Tom versus the Flash number 210 or they even made a robot Stephen Douglas for some robot debates.

Welcome back for Tom versus the Flash number 210, the November 1971 issue featuring a cover by Murphy Anderson with the entire issue being edited by Julie Schwartz.

The first story in this issue is, an earth divided,

written by Kerry Bates, penciled by Irv Novick, inked by Dick Giridano, and this may be my favorite

one we've done so far. It is truly fantastic. We begin in a room with a familiar-looking

man, if you know U.S. history. It looks like

it's Abraham Lincoln. Maybe it's a time in the past. Perhaps no, it can't be, because he's talking

to some sort of fancy high-tech microphone, talking about how the earth is divided and how he sees

it as his goal to bring everyone together, even though there are enemies of peace that would

seek to destroy him.

So he's talking to his mic when a figure walks into the room from behind.

I don't know what John Wilkes Booth looks like, but I'm willing to bet it's John Wilkes

booth, except he has a laser gun.

He shoots Lincoln in the back of the head with his laser gun disintegrating his body

while screaming sick semper tyranus. That's a pretty goddamn awesome beginning to a comic book story.

What's going on? Are they in the future? How did this happen? The narrator tells us that we take a shift

back in time to the Allen household in Central City. Barry's got his flash costume on. He's waiting for Iris to get ready. They're going to go visit her real parents in the future. He's got two sets of in-laws now, one who's like a doctor who can't get his shit together and a bunch of people from a war-torn future. That's annoying. Well, Iris is like, I'll get it together. It doesn't matter. Whenever we get there, we get there, because it's time travel anyway. Barry, as he says, has the cosmic treadmill idling. That's just a waste of power to have it idle. They get on the treadmill. They zip into the future. We get a quick one-page recap of Iris. You know, she's from the future, a war-torn world where it got divided up into Earth East and Earth West. Her parents sent her back in time to save her and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So they get there. They arrive in the future. No one seems to be around. And the real purpose of the trip is not just to visit Iris's parents, but they don't got no newspapers in the future.

So Iris is going to set up a picture news service in the year 2971.

Does she get a cut of any of the profits?

She's got going to be the guy who owns the Rupert Murdoch of the future,

where she's got her own slanted political views will be put forward in the picture news service of the future, where she's going to, her own slanted political views will be put forward

in the picture news service of the future. But there's a problem. The city is filled with people

...