The Flash #167 (1967)
by Gardner Fox & Carmine Infantino
As requested by Monica in the comments, let’s review this COMPLETELY INSANE story.
Well considering “the real origin of the Flash” requires involving this doofus, you can already tell from the teaser page it’s going to be dumb.
We begin with the Flash dealing with a couple of smugglers on the docks.
But suddenly his powers start acting weird, no longer negating friction around him.
That was the Silver Age explanation for why he doesn’t set the atmosphere on fire when he’s running around at a trillion miles per hour.
This only affects Flash and not the people around him, even though they were both moving at tremendous speeds.
Sounds legit.
Flash’s aura has been removed by this freaking guy. Meet Mopee, who is supposed to be… ehm… actually I’m not really sure.
I haven’t covered the origin of the Silver Age Flash, but I’m sure anyone reading this site is familiar with it. But in one of the dumbest possible retcons EVER, turns out Mopee was behind it!
The fact that a random lightning strike energizing some chemicals would give someone super-speed is obviously just comic book science.
But a bumbling kind-of-angel deliberately bestowing super-speed on some guy by causing a random lightning strike to energize some chemicals, now THAT I can believe.
The longer a character is around, the more likely it is that a classic origin story gets incredibly complicated by involving extraneous ideas.
Whether it’s Spider-Man getting powers because of magic animal totems, the Hulk being the herald of an eldritch abomination, Batman being created by a super-god older than the universe who engineered half of human history to have his champions…and I’m not making any of these up, by the way… it’s guaranteed to be a controversial choice.
I actually like some of those and don’t like others, but they all have two things in common.
First, they tend to be the basis of a whole storyline (whether it succeeds or not, it’s another story).
Second, and more importantly, THEY’RE NOT THIS DUMB.
Yes, the basic idea behind this story is that the magic whatever-it-is that gave Flash his powers must take them back because Barry Allen did not legally own the chemicals involved in the lightning strike.
Whether these are supposed to be angels, genies or hyper-dimensional beings… WHY WOULD THEY CARE ABOUT HUMAN LAWS LIKE THIS???
Flash actually considers giving up his powers…
…but 0.00000001 nanoseconds later, he realizes that’s a stupid idea.
You know Flash, if being a forensic scientist doesn’t work out for you, consider becoming a lawyer.
Turns out these magic freaks or whatever have EXTREMELY SPECIFIC RULES FOR EVERYTHING, including giving Flash a loophole: he can get his powers back if he pays for the chemical.
They are SO specific, in fact, that they also dictate there are only 24 hours to do this.
I’m running out of synonyms for “this is so stupid”, so how do I comment on the Flash complaining he doesn’t accept money even if his very career as a hero hinges on this!?
This is so Jimmy Olsen!!!!
All mess to collect 94.36 dollars, which in 2025 would be 897.47 dollars.
That means that ALL OF THIS MESS is basically just the setup for a plot that is basically “How will the Flash earn less than 1,000 dollars in a day”.
Well at least it could be slightly entertaining if he had to earn those without his powers… but nope!
Mopee temporarily gives him back his powers.
HOW DOES THIS MAKE ANY SENSE if the whole reason why he took them away was that his original “experiment” wasn’t allowed by his own rules????
Flash receives roughly a quadrillion requests (by telegram!), and once again the rules are SO ABSURDLY SPECIFIC that Mopee has to select the job.
And the job is making some deliveries. What excitement!
Only for Mopee to screw things up AGAIN, because he didn’t restore Flash’s aura properly.
HOW ARE YOU THIS JIMMY OLSEN!?!?!?
That’s a blessing in disguise, though, because thanks to Mopee’s goof the Flash notices that a package has caught on fire, including the diamonds inside… which turn out to have been fake diamonds smuggled by the same crooks he was trying to stop at the beginning of the story.
Which means that the Flash will end up stopping a crime ENTIRELY OUT OF LUCK.
The aura lasts enough for Flash to catch the criminals, and protects him from being shot too.
Why would you trust ANYTHING Mopee does!?!?
The recreation of Flash’s origin is almost as underwhelming as the rest of the story.
And so we end witht the revelation that Mopee was the one behind the origin of both the Flash and Kid Flash.
Well THAT certainly makes more sense than the same accident happening twice, right?
Right?
Historical significance: 0 / WTF
This is ignored by following issues, HARD. It is KIND of reminiscent of what will eventually show up in mainstream continuity, as there are both instances of Flash giving powers to HIMSELF by going back in time, and a later suggestion that he might have given powers to Kid Flash… both times AFTER he dies in Crisis.
Mopee does show up again, in Ambush Bug #3 in 1985. Which, being Ambush Bug, means it’s just a meta joke.
In addition to creating Flash, according to this story he also created Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Supergirl, Green Lantern, the Hulk, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men and Jim Shooter.
I don’t find that issue of Ambush Bug particularly funny, but it makes more sense than Flash #167.
Mopee also has a cameo on The Flash #771 from 2021, since it’s a story featuring various incarnations from multiple universes.
Silver Age-ness: 1025 / 1
The odds of the Flash getting power out of chance are ten quadrillion billion to one according to this story.
Still more believable than Mopee.
Does it stand the test of time? 0 / REALLY
Ridiculous Flash feat of the day
Bonus round! The same issue has a Kid Flash story that is A LOT less dumb.
I’m bringing this up to show that the Flash’s aura gets mentioned A LOT in this era.
Not to mention how good Infantino’s artwork was at showcasing sheer speed.
Little known fact: Kid Flash can BASICALLY fly.
The story itself is still kind of dumb… it involves Kid Flash tricking a hypnotist into believing he’s given someone super-speed, when Kid Flash just did it for kicks… but after Mopee, this might as well be Watchmen.
Interesting letters: I looked at the following issues to see the reaction to Flash #167.
Unsurprisingly, it got A LOT of letters: the ENTIRE letters page of Flash #171 is dedicated to it.
Not everyone liked it.
In fact most of the letters published are negative.
But one who DID like it was the late Don Markstein of Toonopedia fame.
In fact, only TWO positive letters are published.
As a perspective: this shares the same cover dates of Doom Patrol #109, World’s Finest #164 , Adventure Comics #353 and Fantastic Four #59.
Really goes to show that the difference in quality between series could be absysmal.
I wonder if Mopee is supposed to look like someone. There’s a slight resemblance to Woody Allen, or Jerry Lewis in “The Nutty Professor”.
Thank you thank you thank you!!!
I was dying to read your take on this story almost since I found your blog!
IIRC, in the post-Crisis universe, there was some reference to “Mopee” as being the name of a drug that gave people super-speed.
You’re so right about Infantino’s artwork in the Kid Flash feature. I don’t know if you’ll ever do a retrospective on Strange Sports Stories (especially since, as an Italian, you probably have little interest in the sports that are more popular in America), but he was hand-picked to illustrate the original feature in the Brave and the Bold because he was so great at depicting motion.
So Cary Bates already disapproved of this story when it was originally published.
Considering how long he wrote the Flash, that alone all but assured that Mopee would not be revisited in that book.
Isn’t the last panel saying that Kid Flash could not have been given powers by Mopee, though?
Gotta love that couple of panels flying prone about twenty centimeters above ground level by spinning his hands really fast. Betcha his back and legs hurt from the effort to keep his feet from touching the ground after that, though. Oh, to be young and a superhero with bulging muscles that enable one to perform impossibly silly feats.
Baby Kal-El’s rocket had so many encounters before reaching Earth that you might write a full RPG adventure with just those incidents. Stowed away by Beppo (1959’s Superboy #76), duplicated by an alien ray (1960’s Superman #137), pushed by Mopee (apparently twice, if we take him at his word and consider 1972’s Superman #257), who knows what else…
Incidentally, doesn’t that mean that Supermenace’s duplicate rocket ought to have carried a Beppo duplicate as well? Maybe he was genre aware and decided to keep a low profile to avoid becoming a death for shock value or a supervillain.
If only this review could have come a little earlier. It would have been so easy to believe it was an April Fool’s gag and not a review of something actually published.
The other stories referenced in Ambush Bug #3 are pretty dreadful too.
What makes this issue all the more fascinating is that it was written by Gardner Fox, who wrote the first Silver Age Flash story (detailing his origins). He just couldn’t leave well enough alone, and he must have inspired by watching a revival of “It’s a Wonderful Life,” because Mopee is conceived to be so much like Clarence the angel in the Frank Capra film.
I’m also struck by how awful Carmine Infantino made Mopee look–the story would seem to call out for him to be cute, and he’s not at all.