Inspirations: Flash and the New Gods

I read this comic book story as a kid, not yet a teenager. I picked it up in a magazine / bookstore in Hong Kong in digest format, along with some classic Usborne books on being a detective -- and it was my first introduction to the New Gods.

I don't even remember the title, honestly. Reading comics in the Philippines at the time meant getting whatever National Bookstore had copied and reprinted, or getting ahold of whatever had come through the P/X stores of the U.S. bases -- and neither source was fairly regular. But collecting comics? Forget it.

This three parter, where the Flash (at the time undergoing a trial for murder), helped out the New Gods by trying to figure out what had happened to Orion (who I never again saw look like he did below), and then traveling with them to the Source to get the cure for Orion's rapid growth... kick-ass cosmic stuff that felt different somehow from the standard DC fare I'd been reading.

Perhaps it prepared me for my delving into Marvel's own cosmic stuff, and even the Dreadstar series later.

I was fascinated by Lightray and Metron, and would remember them again when they reappeared more regularly in DC. I was especially thrilled when Darkseid came out as the villain in DC's Legion of Super-Heroes because of this story.

So in putting together my own mashed-up Marvel / DC Universe to adventure in -- Flash and Lightray would be definite buddies; perhaps even regular pool hall pals.

Thanks to speedforce.org, whose panel scans brought back a bit of my childhood.

Now to hunt down that strange story in the same digest comic that talked about the 'modern timeline' for Superman wherein he splashed down in the water, and was claimed by a cold war military diver for the U.S. Military...