Crowds gather in Metropolis ahead of the “The Fastest Man Alive Race”, a charity race between Superman and the Flash. Superman is the first to arrive, neatly and quietly descending on to the start line from the skies above. The Flash, by contrast, arrives is a blur of speed and loops around the plaza before joining Superman on the start line. The cocky, young speedster tries to upstage the older hero, but the Man of Steel refuses to rise to his antics. The rules of the race are simple, the winner will be the man who first circles the Earth one hundred times. The progress of the racers will be monitored by satellite tracking bands attached to each contestant’s arm.

Red and blue blurs race away from the starting line the instant the starting gun is fired. They zig zag through Metropolis, past the Daily Planet building, across the toll bridge and then away across the middle of America. The blurs continue out over the ocean, moving so fast that they’re able to run on the surface of the water. The two heroes are evenly matched and by the fifteenth lap the Flash has only a narrow lead.

Unknown to either hero the seemingly anonymous official who gave them their tracking bands was actually the disguised extortionist Mark Mardon. His mild-mannered scientist brother, Ben Mardon, had been experimenting with weather manipulation, but he had never generated enough “high velocity ionic energy” to power his equipment. However, the Flash and Superman’s race is creating a massive reservoir that he can tap into using devices hidden in the heroes tracking armbands. Mark is annoyed to find that Ben has already made it snow outside their house as he has more ambitious plans for their technology and does not want to draw attention to their  hideout.

Mark Mardon adopts another disguise and announces himself to the authorities as the Weather Wizard. He demonstrates the power of his new weapon by creating a violent storm off of the northern coast of Australia. Luckily for the sailors caught in the storm, it is directly in the path of the super-speed race. Superman and the Flash are soon on hand to save a stranded oil tanker that is leaking below the waterline. Superman seals the ship’s hull with his superstrength and heat vision, while the Flash uses his super-speed to create a vortex to suck up the escaping oil. The Weather Wizard’s storm then passes as quickly as it was created.

When the heroes watch the Weather Wizard’s latest communication the Flash recognises him as Mark Mardon. The Flash and Superman divert their race to look for Mardon. He is ready to kill them, but Ben intercedes and argues that killing is going to far. Ben had agreed to let Mark use his machine first as he had paid for its development with proceeds from his last extortion, but he had never agreed to using it as a murder weapon. Mark brushes his arguments aside and throws a blizzard into the heroes path. The Flash is barely able to stand upright and even Superman is held in place by the accumulated ice. Superman melts the ice with his heat vision while the Flash vibrates his molecules until the ice melts around him. Once they’re free the heroes realise that the Weather Wizard has been targeting them via their tracking arm bands. They ditch the armbands and restart the hunt for Mardon.

The Australian storm had been just a demonstration to prove the Weather Wizard’s power. He now demands that ransom of a billion dollars otherwise he will unleash a massive hurricane against Metropolis. Ben pleas with his brother again and refuses to go along with threatening an entire city. Mark pretends to let Ben leave, but then tries to kill him with a storm of boulder sized hailstones. The weather anomaly is spotted by the   weather satellites and pin points the Weather Wizard’s hideout. Superman and the Flash arrive in the nick of time to save Ben, but he warms them that his brother has gone mad and will kill them all.

Savage winds lash Metropolis as the impetuous Flash races ahead of Superman to the Weather Wizard’s hideout. He’s stunned by bolt after bolt of lightning until Superman pulls him clear. Superman circumvents the lightening shield surrounding the hideout by tunnelling under it, but even he isn’t immune to a point blank blast from the Weather Wizard’s hand held controller. The Flash follows the Man of Steel into the hideout. He knocks the controller from the Wizard’s grasp, but in going so creates a feedback that causes the weather control equipment to release all its stolen energy. The feedback destroys the hideout, but Superman manages to fly the Flash and the Weather Wizard to safety.

The Weather Wizard is deposited at the Metropolis prison. His scheme had interrupted the heroes race and had left the outcome unresolved. In a more friendly manner than before, Superman and the Flash line themselves up on the prison threshold to start a friendly race just between themselves.

The Flash

The Flash, or more correctly the second Flash, is usually seen as the foundation hero of the DC Comics Silver Age. The first Flash appeared in FLASH COMICS #1 (Jan 1940) and was created by writer Gardner Fox (co-creator of the Justice League) and artist Harry Lampert . This was Jay Garrick, a university student who gained superpowers after inadvertently inhaling the fumes from heavy water. Jay lasted until 1949 when his own title was cancelled and 1951 when his adventures with the Justice Society were curtailed in ALL-STAR COMICS #51. Superhero comics had passed out of fashion, but by the middle of the 1950s there was a feeling that it might be time to have a second go. Under editor Julius Schwartz, writer John Broome and artist Carmine Infantino relaunched the Flash as a try out in SHOWCASE #4 (Oct 1956). The only things they retained were the name and the super-speed concept. Underneath this they introduced a new costume and a new secret identity. The second Flash was Barry Allen, a police scientist (the forerunner of a crime scene investigator), who gained his powers when he was struck by a cabinet of electrified chemicals.

All good heroes have a sidekick and Barry Allen was no exception. His sidekick was his girlfriend’s nephew, Wally West, a fan of the Flash who received his powers in an identical accident to the one that gave Barry his powers. Wally used the name Kid Flash and was a founding member of the Teen Titans. Barry was the cleanest, squarest, straight-arrow in DC’s stable. His fans saw that as part of the charm, but it also meant that he lacked “relevancy” in the post-Marvel business. Barry remained the Flash until 1985 when the publishers finally decided that he was too old fashioned. An attempt had been made to modernise him, but it hadn’t worked. So he was killed off in CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS (1985-86) and his sidekick was promoted into his identity.

When Wally West became the third Flash he became the first of the sidekicks to properly graduate and succeed his mentor. Wally’s own comic book was launched with THE FLASH #1 in 1987 and he developed into a rather more down to Earth hero than Barry. He was still a young man, he had money problems, and he was easily distracted by beautiful women. Wally could appear quite shallow at times and he hid his fear that he wasn’t worthy of following in his uncle’s footsteps. In time Wally matured as a character. He made the role his own, he married journalist Linda Park, and they had twins. In many ways Wally had evolved into the mature married hero that Barry had been when he had been killed off.

The Flash that appears in Superman The Animated Series Speed Demons is not specifically identified, but by character he most closely resembles an early career Wally West Flash. This is after he’s become the Flash, but before he’s settled down into a relationship with his future wife, Linda Park. It appears to be the same character with little alteration that appears in Justice League Secret Origins. His secret identity isn’t confirmed until the final story of the second season when we are shown that, as suspected, he is Wally West. Although it isn’t shown whether there was ever a Barry Allen in the Animated Universe, West’s day job it shown as a CSI (Barry’s actual job) in a final season episode of Justice League Unlimited.

The Flash is voiced by Charlie Schlatter also provides the voice of the Flash for The Batman cartoon (the one that started after JL Unlimited ended). He also who played Ferris Bueller in the sitcom that was spun-off the film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and he is the voice of Ace Bunny in WB’s Lunatics relaunch of the Looney Tune characters. Schlatter didn’t voice the Flash in the JL, that voice was provided by Michael Rosenbaum).

The Weather Wizard

The Weather Wizard first appeared in THE FLASH #110 (Dec 1959) and was created by John Broome and Carmine Infantino. He was a petty criminal called Mark Mardon who stolen a weather control wand from his brother’s laboratory. In the comic books the Weather Wizard, like many of the Flash’s Rogues Gallery, has a rather low level of ambition. The general pattern of the Flash Rogues are petty criminals who stumble into fantastic advanced weaponry (heat guns, cold guns, weather wands, inter-dimensional mirrors) which they then use to commit rather small scale crimes. They’d use a billion dollars of stolen technology to rob a few hundred thousand dollars from a bank while causing millions of dollars of properly damage.

The idea of the Weather Wizard as a blackmailer was also used as the plot of the Justice League TV movie. It collapses down the two brothers Mardon into a single character, called Dr Eno, an apparently successful businessman and scientist, and forgoes the more theatrical elements. In both appearances, TV movie and cartoon, the character is played/voiced by Miguel Ferrer. He went on to voice Aquaman in the Superman episode Fish Story and J’onn J’onzz in the New Frontier. When the Weather Wizard reappeared in JL he was voiced by Corey Burton.

In the comics the Weather Wizard uses a slender wand-like device to control the weather – hence the name “Wizard” – but the cartoon shies away from that level of miniaturisation. Instead we have an entirely laboratory full of equipment and the big visual device of the holographic globe. The idea of a wand-like controller is retained in the dumb-bell like device Mark Mardon uses.

Misc.

The Flash is often shown being about to run on the surface of the water. The idea is that his foot falls are so fast that the water appears as a solid surface to him. This isn’t entirely as implausible as it sounds, there is a Central/South American lizard called the Common Basilisk or the Basilisk Lizard which is able to exactly the same thing, albeit over a relatively short distance.

“Fastest Man Alive”, the name of the charity race, is one of the descriptions of the Flash just as Superman is the “Man of Steel.”

Nimbus Tracking Station – Nimbus is a type of cloud, despite being a military post this is just a fancy weather station.

I’m not sure that accent those sailor’s are meant to be speaking, but its not Australian.

The Mayor of Metropolis is voiced by Carl Lumbly – the Martian Manhunter from the Justice League.

Highlights

For me, the highlight of this episode is the banter between the Flash and Superman. Especially Superman’s calm versus the Flash’s showboating. It foreshadows the relationship between Green Lantern and the Flash in the cartoon Justice League.

Oddities

It’s not really something that is unique to this episode, but the rate of ice accumulation in superhero cartoons is rather ridiculous. The Flash and Superman are nearly instantaneously encased in a large block of ice, but one would have thought that the Flash should have been fast enough to out race a growing ice crystal.

My Thoughts

The Flash is one of the first guest stars in the Superman cartoon. He is brash and over confident and their race pretty much opens as the classic Tortoise and the Hare set-up. In the comics the Flash and Superman have raced several times, but it surprising how few of the those races actually go the distance without some supervillain or other interfering. I must admit its not one of the classic storylines that I particularly like and it has been some what over done. However, the animated series does manages to make it feel fresh and dynamic. I think I prefer the Green Lantern guest appearance as they do more with the character’s mythology, but this episode doesn’t do too badly.

The Verdict