The Flash

Gardner Fox and artist Harry Lampert launched the first Flash in 1940 — but the Flash the world knows was born in Showcase #4 (1956), the comic that opened the Silver Age. Editor Julius Schwartz, son of Jewish immigrants, ordered the revival; Robert Kanigher, born to Romanian Jewish parents, scripted the story that turned Barry Allen into a police scientist struck by lightning; and John Broome — born Irving Broome to a Jewish family — became the character's defining writer, with Carmine Infantino's sleek pencils. Every superhero revival since runs on the template they set.

Creators (with Carmine Infantino · Gardner Fox & Harry Lampert (1940))