All-Flash #8 was the first Golden Age comic I ever purchased. I picked it up in 1990, on my first trip to the San Diego Comic Convention.
Ever since reading the Jay Garrick story reprinted in Flash #DC-22, I'd been a big fan of the work Gardner Fox and E.E. Hibbard had done on the 1940s Flash--one of the few, if the testimonials that have appeared alongside the infrequent reprintings of Fox/Hibbard Flash stories can be believed.
Their work on Flash gave the character a sense of fun and gentle whimsy that set him apart from the other heroes of the Golden Age DC pantheon. Absolutely anything could happen in a Flash adventure, and usually did, as in this tale wherein Jay Garrick relates the story of the Flash's excursion into the mythological Fairyland to a seriously ill young boy. Like many of the entries in All-Flash, "Formula to Fairyland" is a book-length tale divided into four chapters, which gave Fox and Hibbard the room to give the story both more depth and breadth than the average super hero yarn of 1943.
All-Flash #8 was the first Golden Age comic I ever purchased. I picked it up in 1990, on my first trip to the San Diego Comic Convention. 