The Space-Boomerang Trap!

Well, here's the second time Ralph featured on the front cover of a comic. And what a cover...

The Flash #124 features Barry being hurled off into the sky, strapped to a giant boomerang while Ralph stretches up to try to catch him.

"You're going on a one-way trip to the moon, Flash—and there's nothing on Earth that can save you!" gloats Captain Boomerang.

Okay, so you're trying to send Barry out into space on a giant boomerang? Buddy, no, that's not how that works. There is no way that can break the atmosphere. It does make a pretty striking cover, though, and this particular story would be referenced as an example of a team-up with the Flash when Ralph moves to Detective Comics.

Anyway, a familiar team is at work on this issue. Carmine Infantino is penciling both the cover and interior art with Joe Giella on inks, and John Broome writes the story.

 Splash page time!

This one is more illustrative of what the story's going to do rather than illustrate a scene from it. We have Ralph and Barry teaming up with villain Captain Boomerang as they take their stances against a group of invading aliens.

I rather like this splash page with the offensive stances and the view of the invaders. It does a good job of making you excited for the story.

Little trivia, this scan is from The Flash Archives, which would usually recreate the original colors from the comics just with better printing technology and on-register. However, the sky in the original printing was yellow. In the digital version through Comixology, it's yellow again. And in the reprints in Showcase Presents, there was no color so it didn't matter.

Here we find Mr. Dibny relaxing on the beach, reading a letter from the Flash. I'm a little surprised that Barry would mail it. In fact, I'd imagine that Barry would be more likely to run in and talk to Ralph rather than mail or drop off a letter. That could've made a much more dramatic start to this story, actually. And also, how on earth did Barry know where Ralph would be? If they keep in touch through the phone or something, why not just talk over that? John Broome, you let me down here. But, we do get Malibu Ralph out of it, so... it's not that bad.

Barry's letter tells how Captain Boomerang is out on parole and how he's suspicious that Boomerang might try to steal the Normark jewels on a public exhibition. Arriving there, Barry is surprised to find Boomerang in his costume. The paroled felon claims he's not doing anything wrong, so Barry can't do anything. Boomerang in fact invites Barry to keep an eye on him to prove that he's not doing anything. As expected, a boomerang enters the hall and scoops up the jewels, flying outside and up into the air and vanishing with the loot. Barry knows Boomerang did it, but how? The letter reveals that two other robberies have since happened.

Well, here for the first time is Sue in a bathing suit, looking quite lovely. Sadly, she only gets three words of dialogue before Ralph leaves for Central City. Sadly, this will set the standard for a lot of Sue's appearances in the 60s, both in The Flash and Detective Comics.

The story cuts over to Captain Boomerang who reveals through his thoughts that he has a boomerang that can travel twenty four hours into the future, allowing him to have an alibi for what he was doing as the crime was taking place.

However, as he sets out to do another job, we discover that his boomerangs actually pass through another dimension and the beings that live there have seen the boomerang and take it as a threat and decide to attack Earth.

Frickin' Captain Boomerang... This is why you don't mess with time travel.

No lie, I cracked up the first time I read that plot twist.

Infantino does a good job of drawing an alien world and selling that that's what it is, even if we only see it for four panels.

The bottom half of this page is dedicated to Ralph joining Barry at the museum to protect some priceless jade on display. (Honestly, it's like these museums are just asking for people to steal from them. Three previous robberies that )

Ralph has an interesting aside here that begins to tie into his persona that would soon be established as he thinks, "I like people looking at me! I guess that's why I always wear my Elongated Man uniform in public—my trademark!" Compare this to his declaration of only using his powers to help back in #112. It's less an inconsistency and more that someone's learning to love the spotlight.

So, Captain Boomerang pops up to prove he's not behind any funny business, and sure enough, a boomerang appears and snags the jade, but thanks to Ralph, Barry is able to recover the jade.

Barry then realizes that they might be able to find Captain Boomerang's fingerprints on the boomerang. The villain overhears and realizes this will sink him, but Flash catches him.

There's not a lot to say because Infantino does a good job, and except for handling the boomerang so much, the story is pretty sound.

I will say that on panel five, just as on the splash page, we can see that Ralph uses a string to keep his mask on his face.

Captain Boomerang spots people passed out in the street and Ralph spots a news report about aliens attacking earth. People are being struck with fatigue weapons that sap their strength. The government is helpless. So, Captain Boomerang offers to help Ralph and Barry fight the aliens.

I'm just going to say that Infantino's panels here are actually really good at getting the idea of the alien invasion  And in the panels to your left, he uses shading to neatly convey where the light would be blocked, but it also conveys a sense of foreboding. Basically, this story could probably be a bit longer and darker.

All right here, you know how I feel about Ralph elongating his back like this. At least here, he's doing it for a clear purpose. And Infantino does get a very good sense of scale of how far Ralph has stretched with that angle.

So, spotting the aliens holed up at City Hall, the three split up to slowly take them out.

I will say that the previous pages made me think this was all of the country being attacked, but seemingly the invasion is local to Central City. It's not unthinkable Central City would have a division of the National Guard or something, but the previous pages made us think the threat was bigger than the rest of the story lets on.

So, apparently, those aliens were really good at narrowing down where that boomerang they weren't able to properly observe came from.

And that's one of those things I just write off as "It was the Silver Age."

So, here we have a particularly dramatic panel of Ralph stretching across a river and popping up out of the water to sneak attack an alien. Honestly, that's pretty badass. Captain Boomerang is able to take out some from a hiding place with his boomerang, and Flash is able to run circles around them until they pass out, trying to catch him.

 So, our trio gets a hold of fatigue guns and turn them on the invaders. This strike causes the leaders to decide to retreat, and after they escape in a fissure in space, Barry seals it up so they can never return.

Barry finds Ralph passed out, surmising that he was struck by a retreating alien, but I think the idea is that Captain Boomerang did it, since he was only helping to get rid of the aliens. And so he turns his weapon on Barry...

So, yes, he has a giant space-boomerang that he's tied Barry to that will send Barry into perpetual orbit around the earth. Captain Boomerang, that's bullshit and you should know it.

I just want to imagine Captain Boomerang getting a crew of workmen to help him set that up and explaining that he's going to use this rig to send the Flash into orbit. Meanwhile, the workmen just nod and do the job, not telling him that there is no way a non-powered launch like that is going to break the atmosphere.

 The penultimate page sees Ralph recover from the fatigue weapon and look up to see Barry on the boomerang. Launching up as fast as he can, he manages to reach the boomerang, free Barry and return him to the rooftop where Captain Boomerang is.

Gotta love Captain Boomerang standing there just going "!?"

I do not want to be where that boomerang would come down. Unless it turns out it actually did get into orbit. In which case, there's canonically a giant boomerang orbiting around this earth. Unless we assume someone like Superman or Green Lantern pulls it out. That's going to make for some interesting discussion fodder for the next Justice League meeting.

As my buddy Duke says, "These are things man was not meant to question."

Anyway, Ralph really must have juiced up on his gingo extract. But the way Infantino draws it is pretty cool.

Final page, Barry catches Captain Boomerang and hauls him back to jail. As he runs through town, he observes people recovering from the alien attack.

The final panel has Barry confirm that Captain Boomerang's fingerprints were on the mystery boomerang. I think we can assume from this that they were able to recover the stolen jewelry.

This is while Barry and Ralph are riding in the back of a car, so... did they have an impromptu parade? I mean, I guess "Hey, they saved us from an alien invasion" is parade worthy... And just the type of attention Ralph would eat up with a spoon.

So, yeah, excellent work from Infantino on the art, kind of wish they'd given the story a little more space. John Broome kind of let me down in a couple spots in the writing, but hey, the guy probably had a deadline to meet.

I think what we learned here is don't mess with objects that travel into the future or else you might bring an alien invasion upon your fair city. Also, Barry also isn't always the worst.