The Silver Age of comics followed the Golden Age and started in the mid-1950s. The real resurgence of the super hero genre actually didn't start until the early 1960s with the new and improved Flash, Green Lantern and Hawkman from DC and the invention of the Hulk, Iron Man, Fantastic Four, etc from Marvel. This mid-1950s period saw characters like Fighting American, Strong Man and the character I'm featuring today - Captain Flash. He was really Professor Keith Spencer who, as the result of radioactivity, could clap his hands together and create a miniature atomic explosion inside his body that, rather than spreading his atoms all over the walls, endowed him with super powers. He had a non-powered kid sidekick - just can't get rid of those pesky side-kicks now can we - named Ricky Davis. Ricky went by the superhero side-kick name of - are you ready for it - Ricky!! That's OK, they only had to worry about secret identities and such for a total of four issues before Captain Flash and Ricky faded into comic oblivion. I've actually read a couple of the stories and overall they aren't bad for the period, being published out of a one room comic company called Sterling comics that only had a couple of other (horror) titles. Captain Flash was their most successful book. As for the figures, Captain Flash was made by repainting a Toy Biz Daredevil figure. Ricky was a little more complex and I actually did him twice. The first go-around I used a Mattel Marvel Secret Wars Dr. Doom and the head from a Toy Biz Robin figure, but it looked a little too mature. So I went back to the drawing board and used a Star Wars (General Madine I think) which I had to use putty on for the tops of the boots. Then I married that figure with the head from an old Voltron figure and painted to match. Even the kid's outfit was kinda lame - yellow, red and lime green - worse than Robin the boy blunder, as the Joker would say.
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