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Release Date: November 1987
Title: Super Nature
Writer: Mike Baron
Penciller: Jackson Guice
Inker: Larry Mahlstedt
Guest Stars: Tina McGee, Changeling, Donna Troy
Bad Guys: Speed Demon

Cover: Jackson Guice

"It's the Speed Demon vs FLASH". Speed Demon (for that appears to be Tina's husband's supervillain name, despite the fact that no-one actually calls him that either in this issue or in the last) has Flash in a big bear hug. Flash's back is arched in agony, and he's pounding on Speed Demon's shoulders, but to no avail.

The comic

Flash approaches the blazing oil depot, and finds Tina lying on the ground nearby. He zips her back to his house, and she tells him how her husband has become obsessed with his research into hyper-physiology, and has been becoming increasingly unstable. Wally decides they should stay in a hotel for the night, and he also leaves a message with the Titans asking for help.

The next morning, Changeling and Wonder Girl arrive at the Waldorf in the Titans jet, and take Wally and Tina back to Titans Tower. Wally can't find anything on the Titans computer to tell him where Jerry McGee might be now, but Tina suggests that he may go after Dr Bortz, who had Jerry locked out of the lab when he started going nuts (which doesn't explain how Jerry just strolled in there with a cheery greeting fmor the security guard last issue). Flash decides to go see Dr Bortz, who lives in an estate near Syracuse, with very heavy security.

Before he heads off, there's a bit of relationship talk: Tina asks Wally to promise not to hurt Jerry; Wally asks if she still loves Jerry; Tina says she doesn't, but can't help having feelings for him; Wally asks if she loves him; Tina isn't sure, but she does have feelings for him; Wally says he loves her; Tina says nothing but looks worried.

Wally arrives at Bortz' place, and it seems that, rather than getting on the phone to let Bortz know he's coming like any sane person, Wally has decided for some bizarre reason that he'll just break in. There's a thunderstorm going when he arrives, and he waits for a lightning bolt to mess with the sensors to make a run for it. He gets onto the roof, but then slips in the rain and falls down a trapdoor in the roof. He lands in an airtight room that soon has gas pumped into it, but he fans the gas a way at super speed, then plays dead while guards come in, then jumps up and zips past him, at last getting to Dr Bortz and maybe finally realising he should have just picked up the phone or rung the doorbell or something.

Dr Bortz and Flash chat for a bit about Jerry when the lights go out. Soon Jerry bursts in through a window (the glass is unbreakable, but he knocks it right out of the frame). Flash and Speed Demon fight it out for a while, and Flash lands lots of hits but none of them seem to affect his opponent at all. Eventually, Speed Demon gets Flash in a bear hug which Flash is unable to break out of. Just as Flash feels his back starting to break Speed Demon collapses.

Later, at the hospital, it transpires that the steroids and the electronic implants have caused massive internal damage, and Jerry will die if he doesn't get a new heart, lungs and kidneys. Bortz and Wally discuss Jerry's condition, and Dr Bortz tells Wally that the only man who might be able to save his life is a Russian by the name of Orloff, and is working in a secret research institute in Siberia, conducting research along the same lines as Jerry McGee. If Wally wants Jerry to live (and he does, because Tina does and at the moment Wally wants what Tina wants) he will have to go get Orloff.

Finally, in the Puleski Institute in Siberia, we see a Russian General has come to make an inspection. At a command, the team assembles: two men and a woman in white spandex suits, with a red star over their rights breats, zoom in out of nowhere. The General is amazed, and is told that they are each as fast as the American Titan, Flash.


Flash's current top speed is just under the speed of sound.

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