The Man Who Mastered Absolute Zero!

Ralph's penultimate appearance as a recurring character in The Flash for nearly eight years was in #134. Quite a familiar team by now was on board with this one: Carmine Infantino on the artwork for the cover and the story, John Broome writing, and Joe Giella on inks.

The front cover throws us for a loop, looking as if Ralph is somehow in cahoots with Captain Cold, capturing the Flash. In fact, the smug Captain Cold is so confident, he throws his cold gun away as he runs. If you missed Ralph's previous appearances, it might make Ralph seem to be one of the rogues.

The detail on the cover is very good, despite no background beyond the sidewalk. This art is so lively.

The splash panel depicts a scene late in the story in which Captain Cold creates a mirage with his cold gun to slow down Barry. The difference between the splash panel and the point in the story is that the splash panel puts the scene outside. In the story, it's inside.

The story finds some scientists working on a supercomputer called a "lightning calculator" or "Lical," which has been giving the wrong answers to questions they feed to it.

And here we find Barry and Ralph casually riding in a car together at the campus where they're about to check out Lical. No sign or mention of Sue. However, we do get an asterisk informing us that Ralph's identity has been revealed to the world, although the wording is a little off. If you thought Ralph's secret identity (such as it was, thanks, Barry) being revealed would be a big story, think again. There's a reason why I'm glad that The Flash TV show is giving Ralph character arcs: he needed a revamp that did something like that.

I do love the way Infantino draws Ralph's elongated neck. It already tells you he likes to show off.

Wait, is this Barry's car? If it was one of the cars Ralph and Sue use (I'm theorizing that they rent), why isn't Ralph driving? The problem is, I doubt he has that car licensed to "the Flash," thus meaning all someone has to do is take down his license plate number and look it up, and they know who the Flash actually is. What the heck, Barry?

The two superheroes go to check out Lical and the error is reported to them. Barry attempts a test to see if he can spot any errors with the electric pulse since he can actually keep up with it. However, he loses balances and nearly falls into a glass case, but Ralph springs into action and saves him. Aside from this mishap, Barry can't detect an error.

These pages where Ralph and Barry inspect Lical are well-done with Infantino's use of shading to imply limited light sources and an indoor locale.

Heading back out in the car, Ralph and Barry hear about a mass escape from the state prison and decide to go hunt down the escapees.

The panel where Ralph gets a newspaper is oddly without dialogue when compared to all the other pages. It's the only panel without a narration box or dialogue. There's quite a bit of mainly empty space in the lower right corner, so I wonder if there's a missing word balloon where Ralph tells the newsboy that he'll take a paper. If this is the case, it's never been corrected.

Ralph and Barry set out to use their own techniques to round up the thirty escaped convicts.

Barry and Ralph manage to capture all of the convicts except one: Leonard Snart, a.k.a. Captain Cold. The two heroes stroll out in what should be an iconic pose for the duo, though it's mainly in silhouette. Ralph says he's going to stick around.

Take a look at Ralph's dialogue here: "The two of us will be, Flash—for I'm going to hang around here till Captain Cold is—put on ice!" He takes a pause to make a pun. That's our Ralph.

Noting the repairs to the prison wall, Barry reflects that it was pure luck that caused the earthquake that allowed Snart to escape. We then cut over to a cave outside Central City where Snart is congratulating himself for causing the earthquake with "ultra-cold." How on earth he made that happen in prison is anyone's guess.

At the bottom of page 7, we see Barry and Iris West on a dinner date, Iris eager to tell Barry about what she was doing, but Barry's thoughts appear and we don't see Iris say what she was doing. I'm interpreting this as Barry getting lost in his thoughts and missing what she said. Rude, Barry. Rude. Well, until the next page where she reveals that she got to visit Snart's cell and noted that he seemed to be obsessed with a dancer named Miss Twist when he'd previously approached her for romantic intentions.

Overhearing that Captain Cold is in midtown, Barry convinces Iris to go see him, intending to dash out himself. I hope he made arrangements to pay for dinner. Barry finds Snart at a subdivision of the US mint, where he's just frozen the guards and prepares to make off with a lot of cash. Snart manages to distract Barry with a mirage from his cold gun as seen in the splash panel.

Seriously, Barry, did you slow down? You're moving at super speed. He shouldn't have time to see you're there and use his gun before you can catch him.

Running outside, Barry almost apprehends Snart before Ralph grabs him instead by accident, knocking him down. He doesn't know why he did it, but Barry assures him that they'll catch him. After catching up to Snart again, Barry gets frozen with "absolute zero," but manages to free himself with "vibration at super-speed." And yes, seems this bit serves as the basis for the title of the story.

As Ralph makes another grab for Snart, he again grabs Barry, making Snart so smug, he throws away his ice gun, and yep, here's the panel Infantino redrew as the cover. The composition is nearly the same, with things a bit more detailed and striking on the cover.

Whatever is going wrong with Ralph, it causes him to pick up Cold's gun and fire at Barry. Barry manages to out-maneuver him and finally has to knock out Ralph and then whirls Captain Cold back to jail.

Helping Ralph recover, Barry is reminded of Lical and drags Ralph back to the college campus, where he realizes some of the tubes in Lical are giving off a strange violet glow. Once the tubes are replaced, Lical begins working correctly. It seems that the odd radiation had affected Ralph as well due to his molecules being "vulnerable" because of his elasticity.

Well, looks like Barry has stopped using his car everywhere now. Also, the explanation of why the radiation affected Ralph reeks of bull. If anything, elastic molecules should bounce back, not absorb.

So, everything's peachy keen for Ralph and Barry, and apparently Sue, who it seems the creative team has completely forgotten about.

So, Ralph goes up against Captain Cold, is exposed to an odd weakness, and also, the defining moment of him not having a secret identity is right here, although it could easily have been an editorial afterthought. This story would've been better before Ralph's marriage to Sue.

The story is a rather weak team up story because we get a random "nerfing" of Ralph and Barry to make the story have any stakes. There's details about Captain Cold established in the story that wind up going nowhere. His interest in Miss Twist is why he commits the robbery of the subdivision of the mint. Speaking of which, are those people okay? We don't hear a thing about them. Realistically, no, those people are dead. Comic book science... maybe they survived once they thawed out.

In any case, next issue, Ralph's last appearance in The Flash for a long, long time.