Becoming The Overman

It all began back in 1938 when student Jay Garrick accidentally inhaled fumes from an experimental version of hard water, after a week long coma the young man awoke to find that the fumes had caused a change in his physiology granting the ability of superspeed. Like Max Mercury before him and dozens after him Garrick had tapped into the mysterious Speed Force - an extra dimensional energy field that lies beyond light speed.

With his new found superspeed Jay Garrick created a costumed identity and became the original Flash, a member of the legendary Justice Society and the All Star Squadron during the second World War. Jay retired from public life to an extent when the JSA disbanded during the HUAC witch hunts of the early fifties, but when the lightning called he would still don his costume to run with the wind.

It was 1956 Eisenhower had just been re-elected, Sudan had gained its independence and Jay Garrick was still occasionally popping up as the Flash in his home city of Keystone, right across the river from its sister city - Central City. A master plan by three criminals the Shade, the Fiddler and the Thinker trapped all of Keystone City in a vibratory field that displaced it from the normal space-time continuum, removing it from both the memories and sight of normal people. The original Flash drifted from the minds of people over the decades but one person remembered, Barry Allen remembered!

Police scientist Bartholomew "Barry" Allen was known to both friends and family as the slowest person on the face of the planet, no matter the appointment or event. For work or on dates with his long time girlfriend Iris West he was late. Normally people would have held a grudge, but that was never really possible against Barry, he was one of the most brave and noble persons that it was possible to meet. Barry was always one step behind the rest of the world, that altered one night while working late at his laboratory when a bolt of lightning from the future struck the window.

In an instant he heard a voice ask offered to grant him great power for the force of good but it would mean that he would never life out the full term of his lifespan. He agreed!

The lightning earthed itself via the quickest possible route - via an exploding chemical cabinet and the nearby Barry Allen. The random concoction of electricity and chemicals dousing him left little obvious effect until he was forced to run for a date with Iris. He started accelerating, and kept getting faster and faster, easily out pacing the taxi that he had been running after. Barry realised that he had gained the ability of superspeed just like his idol Jay Garrick. But Garrick was just a memory from the old comics, Barry decided in homage to become a new Flash, the second to bear the name.

Barry was foremost a scientist and with his analytical mind he was able to create a special resilient fabric that when exposed to nitrogen in the air expanded to normal size. He used this to tailor a costume that was small enough to fit inside a special signet ring - yet would expand to full size when needed. He had the identity, he had the costume all that was needed was the threats. This was easily supplied by a pantheon of costumed criminals that exceeded that of even the Batman's. Villains such as Gorilla Grodd, the original Mirror Master and the Weather Wizard. Many of them wielded fantastic superpowers or technology but without the grand scope or dreams of others in those more innocent days.

The popular nature and respectability of Barry made the Flash a household name across the country. Central City proudly claimed on its signs that it was "The home of the Flash". Fan clubs sprung up across the country and even a tourist attraction - the Flash Museum - was set up to chronicle the adventures of the Flash. One of the many fan clubs existed in Blue Valley, Nebraska with is president Wally West, nephew of Iris, Barry's fiancee. When Barry met Wally he saw in him the same idolisation that he had for the original Flash and so "arranged" for Wally to meet the second Flash.

When the fateful day came Wally met the Flash at Barry's laboratory and the two talked about the origin of the Flash. Wally asked if the same thing would ever happen to him and was promptly answered when lightning struck twice transformed Wally into the Kid Flash. Originally wearing a fitted version of Barry's costume Wally became the companion of Barry and a founding member of the Teen Titans. Barry was not idol himself and was principal in the first appearance of Aquaman before joining the Justice League. Shortly after joining the League Barry encountered the world's famous Elongated Man - Ralph Dibny and the two became fast friends.

Barry's fame continued to rise and one night he found himself standing in for the entertainment at a charity event and started to show the children one particularly impressive stunt that involved vibrating his body at a certain frequency. It was in this vibration state that Barry found himself able to hear strains of strange music. Tracking down the music Barry arrived at the river front and tried the vibration trick once more. To his astonishment he found that he was now "in-tune" with the sleeping city of Keystone. Quickly deducing that it was the home of his "fictional" inspiration Barry tracked down Jay and helped him throw off the vibratory sleep. Together for the first time the Flashes of the two cities defeated the gang of super villains and managed to destroy the equipment that was holding Keystone out of step with the rest of the world. The illusion was lifted and inhabitants of the two cities were reunited.

For the next four years Barry Allen along with Wally West and occasionally Jay or Ralph defended Central City against the growing Rogues Gallery of costumed criminals including Captain Boomerang. It was during this time that Barry first encountered Eobard Thawne alias Professor Zoom - the Reverse Flash.

Thawne was a time traveller from five hundred years in the future - he was that centuries greatest fan of the Flash and even went to the extent of having himself surgically altered to look like Barry Allen. He somehow managed to recreated the electrochemical accident that gave Barry his powers to gain superspeed for himself drastically shortening his life span. All set he decided to travel back in time to after the death of the Flash in order to take Barry Allen's place but he had not bargained on finding more accurate records in the current day. He came across the startling revelation that he had actually died at the hands of Barry several years before he had arrived. Sending him over the edge mentally he was sent back to the 25th century by West using the Cosmic Treadmill. Time and time again Thawne would return in time to try and seek vengeance against the man that was going to kill him.

Thawne returned just before Barry was to marry Iris and imprisoned him in order to impersonate Barry so that he might marry Iris himself. However Barry managed to break free of the trap, defeat Thawne and marry Iris without her even realising that he was the Flash. She only learned that he was the Flash when he revealed it to her in his sleep accidentally during their wedding night. The following year Iris discovered that she was actually from the 30th century sent back in time as an infant in order to spare her from almost certain nuclear war.

Zoom tried again to get Iris to leave Barry and when she refused he murdered her. After an extensive investigation Zoom's involvement in her murder was revealed with him and Barry battling in a superspeed duel. Barry managed to defeat Zoom by trapping him outside the timestream. In the aftermath Barry fell in love with another woman - Fiona Webb - and on their wedding day Zoom returned. In order to save Fiona's life Barry was forced to kill Zoom. The Flash stood trial for murder, Barry Allen disappeared from public life (Fiona went insane) and even his JLA membership was examined but eventually upheld by the voting members.

As the trial continued the villain Abra Kadabra hijacked the trial forcing it to declare a guilty verdict against Barry. However with the help of the Rogues Gallery (who had also been threatened by Kadabra) Barry managed to stop the villain. During the course it was revealed that Iris was actually alive and well in the 30th century and that her spirit had been put into the body of a recently deceased woman using 30th century technology. Barry opted to stay in the 30th century with Iris while evidence that would clear him was sent back to the twentieth century.

Barry lived with Iris in the 30th century for a brief month until the coming of the Crisis on Infinite Earths. The Flash was captured by the agents on the Anti-Monitor and subjected to psychological torture by the Psycho Pirate. He was transferred to the world of Qward and held in a gelatine like prison that negated his superspeed. By varying his superspeed vibrations he was able to disrupt the containment and easily defeated the Psycho Pirate into submission and forced him to manipulated the Qwardians into attacking the Anti-Monitor.

With the distraction the Flash attacked the Anti-Matter cannon that the Anti-Monitor had constructed so destroy the Earth. Barry started to circle the rotating core of the machine in the opposite direction draining the energy in its power core. Enraged the Anti-Monitor started to open a temporal portal as the speed of the Flash started to manifest the Speed Force's temporal effect. Barry found himself running backwards through time in the process transforming him into a bolt of pure energy that intersected with a certain cabinet of chemicals a decade before. He was the lightning bolt that triggered his entire career as the Flash.

Barry Allen was survived by his wife Iris and twins Don and Dawn.

FATE moved through the air as unseen as a ghost and as silently as a cloud of smoke, as another spirit was to be enduringly changed in the war on Mutants.

“Jeez, I haven’t seen anyone that nervous watching TV since my old man bet the rent on last year’s Super Bowl.”

A dirty bar room, filled with the smell of cigars and tequila, an addictive smell that burned the eyes and blazed the nose, swelled up the atmosphere. Beer bottles and pictures of women covered the walls like a shroud of filth across the place. A group of hairless men in worn leather vests, with tattoos seared all across their bodies, stood by a pool table, not paying attention to the game nearly as much as they were to the large, odd man with long, black hair sitting at the bar, enigmatically wearing a Hawaiian shirt, shades and a bandana, with a duffle bag of clothes laying next to his stool, watching with horror at the evil news.

“What’s the matter, freak? You scared the Sentinels will drop in for a beer on their way back from L.A.?”

The man continued to stare at the wall away from them in confusion.

“Correct me if I’m wrong, sir, but I was under the impression that the Sentinels were only after Mutants.” he replied. His voice was pleasantly deep, but educated, ringing through the shot glasses and liquor bottles accentuating the bar like a baritone note. The biker guy looked at him and sucked and puffed on his cigarette.

“Well, if you ain’t a Mutant, how do you explain those ugly, gorilla-sized feet of yours, dude?” he said, laughing and snorting roughly with his friends.

“Was mom making out with Mighty Joe Young behind your daddy’s back or what?”

The mysterious man’s eyes narrowed and his lips curled; his voice glowed with an undertone of anger and irritation.

“I’m sorry, friend, but I think you’ve mistaken me for someone who walked in here looking for trouble.”

The biker stiffened his clasp upon his pool stick so intensely you could hear the wood straining under his fist, like a tree ready to collapse.

“Yeah, well I reckon you just mistook me for someone who cares, fat boy!”

And with that he picked up his stick and swung with all his capacity at the stranger’s back, expecting to do nothing less than shatter a bone. However, by the finish of the swing he had succeeded in shattering nothing but bottles on the tablet, ripping debris toward the startled bartender. The previously offended man had vanished into thin air. The biker’s head had spun left, right, and everywhere between, when the ceiling fan started to cough.

“Ah-Hem…”

“Oh, Sh…”

The large stranger back-flipped from the sky, his hands crashed against the bar, and he used them to swing his feet out from beneath himself and smash his heels against the biker’s jaw with an uppercut, knocking him back onto the pool table.

However, amidst all of the panic and disorder, the bartender had managed to reach for his shotgun, cocking it furiously.

“Get out of my bar, you filthy animal,” he screamed to the now relaxed, squatting outsider, “or I swear to God I’ll decorate this entire place with every brain cell in your head!”

“Are you serious? The guy came at me with a pool cue.” the big gentleman said in bewilderment.

“That’s right, freak, just keep mouthing off and giving me the excuse I was looking for to pull this trigger.”

The big guy just sighed and picked up his duffle bag.

“Okay, okay, I’m going…” he said walking towards the door, “… but the only reason I feel I can walk out of here with any dignity is that I didn’t flush the toilet when I paid a visit to your men’s room.” he said, flicking a quarter backwards at the bartender, and landing with a faultless "ting" in the tip jar.

He left the hatred serenely, without as much as a slam of the door as he left out the rear exit. There, waiting for him, leaning against an alley wall, was a shadowy figure accompanied by an alluring, attractive voice.

“Don’t you ever wonder what it would be like to live in a place where the locals aren’t organizing a lynch mob the second you walk through the door, Henry McCoy?” it said, almost urging him to explain his whole life to a shadow, but he knew he couldn’t do that...there was too much to tell.

All of his life he had been considered a freak, a virus, nothing more than an animal destined to be slaughtered. The voice was all to right; he had been an alien to all of the regular people, no chance of ever being normal. He had tried though. He had even thought of death as the best answer. He would think, “Why am I so hated, why when people see me do they turn away, why does no one love me like I need them to? Maybe in heaven, if there is one, everyone is the same; everyone is normal. Why did God do this to me? All I did was be born…” His head buzzed frantically with questions through the knit-woven pockets of his mind, one of which seemed the best for the moment.

“Who the heck are you?”

Out of the shadows emerged a skinny, read-haired woman in leather.

“The best thing that’s happened to you since they started doing Reebok in a size 42, handsome.”

James K. Polk has one of the most interesting historical reputations among American presidents. Serving for a solitary term, he consistently ranks among the most highly regarded occupants of the White House. Yet in spite of this he has been the subject of surprisingly little attention from historians. This is what makes Sam Haynes' short study so welcome. Seeing Polk as representative of the nation's desire for territorial expansion, he provides a concise account of the life of this understudied figure.

Haynes' book is hardly the final word on Polk; he compresses the first thirty years of Polk's life into a single chapter, raising many questions that are then left unanswered. It is only when Polk emerges as one of Andrew Jackson's lieutenants in the House of Representatives that the narrative slows enough to allow for insights. Haynes sees Polk as the "consummate Jacksonian," serving as a loyal lieutenant and emerging as one of the foremost heirs to his legacy. Yet two successive defeats in races for the governorship of Tennessee dimmed his political star, and his name was not among those of the frontrunners for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1844.

Nonetheless, Polk emerged from a deadlocked convention as the first "dark horse" nominee in American history. Hynes argues that the significance of the 1844 presidential convention lies in the embrace of territorial expansion as an issue that united a broad range of groups in a diverse country, which helped Polk defeat Henry Clay in the subsequent election. As president, Polk was a hands-on manager who carefully monitored every department of the executive branch. While viable with the small bureaucracy in the Washington of his day, this proved impractical when managing the far-flung war against Mexico.

The Mexican-American War takes up over a third of the book, both as the pivotal event of Polk's presidency and as the culminating moment of the expansionist movement. Haynes depicts it as a natural consequence of the belligerency of American expansion, which risked war with Great Britain as well over the Pacific Northwest. Polk's battles were not confined to foreign relations, though, as going to war with poorly defined aims exacerbated tensions between the proslavery South and antislavery North. Polk also clashed with the predominantly Whig military commanders, who chafed at the president's effort to micromanage the conflict. This created conflict as well with Polk's handpicked negotiator, Nicholas Trist, who succeeded in hammering out a treaty ending the war before the expected recall order arrived. His success allowed the president to step down with the war as the crowning achievement of his administration, though Polk was so exhausted that he died soon afterwards.

Haynes's book provides an excellent introduction to both American expansionism during the 1840s and Polk's conduct of the war. In many respects, it serves as a useful supplement to Charles Sellers' unfinished two-volume study of Polk, which covers his life to the start of the war with Mexico. Yet while Sellers' biography is the definitive work on the president's early years, this book is still the best modern study available of Polk's complete political career.

I have fallen out from my egotistical stage. For allowing it to even exist, I apologize. Or, as Roland would say, I cry your pardon. I was supposed to be a philosophical being beyond fads and stages, beyond the ethereal. But I started believing I was greater than others, that my thoughts transcended others abilities, and in doing so I had forgotten the face of my father. Again, I cry your pardon. I lost touch of the humility that kept me from becoming evil, and I strayed from the beaten path. I wondered why it felt so wrong, and now I know. Now I have remembered the face of my father, and all is well again.

As Superman’s father once told him, “Do not punish yourself for your feelings of vanity, simply learn to control them. It is an affliction common to all, even here on Krypton. Why, our destruction could have been avoided if not for the vanity of some who considered us…indestructible.”

There have been many people through history who have gained access to these powers, and thusly there are many different people who have taken the mantel of Flash. I shall take their stories one at a time.

Jason "Jay" Garrick was a college student in 1940 who practised experiments with "heavy water," or deuterium oxide. After studying in the student laboratory late one night, he fell asleep and accidentaly spilled the sealed container of heavy water on the ground, releasing its vapors into Jay's respiratory system. When he awoke the next morning he found that he had gained the ability to run with superhuman speed and move with equally superhuman reflexes; he tried to catch a cab and ended up running past it to the other end of town. After a brief career as a college football star, Jay donned a red shirt with a yellow lightning bolt across it and a silver helmet with wings his father wore in WWI, where he was killed. Wearing no mask, he protected his identity by continually vibrating his face when in public, making him appear to be a living blur, causing the newspapers to refer to him as "The Flash." He retired and married in 1951.