(Showcase #13) - Barry was running late for a date with Iris when they heard a police car responding to a request for assistance at the Palladium Jewelry Store. Iris went to cover the robbery for her paper, and Barry let her race ahead of him so he could turn into the Flash without her noticing. The store was being robbed by Mr. Element and his henchmen, and element said he’d not only anticipated flash’s arrival he looked forward to matching wits with him. Flash ran into the store but was entangled in nearly-invisible strands of gold Element had strung throughout the corridor, giving him time to escape. The Harrow Company received a large supply of platinum, and Flash suspected Mr. Element would make the company his next target. Flash ran into the building after hours only to find Mr. Element waiting for him behind a wall of vanadium, which was so hard Flash couldn’t vibrate through it. Element crowed that his henchmen had already stolen the platinum, and he’d just stayed behind to show Flash was fruitless it was to oppose him. Flash rubbed the wall at superspeed melting it, then grabbed Mr. Element, preparing to take him to prison, but the criminal dropped a sodium pellet into water on the ground, causing an explosion that allowed him to escape. Barry was on a date with Iruis, but she noted how distant he was, but he couldn’t tell her he was distracted because of his frustration at being unable to nab Mr. Element. Mr. Element made a neon sign in the sky challenging Flash to a final confrontation. Flash met him in a dark alley, and Element shot him with a blast of elemento, an element he discovered that was a form of magnetic light. The elemento made Flash shot helplessly into space, and as he escaped Earth’s orbit he feared colliding with the moon or being sent further into the reaches of space. Flash managed to catch the moon’s gravitational field and slingshotted himself back to Earth. Mr. Element was shocked to see Flash escape his trap and said he had a radium bomb in his watch, but Flash had already noticed the odd glow from his watch and slipped it off the criminal. Flash took Mr. Element to prison.

 (Flash I #105) - Barry Allen had to postpone a lunch date with Iris because he was busy in the lab investigating a series of strange robberies. Iris told him he should be more like the Flash and actually catch crooks instead of tinkering in a lab. The robber turned out to be Katmos, the last survivor of an ancient civilization who was building a mind-control gun to enslave the population of Earth. Flash defeated him and still made time to change back to Barry Allen and keep a dinner date with Iris, but she was more interested in reading the evening newspaper’s coverage of Flash’s latest adventure.

(Flash I #105) - Iris wanted to do a news story on the Flash’s encounter with supervillain Mirror Master, and Barry assured her Flash had told him the entire story and he’d relay it to her.

(Flash I #106) - Flash helped King Solovar, the rightful ruler of gorilla City, reclaim his throne from the evil Gorilla Grodd, who planned on conquering the world. Barry took Iris on a date, insisting on going to the zoo and viewing the apes. Barry thought to himself that he’d always wonder if any gorilla he saw was an ordinary animal or one of the super-intelligent residents of Gorilla City.

(Flash I #106) - For once Barry was on time for a date at Iris’ apartment for some home cooked dinner. He regretted not being able to explain that he was always late because of his adventures as the Flash. The day before Pied Piper made his debut in Central City, breaking into a jewelry store and the safe of a skyscraper office, but left all the money and valuables untouched. Piper sent out a radio message challenging the Flash to try and stop him from completing the crimes he started. Barry regretted having to leave Iris in the lurch, but he changed into Flash and sped out of her apartment without her noticing. Iris was fuming that her fiancee was finally on time but had walked out on her. Flash confronted Piper and his gang at the skyscraper office but Piper used vibrations from his pipe to freeze Flash in place. The crooks made their getaway, but hadn’t counted on Flash using his own vibrations to free himself and pursue them. Piper used his pipe to stir a tidal wave from the Central city Lake, knocking him out. Flash recovered and sped to the jewelry store to go another round with Pied Piper. Piper’s pipe caused an earthquake that opened a crevasse under Flash. Flash used his superspeed to run up the side of the crevasse and then created a windmill by whirling his arm at superspeed, knocking out Pied Piper and his gang. Barry returned to his date with Iris, saying he just had to pick up the evening newspaper covering Flash’s defeat of the Pied Piper.

(Flash I #107) - Flash spotted a parked truck rolling out of control downhill and sped to the rescue, but a stranger in strange garb appeared and outran him, stopping the truck from crashing. The stranger told Flash he had no memory of who he was, and his only memory was wandering around the outskirts of town earlier that afternoon. Flash took him to seek medical treatment, but the doctors could find nothing wrong with him. Iris got wind of the story and convinced the Picture News to propose a race between the stranger and Flash, to prove who really was the fastest man alive, with proceeds going towards charity. Flash couldn’t refuse, fearing his reputation would suffer if he did, and the stranger agreed to the race. The stranger, to the shock of everyone, handily beat Flash. Flash took the stranger to the doctors again, and after a round of electroshock therapy he regained his memory. His name was Kyri, and he was an android created by the Rulers of the Galaxy to keep the universe safe. His spaceship crashed on Earth, disrupting his energy. The electroshock treatments took away his superspeed, so he asked for Flash’s help completing his current mission, and the Scarlet Speedster agreed. Flash repaired his ship and Kyri piloted them to planetoid F203. F203 was near the center of the galaxy and a dimensional nexus where every several years the forces of another dimension threatened to break through. As they approached the planetoid they observed the dimensional rift had already begun to open, and Kyri told Flash he need him to repair the barrier around the nexus. At the dimensional weak spot Flash melted a number of rocks and minerals in a specific order described by Kyri to seal the barrier. Kyri thanked Flash for his help and returned him home while he went to rendezvous with the Rulers of the Galaxy. Flash was happy to give Iris the scoop about his latest adventure, and told her that because Kyri was an artificial lifeform he was still the fastest man alive.

(Flash I #108) - Flash responded to a newspaper ad placed by Dr. Hirachi, who claimed to have invented a device that could accurately measure Flash’s speed. Hirachi had Flash run on a treadmill while a beam fired radiation at him. Flash found that he couldn’t slow down or get off the treadmill, and Hirachi took off his human disguise, revealing himself as Kee Feleg, a being from the dimension Mohru. The treadmill kept Flash trapped while the radiation sped him up, and Flash knew that before long his body would give out from the strain. Feleg gloated about dooming Flash and left his lab, saying he had other business to attend to. Flash couldn’t slow down, so he sped up, running faster than the speed of light to escape the treadmill. Flash learned that Feleg and a band of criminal Mohruvians were stealing fulgurites, objects struck by lightning, to give them superspeed to commit crimes on Mohru. He broke the speed of light to shift to the dimension of Mohru, captured the thieves, and handed them over to a Mohruvian police chief. Barry and Iris celebrated their anniversary by going to Central City Park, where they had their first date on the Forth of July. Iris wondered what happened to the tree stump struck by lightning that marked where they had their first date, and Barry couldn’t tell her it was one of the objects struck by lightning that the Mohruvians stole.

(Flash I #108) - Gorilla Grodd foresaw the possibility of his capture and established a mental link with his nuclear-powered quadromobile. He summoned his craft, which crashed into his prison, destroying it and freeing him. Grodd invented an evolution-accelerator, which advanced him on the evolutionary track past modern man. In his new human identity of Drew Drowden he made millions in the stock market and built a lab, having engineers develop a pill that gave him the power of telekinesis and mind over matter. Barry Allen went on a date with Iris West, and she told him Picture News was about to name their man of the year. Flash had been a shoo-in, but with Drew Drowden making the scene it was a toss-up. Drowden tested his new powers by uprooting trees with his mind and then raising his own factory into the air. Flash investigated, and Drowden used his mind over matter powers to freeze Flash in his tracks. The effects of the evolution-accelerator wore off, returning Gorilla Grodd to normal. He couldn’t access his mind over matter powers as a gorilla, and was about to use his evolution-accelerator again, but Flash melted it by rubbing his hands on it at superspeed and fashioned the device into a pair of handcuffs. He returned Grodd to gorilla City, and was pleased that with Drowden’s disappearance Flash was named Picture Time’s man of the year.

(Flash I #109) - Iris West and her photographer Hank went to Central City Penitentiary to do a story on Sam Scudder, the Mirror Master. When Hank took Scudder’s photo he mysteriously vanished. Mirror Master had several mirrors secreted on his person when he was taken to jail, and used then to shrink himself to inches high, allowing him to easily slip between his cell’s bars. Mirror Master robbed a bank, cloaking himself in an aura of light that blinded the tellers, but Flash got word of his prison break-out and was on his trail. Flash took back the money Mirror Master stole, but he was able to blind the hero and escape. Barry was late for yet another date with Iris because of his scuffle with Mirror Master, and she left a note for him breaking off their engagement because she was sick of being stood up. Mirror Master decided he needed to eliminate the Flash and used his mirror-reducer to shrink the hero down to size. Flash made a perilous trip back to his police lab, narrowly avoiding being stepped on by civilians, to use a Polaroid light machine he’d experimented with and found that increased the growth of cells in plants to return himself to normal size. Confident that Flash was no longer a threat, the Mirror Master robbed the Central City Bank again, but Flash apprehended him, rolling him up in a rug so he couldn’t use his mirror devices. Flash kept one of Mirror Master’s mirror image-projectors to make Iris see Barry Allen wherever she went. Iris decided that she couldn’t keep Barry off her mind and gave him one last chance, offering to go on a date with him. Barry, in his excitement to get ready for the date, slipped on the image-projector mirror and knocked himself out. Iris was disappointed but not surpised that she was stood up, and made up her mind to never see Barry again.

(Flash I #110) - Iris agreed to forgive Barry if he could be on time for a dozen dates in a row. He was punctual for the first elev, but before their twelfth date he heard a report of a cloudburst on a sunny day endangering people downtown. He responded as Flash and saw Weather Wizard, who shot a bolt of lightning at him from his weather-stick for trying to ruin his fun. Flash dodged the bolt, so Weather Wizard created thick fog so he could make his getaway. A U.S. Marshal who’d been tracking Weather Wizard approached Flash and explained that in the last few weeks he’d created a hailstorm to destroy a police station and attacked the sheriff’s office of a nearby state. Flash caught up with Weather Wizard after he’d created a glacier to destroy a house in the Central City suburbs. Flash used his superspeed and an acetylene torch to melt the glacier, then whirled his arms at superspeed to create a mighty wind that harmlessly dispersed the water. Weather Wizard was furious at the Scarlet Speedster for interfering in his plans, but before he could respond Flash ran at him at superspeed, creating a wave-front that knocked him out. Flash told the Marshal he remembered Weather Wizard, back when he was Mark Mardon, had been arrested for burglary in Central city by police lieutenant Jim Harvey, whose house he tried to destroy with the glacier. He figured Weather Wizard’s pet project was getting back at the officers that busted him when he was a small-time criminal. Flash realized he was seconds away from missing his date with Iris, so he sped to the concert hall, but forgot to change out of costume, which made Iris very curious as to why Flash thought they had a date together.

(Flash I #110) - Iris introduced Barry to her nephew Wally West, the president of the Flash Fan Club in his home town. Iris told Barry she was hoping he could introduce Wally to the Flash, and left the boy with him for the afternoon. Barry made a quick change out of sight and introduced himself as Flash, delighting the boy, who said this was the coolest moment of his life. Wally wanted to do a report on Flash when he got home and asked Flash how he got his superspeed powers. Flash said he’d do better than tell Wally, he’d show him. Flash showed him the chemical lab in Barry’s apartment, and explained that two years ago he was in an almost identical lab when lightning stuck, splashing a number of chemicals on him and giving him superspeed. In a billion-to-one coincidence the accident was recreated when a lightning bolt came through the window, splashing the same chemicals on young Wally West. Flash tested Wally and found that he’d also acquired the power of superspeed. Deciding to mentor the boy Flash presented him with a ring like his own that released a miniature Flash costume that expanded on contact with the air. Wally tried out the suit, and Flash dubbed him Kid Flash, making him promise to only use his powers for good and never self gain. Flash had to go to his day job as police scientist and left Kid Flash alone in the apartment to test his new powers. Kid Flash heard a news report about dangerous zoo animals being set loose by a disgruntled former zoo employee and went into action. Flash had heard the same news report, but by the time he arrived at the zoo Kid Flash had already taken care of the situation. Flash was pleased he’d always have someone to help him in his fight against evil and injustice. Wally had to return home, but was thrilled at becoming Flash’s friend and sidekick.

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