the newspapers and magazines and gasped aloud –
comics! Dozens of them!
I’d been told that my uncle Barry had collected
them as a kid, but I had no idea they still existed!
A Batman from 1973! Dozens of Justice
League of America and Defenders from
1970-72! An Action Comics from 1967 –
the year *before* I was born!
And beneath them all, one slightly larger comic,
its top dangling outward from the others ever so
slightly…. Its pages were yellow, its crease
was worn, but there it was: All-Flash Quarterly
#3, Winter 1941.
Jay Garrick was saving the day. His
legs and arms blurred slightly as he rescued the
damsel in distress. He looked strong and ready and
serious, his eyebrows furrowing beneath his helmet,
the lightning bolt on his chest announcing his arrival.
I knew of Garrick from the annual
JLA/JSA team-ups, but to have him appear here, now,
where I least expected him…. How could this
magnificent of a comic have survived this strange
journey through time with so little damage? What
manner of magic or science had deposited it into
this silver age pile?
I put my questions aside and slowly, carefully,
opened the comic….
I awoke with a shudder and rubbed my eyes. But
it didn’t help. Everything was blurry. The
air tasted thick and metallic. All at once I realized
-- my experiment! How long had I dozed while my
compound simmered over those burners? What other
chemicals in the garage had mixed in with my own
ingredients to produce this strange, heavy mist?
The bunsen burner fuel had long since expired, but
those fumes! They were everywhere. And what was
that sudden flash from outside the garage window?
Lightening? Who knew what might happen should these
heavy fumes encounter the shocking crackle of a
summer storm?!?
My heart raced. I took short quick breaths. I needed
to get out, quickly, but I didn’t dare use
the door: the fumes were even thicker on that side
of the garage. The window was locked. I kicked at
it with my sneakers, but it was no use. I needed
to break it, but how? All I had nearby were magazines,
paperbacks, and that musky army uniform.
Then, I saw it. At my feet, right where I’d
fallen asleep. All-Flash Quarterly #3. Jay
Garrick stared out into the misty haze of the garage,
his eyes peeking out from under the rim …
of his HELMET!
I reached my hand into the box of army fatigues
and pulled furiously at anything I could grab. Pants,
shirts, an old jacket… and there, at the bottom…
round and hard… his army helmet!
I coughed. I staggered. I nearly fell. The fumes
were thicker now. I lifted the helmet with the last
of my strength. I mustered every last ounce of resolve.
And I heaved the helmet, with all my might, against
the window. Glass cracked and shattered. Sweet oxygen
flowed into the garage. I filled my lungs with the
summer air and carefully crawled past the shards
of glass into safety, All-Flash Quarterly
#3 tucked safely under my belt…
Okay, so it didn’t really happen that way.
And I suppose, technically speaking, that Jay Garrick
never saved my life. But he did save my love of
comics. You see, I had a retro streak in me even
as a kid.
When everyone listened to the Black Sabbath, I
listened to the Beatles. When everyone talked about
Space:1999, I watched Star Trek. I
thrilled whenever a black and white episode from
the first season of Gilligan’s Island
popped onto my TV, and I preferred Popeye to Woody
Woodpecker.
 And
so it should come as no surprise that while I read
my Superman and Batman comics each week, and collected
the Justice League of America just like very other
kid on my block, I spent most of my time bored to
tears with comics. In fact, only one feature kept
my attention – the yearly JLA/JSA team-ups.
Once every 12 months, all those routine, planet-juggling,
noble and bright superheroes were joined in a wonderful
cameo by their golden-age counterparts. The Earth-2
heroes were a touch older, and a bit more…
well, dingy. Their bones creaked a little more.
Their costumes hung a little looser off their shoulders.
It was hard to know, in any given year, what had
had happened to these old timers since their last
appearance. They looked tired. They looked troubled.
They didn’t seem to be the type who would
fly off to the stars with a glimmer in their smiles,
or maintain a glowing synchronous orbit over the
equator.
Sure, the Justice League had brighter costumes,
firmer muscles, stronger jaws. And sure, when Barry
Allen ran across the surface of Atlantic ocean,
or rushed back and forth to the 25th century, or
vibrated through walls, he commanded awe. But Jay
Garrick commanded respect.
Jay’s helmet didn’t really obscure
his face much, but it hardly mattered. He never
paused long enough for anyone to get a real good
look at him. No photo-ops for this Flash! No spandex
uniform tucked into some ridiculous flip-top ring.
Jay fought crime in a loose shirt and blue pants
that looked suspiciously like jeans. He was low-tech.
He was old-school. Watching him run alongside Barry
Allen and Wally West was like watching a poor Kenyan
runner fly by the official Nike heroes at finish
line to the Boston marathon. Substance over form.
Showing the techno-geeks how it’s done!
 And
let’s be honest - how many comic book heroes
had such a direct analogy to an ancient god? But
still, Jay wasn’t just Mercury, he was our
Mercury. No flowing golden locks and silver loin
cloth for Mr. Garrick. No sir. While the gods were
busy in their cloud cities or their mountain-top
thrones (or their satellite headquarters), Jay chaired
the non-nonsense JSA meetings in a Gotham City brownstone.
In the late 1970s, I came close to dropping comics
altogether. But then, just as I prepared to say
goodbye to my childhood heroes, I found that I wasn’t
alone in my love of Earth-2. All-Star Comics
picked up again at issue 58, right where it had
left off decades earlier. And Jay Garrick and company
saved me, in a manner of speaking.
A few years later, All-Star Squadron became
one DC’s best and most popular ongoing series,
and proved a fitting coda for Earth-2. In the wake
of Crisis, to my pleasant surprise, DC retained
Jay Garrick as an elder statesman.
His age fluctuated. His powers fluctuated. He disappeared
into limbo for half a decade. But none of that mattered.
When Wally West stumbled, Jay was there to pick
him up. When the Justice League International seemed
on the verge of collapse, Max Lord called Jay Garrick.
And when the world needed a revamped Justice Society,
Jay came out of semi-retirement and emerged back
onto the scene in full force.
As always, Jay Garrick commanded respect.
--Vin
Miller
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