Jay Garrick was the first Flash of the DC Universe.
The explanation for his absence became the lynchpin of the entire concept behind DCs famed multiverse.
Den of Geek:How did you envision Jays voice?
Youve written the entire Flash family, so how do you make Jays voice distinct within that?
Joshua Williamson:Its interesting with Jay because Im writing a different version of him.
He wasnt quite like Barry, because Barry was always calm and measured.
Jay is not lost in his head.
I think Jay kind of tells it like it is.
I think hes a little more of a straight arrow.
There was a little bit of a humor to him, a little bit of a smirk.
It was a little different.
So I really approached it from all of that.
The hard thing was making sure he didnt sound like Barry.
I dont want him to just be another Barry.
Yeah, I think thats a Flash thing.
Its important to the Flash family and I wanted to double-check that was still there.
That is still a part of it.
And Barry was influenced by Jay.
We did that thing andinThe Flash: Year Onewe showed Barry reading those old Jay comics.
I wanted to maintain the idea that Barrys first encounter with Jay was reading those old comics.
So is this supposed to kind of be the next chapter of that in a way?
I wouldnt say the next chapter, but I would definitely say its in the same vein.
Its supposed to honor that story and show these things are happening and this story is moving forward.
Theres obviously coordination with you, Scott Snyder, and other DC writers.
I feel like thats happening with these JSA stories.
How were these kind of divided up between everybody?
I mean, I actually wrote this Jay story before theWonder Womanstory was written.
I mean we just talked to each other.
We confirm its all part of the thing.
Scotts always really likedWonder Womanand hes always wanting to do a story with Wonder Woman in this specific area.
So I think it was perfect for him.
I always wanted to bring Jay in and do a hopeful story with Jay.
This one Jay story youre getting is eight pages in an 80 page book.
Youre going to look at certain things and be like Oh, thats what this was about.
Itll actually start to build.
Theres a lot in those eight pages though.
And its on fire.
They worked so well together.Im hoping they work together from now on like this.
Because you look at those pages, its awesome.
Did you suggest putting them on this story when you were conceiving it?
How did that come about?
David was wrapping upBatman/Supermanand hes going to be working on some other stuff at DC.
And I think thatBatman/Supermanis a bit of a darker story.
But that was all going into my head as I wrote it.
Once I knew David was drawing it, then I started writing it just with him in mind.
But generally you let Jim Lee be Jim Lee, right?
I like this new design.
So it was cool we got to bring it back for this story.
So how much of that did you talk about with David?
No, I didnt really get that deep into them.
check that they look cool.
ensure they look like theyre a threat.
I wanted to check that we showed that in that moment.
The most important thing to that was to show a little piece of his world.
I didnt want to get too deep into what his villains were like just yet.
I really like Jays villains and I think theres something really interesting to them.
Why did you settle on the Thinker as the one to showcase?
Once I looked at all these villains, I looked at the visual of the Thinker.
I actually really like Thinker and Ive never used him in the book since Ive been working on it.
Because it really came down to being either him or the Fiddler.
And I like Ragdoll a lot, but I just kept going back and forth with them.
What kind of research did you do for Jay?
How far back did you go?
I knew the Flash pretty well even before I got the job.
But admittedly Jay, I was a little less knowledgeable about compared to everybody else.
I knew post-Crisis Jay pretty well.
I would go to little things here and there.
I was looking for stuff, especially little stuff with some of the villains.
When I was a kid I had this book, its calledThe Great Comic Book Heroesby Jules Feiffer.
Its a hardcover that came out in the 1950s that has the origin of a bunch of heroes.
Theres some Marvel, some DC, but Will Eisners The Spirit is also in there.
Its this really weird collection of things that are pre-Silver Age.
I knew who the Flash was.
But my first real story I read withanyFlash was probably the Jay one.
Ive always been fascinated by his origin in that first issue.
Ive almost read all of them at this point.
I just dont know as much about him as some of the other Flashes.
I mean he was on the book for over a hundred issues.
As you could kind of see Im trying to confirm I honor the character.
I always come back around to that.
The Flash#750 arrives on March 4.
