Flash Comics #1

All-American's first superheroes

All-American Publications, the company Max Gaines founded in 1939 with backing from Harry Donenfeld, began with an anthology that mixed reprinted newspaper strips with original features. Its third title, Flash Comics, was its first move into superheroes. The first issue was published on November 20, 1939, with a January 1940 cover date.

It was a crowded debut. The issue introduced Jay Garrick, the Flash, created by writer Gardner Fox and artist Harry Lampert; Hawkman and his partner Shiera Sanders, the future Hawkgirl, by Fox and artist Dennis Neville; Johnny Thunder, a humorous feature about a boy who could summon a genie-like Thunderbolt, by writer John Wentworth and artist Stan Aschmeier; plus the Whip and the special agent Cliff Cornwall.

Sheldon Moldoff drew the cover. Readers had scoffed at the idea of Superman catching a speeding bullet, so Moldoff showed the Flash racing a bullet, drawn with innovative motion lines to sell the idea of speed.

A Roman god in a college lab

In the original story, Jay Garrick is a college student who inhales hard water vapor after a laboratory accident and discovers he can run at superhuman speed. After a short career as a college football star, he puts on a red shirt with a lightning bolt and a winged metal helmet and fights crime as the Flash.

The look came from mythology. 'The idea of the Flash was Gardner Fox's idea,' Harry Lampert recalled. 'It was supposed to be based upon the god Mercury.' Lampert found a rendering of Mercury in a dictionary and posed his Flash to match it as closely as he could.

Hawkman's origin drew on Egyptian myth and reincarnation, which made him a risky idea at the time. Both heroes lasted. The Flash got a solo title, All-Flash, from Summer 1941 to January 1948, and Flash Comics ran 104 issues until February 1949. Joe Kubert began his long association with Hawkman in issue #62 in 1945, and the Black Canary was introduced in issue #86 in 1947.

When DC revived the Flash in 1956, it created a new hero, Barry Allen, and when The Flash began in 1959 it continued Flash Comics' numbering. In 1961, in 'Flash of Two Worlds' in The Flash #123, Jay Garrick returned as the Flash of a parallel Earth, the story that opened DC's multiverse.

Edgar Church's stacks

Edgar Church, a commercial artist born November 28, 1888, accumulated somewhere between 18,000 and 22,000 comic books from the 1930s into the early or mid-1950s. He stored them in stacks, which protected the pages, and Church copies are known for the quality of their paper and their distinctive smell. The collection was discovered in 1976 and brought to market by dealer Chuck Rozanski; it is known as the 'Mile High' pedigree.

Collectors regard it as the finest comic book collection ever found. When people saw true mint and near-mint Golden Age comics for the first time in the Church books, one grading executive later said, grading standards became much more rigorous.

Church's copy of Flash Comics #1 was graded CGC 9.6 NM+. In December 2005 it was the only copy at that grade and none was higher. At the time CGC had certified only 13 unrestored copies of the issue, just two others above 5.0, and only one of those above 6.5.

From $273,125 to $450,000

The Mile High copy sold at auction on January 19, 2006, for $273,125. The cataloger called the issue one of the most important comic books of any age and noted it had appreciated more during 2004 than all but three of the top 25 Golden Age books.

Four years later it sold again without going back to auction. A buyer used an auction house's new feature that let members make offers to the owners of items sold in past sales, and on March 12, 2010, the owner accepted $450,000, a six-figure profit. Neither buyer nor seller was named. According to the auction house, the seller planned to spend the money on other items for his comic book collection.

The sale came weeks after a Detective Comics #27 sold at auction for $1,075,500. In announcing the Flash Comics sale, the auction house called the issue one of the 10 most valuable comic books.

Other copies set the public record below it. A CGC 9.0 from the Atlantic City pedigree sold for $147,000 in March 2013, and a CGC 8.5 sold at auction in September 2025 for $396,000. Even low grades bring large sums: a CGC 1.5 sold for $85,000 in September 2022, and a slightly restored CGC 1.8 brought $37,490 in October 2024.

How scarce it is

Flash Comics #1 is rare in any grade and almost nonexistent in high grade. An October 2024 auction listing put the number of copies on the CGC census at fewer than 100. A 2026 dealer guide counts 48 unrestored copies.

At the top of the census in August 2025 there were three copies at 8.5 and three higher, and nearly half of the copies with a Universal (unrestored) label were graded 4.0 or lower. The auction house that sold the 8.5 said it had offered a higher-graded copy just once in its 24-year history.

The Mile High copy is identified by its CGC 9.6 grade and pedigree designation; no other copy had matched it as of the census reports cited here.

The numbers

Print run

Not documented in the sources reviewed

CGC census, December 2005

1 copy at 9.6 (Mile High), none higher; 13 unrestored copies certified

CGC census, October 2024

Fewer than 100 copies, per an auction listing

CGC census, August 2025

3 copies at 8.5, 3 higher; nearly half of Universal-grade copies at 4.0 or lower

Unrestored copies, 2026

48 on the CGC census, per a dealer guide

Series run

104 issues, January 1940 to February 1949

Timeline

1. Nov 28, 1888

   Edgar Church is born.

2. 1939

   Max Gaines founds All-American Publications.

3. Nov 20, 1939

   Flash Comics #1 is published, cover-dated January 1940.

4. 1940

   The Flash and Hawkman join the first Justice Society of America in All Star Comics #3 (Winter 1940/41).

5. 1941

   The Flash gets his own title, All-Flash (Summer 1941).

6. 1946

   All-American is merged into National Comics Publications, today's DC Comics.

7. Feb 1949

   Flash Comics ends with issue #104.

8. 1956

   DC introduces a new Flash, Barry Allen.

9. 1961

   Jay Garrick returns in 'Flash of Two Worlds,' The Flash #123.

10. 1976

    The Edgar Church collection is discovered.

11. 1978

    Edgar Church dies.

12. Dec 2005

    The CGC census shows the Mile High copy alone at 9.6, none higher.

13. Jan 19, 2006

    The Mile High copy sells at auction for $273,125.

14. Mar 12, 2010

    The Mile High copy sells privately for $450,000.

15. Mar 2013

    A CGC 9.0 Atlantic City pedigree copy sells for $147,000.

16. Sep 2025

    A CGC 8.5 copy sells at auction for $396,000.

The world in 1939

• Sep 5, 1939

  With war under way in Europe, the United States declares its neutrality.

• Oct 22, 1939

  The first televised NFL game is played at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn.

• Oct 24, 1939

  Nylon stockings go on sale for the first time, in Wilmington, Delaware.

• Nov 4, 1939

  President Roosevelt signs the Neutrality Act of 1939.

• Nov 15, 1939

  Roosevelt lays the cornerstone of the Jefferson Memorial.

• Dec 15, 1939

  Gone with the Wind premieres in Atlanta.

• Feb 7, 1940

  Walt Disney's Pinocchio is released.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, Flash Comics #1 is number 15 of 100 in the comics entries of the FLOAT 100. 92 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (14 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• Harry Lampert modeled the Flash on a dictionary illustration of the Roman god Mercury, matching the pose as closely as he could.
• In the first story, Jay Garrick gets his speed from inhaling hard water vapor in a lab; later stories changed it to heavy water.
• The Flash's winged helmet was later said to have belonged to Jay's father, who fought in World War I.
• The Silver Age comic The Flash, launched in 1959, picked up Flash Comics' issue numbering rather than starting over.
• Edgar Church's comics are known not only for their condition but for the distinctive smell of their pages.
• The 2010 sale of the Mile High copy was arranged through a then-new online feature that let collectors make offers on items sold in earlier auctions.