Tom versus the Flash number 202 or Everything the Suburbs are Afraid of.

Welcome back to the Flash number 202, the December 1970 issue featuring a cover by Dick Girodano, edited by Julie Schwartz.

The first story in this issue is The Satan Circle, written by Robert Canninger,

penciled by Irv Novick, inked by Murphy Anderson. It's pretty much a timeless tale about all the

things that suburban America is afraid of, all jammed up together. The first page is a big splash

page of The Flash in a pool with a dead woman floating in it wearing a Lucifer mask.

So, you know, this is going to be pretty good.

We start off in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Allen.

As Iris is telling the Flash, she's ironed his costume.

Again, does that costume need ironing? I guess. Do you ever get one where he's wearing a wrinkled version of it? Where he's just sort of like tossed off the side. It gets real bachelor. Like, it's like if I, right now my fiance lives in Pittsburgh, you know, if I was the Flash and had a costume, I just wad that thing up and throw it off to the side. Why isn't it back in the ring? Who knows? She left a bunch of TV dinners,

but she's hitting the road. She's been writing a series of articles about people who've gone

missing in Hollywood discothex, those evil, evil places, and it's a huge hit. So the picture

news is sending her out there to follow up on it.

She, in fact, is stopping at Rob Paley's estate, who's a famous director who's making a movie

called The Satan Circle, an expose on secret black magic cult. This black magic cult stuff,

in this issue, I think a little bit of it is Charlie Manson inspired, and I think a little

bit of it is the beginning of that weird sort of like mass hysteria in the 70s and 80s when people

thought there were Satanists everywhere. It's not really around today. It's like one of those

weird conspiracy theory things that

seem to float around for a little while. So this is just one element of this story that's a little

like, what are you afraid of America? Barry's too late. He's late for work so he can't take her to

the airport. So he gives her a rose in his place. She takes off. Later that night, we see Barry at home,

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