CRASH!: It's common these days to regard Modern Age comics as more intensely violent or senselessly extreme than their esteemed predecessors, and not without cause. Anyone who thinks that modern superhero stories were the first to revel in violent imagery, however, clearly hasn't taken the time to familiarize themselves with the Golden Age adventures of Jay Garrick! Yes, the man we now regard as the elder statesman of speedsters was once a cruel, rambunctious, hotheaded bully. I offer this jaw-dropping scene--punctuated by a CRASH! and a YEEEEEOW!--as Exhibit A. Look how he delights in each imaginatively mean-spirited attack. That's not to say that these low-life crooks didn't deserve a bit of rough treatment but classic comics reveal how dramatically the tone of our action and our comedy have changed over the passing decades, and thankfully so has the original scarlet speedster!
Issue: Comic Cavalcade #9 (Winter 1994)
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