Tom versus the Flash number 271 or the Clown to Menace ratio seems to be off.

Welcome back for the Flash number 271, the March 1979 issue, feature cover pencil by

Rich Buckler, inked by Dick Giordano with the issue being edited by Ross Andrew. Our story in this

issue is The Silent Slayer of Central City, written by Carrie Bates, pencils by

Rich Buckler, inks by Jack Abel, lettered by Ben Oda, colored by Gene D'Angelo. And it's not,

it's not the strongest Rich Buckler issue. I miss Irv Novick a lot in this one. Irv's time on this

book is, I believe, wraps up right around now.

So we might have already seen the last Irv Novick issue.

I mean, Rich Buckler does an okay job, but I really got used to the Irv Novick style.

Now, you might remember from the last issue, we got a silent killer clown in Central City,

firing missiles at the flash from a rolling pipe organ. Flash is trapped in a wall. All standard flash stuff. He's too weak to vibrate out of there. The missiles are headed right towards him. Looks like the clown is going to get... Is it vengeance he wants? Homicide? What is the clown looking for? He won't speak. He won't tell us. We see the wall explode. The clown shows just a little bit of happiness about it. But at this point, the cops have shown up telling him to freeze. Looks like the cops might have the clown all locked up. Till he hits the ejector seat, of course he has an ejector seat. We see the clown do a fantastic acrobatic flip in the air onto a roof.

I mean, it's impressive enough that the cops are like, whoa, this guy must be some kind of

acrobat. Look at that, a perfect rooftop landing. More impressive if it wasn't dressed like a portly

clown. So he's up on the roof, looking down at the cops, and then he power dive, just like dive bombs them with a powered flying trapeze coming right at the cops. The cops start flipping out as I would if a clown was flying down at me. And out of the clown's shoes, starts a strange pink mist, something interesting, like a cotton candy. But this cotton candy is out of control. It's growing

and swallowing up the cops. Well, let's go back to the explode wall. It's the Flash dead. Is this book just going to be about the clown and Iris? It's going to be about Iris's grief. Now, the Flash, of course, has survived. We see his fist pop out of the rubble. He was able to vibrate just enough so that the explosion didn't kill him, but now he's got all these rocks embedded inside his body like buckshot, and he's in a lot of pain. But of course, he can't just let these

cops drown in cotton candy. The flash at super speed starts twirling around, sucking up the cotton

candy and dispersing it. Should have given it to the many, many orphans of Central City, but

yeah, he didn't. So he takes off the cops are shocked to see the flesh, sort of like he's running in pain. He's probably running like me with my back pain, except him all over his body with little rocks, and it's very hurtful for him to run. And he's got to figure some way to get these out of him, and it's embarrassing. He's trying to be invisible so no one sees what's going on.

He's screaming in agony. He gets home, runs right into the bathroom and slams the door so Iris doesn't even see what's going on. Iris is putting on her makeup. She's like, hey, let's drive into work together. We can talk. It feels like forever since we've been able to talk. Barry's all like, oh, can you hold it a mid-iris?

Very busy, you know, he's got rocks embedded inside of his body.

He's got to vibrate just like... since we've been able to talk. Barry's all like, oh, can you hold it a minute, Iris? Very busy, you know,

he's got rocks embedded inside of his body. He's got to vibrate just right to avoid any of them passing through major organs or causing problems. The whole time, Iris is getting pissed. She's like, do you hear me? I'm running late. Barry's like, soon, Iris, he'll be out there just to hang in there. as he's trying to vibrate the rocks out.

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