Flash #188

Flash #188 (On Sale: March 6, 1969) has a nicely drawn, if not overly exciting, cover by Ross Andru and Mike Esposito.

"The Most Colorful Villain of All" is by John Broome, Irv Ross Andru and Mike Esposito. Barry and Iris are about to go to a gala when the radio calls for the Flash's help in capturing the Mirror Master. Iris is disappointed while Barry gets his costume ready. But then his costume seems to explode and when he gets up from the floor, Iris' costume and the whole room looks green to him. He doesn't worry about it, gets his extra uniform and speeds away to get the Mirror Master.

Since the Mirror Master was last seen in Mt. Vista county, Barry figures that he must be at the astronomical observatory because of the mirror telescope. He is right and the Mirror Master uses a mirror beam to send him into space to another planet. There he is attacked by a foe he doesn't know, who he has to avoid touching because anything he touches explodes. With the help of the speed force he manages to destroy the villain and realizes that it was an anti-matter counterpart of the Mirror Master that would be destroyed if it touched the planet it was on.

Flash uses the beam that sent him there to travel back and defeat the Mirror Master. He is still seeing everything green and goes back to Iris and the gala. It's the Colorama Show where Dr. Maybrook is playing on his color organ to produce effects that are enhanced by special glasses the audience is wearing. Iris and Barry enjoy the show and while Iris goes back to the office to write a review about it, Barry wants to ask the color expert Dr. Maybrook why he is still seeing everything in green. The doctor listens to him, but suddenly sends him away for thirty minutes.

Barry stops by at the police station where he hears that all the people who attended the Colorama show were robbed. He goes back to the theater and finds the doctor on the floor. He goes looking for the two other men who were in the dressing room before, a servant and an engineer. At the airport he sees the engineer trying to get away on a plane. Barry jumps on the plane and brings it down again. A group of gangsters come out and try to shoot him but he knocks them all down in a flash.

It seems Dr. Maybrook's assistant used his color tricks to rob all the people without him knowing. Barry asks him again about his green vision and finds out that Maybrook was testing his show one night and the radiation it caused, accidentally hit Barry when he changing his uniform on the street nearby. So when he used the uniform again, the radiation came out too and cause his green-sightedness. He tells it all to Iris and they have dinner.

Edited by Julius Schwartz.