The Flash #174

Nov 1967 · DC · 0.12 USD

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“Stupendous Triumph of the Six Super-Villains!”

★ 1st appearance — Tar Pit

About this Issue

The Flash #174 occupies a distinctive place in Silver Age DC history as the issue in which Barry Allen finally brings his wife Iris into the secret of his dual identity — a plot thread that had been dangling since their wedding in issue #165 and that readers had been anticipating for years. The resolution writer John Broome devised was genuinely surprising: rather than Barry confessing outright, Iris turns the tables by revealing she has known since their wedding night, when Barry talked in his sleep. Equally significant is the issue's status as the conclusion of Carmine Infantino's unbroken eleven-year interior-art run on the character he co-created — one of the most consequential creative streaks in the Silver Age — as Infantino was simultaneously ascending to editorial oversight of DC's entire publishing line. The cover itself, inked by Murphy Anderson and ranked by multiple historians and creators as among the finest Flash covers ever produced, was later recreated by Mike Mignola as the basis for Secret Origins #41, cementing the image's enduring influence on the visual language of the Rogues.

writer John Broome · artist Carmine Infantino · inker Sid Greene · letterer Gaspar Saladino · cover Carmine Infantino, Murphy Anderson

ComicBooks.com Value

Our Model is In Beta

Raw (VG) $12

CGC 9.8 · 3 in census $2,281

CGC 9.6 · 5 in census $837

CGC 9.4 · 12 in census $467

CGC 9.2 · 25 in census $212

CGC 9.0 · 18 in census $145

CGC 8.5 · 10 in census $92

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CGC 8.0 · 12 in census $77*

CGC 7.5 · 10 in census $56

CGC 7.0 · 11 in census $51*

CGC 6.5 · 7 in census $43*

CGC 6.0 · 7 in census $43

CGC 5.5 · 7 in census $30*

CGC 5.0 · 3 in census $30*

CGC 4.5 · 4 in census $27

CGC 4.0 · 3 in census $24*

CGC 3.5 · 1 in census $20*

CGC 3.0 none in existence

CGC 2.5 none in existence

CGC 2.0 · 1 in census $20*

* estimate — limited direct-sales data at this grade

Our model’s value — refined as new sales data arrives · CGC census counts shown where available

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History

By 1967, Carmine Infantino had been the defining visual voice of The Flash since co-creating Barry Allen with writer Robert Kanigher in Showcase #4 back in 1956, and his departure from interior art on the series was not a creative choice but an institutional one: DC, unwilling to lose him to Marvel's reported job offer, promoted him to oversee cover design for the entire line, a role that would become editorial director by year's end and publisher by 1971. Script duties on this final chapter of Infantino's Silver Age Flash run fell to longtime series writer John Broome, with Sid Greene inking the story pages and Murphy Anderson providing inks on Infantino's cover — a pairing collectors and historians consistently single out as one of the strongest of that era. Editor Julius Schwartz's records, later provided to the Grand Comics Database by DC, confirmed all creative credits for the issue.

Trivia · 8 facts

Cover date: November 1967; on-sale date: September 5, 1967 (National Periodical Publications, the DC imprint of the era).
Story title: 'Stupendous Triumph of the Six Super-Villains!' — written by John Broome, penciled by Carmine Infantino, inked by Sid Greene; cover pencils by Infantino, inks by Murphy Anderson.
Barry Allen reveals his secret identity as the Flash to his wife Iris West-Allen — a major milestone in the couple's relationship first established in Showcase #4 (1956). The twist: Iris already knew, having heard Barry talk in his sleep on their wedding night and keeping it secret for a full year.
This is Carmine Infantino's last issue as regular interior artist on The Flash for what the Grand Comics Database confirms was an unbroken 74-issue, eleven-year run stretching back to the Silver Age launch of the character; he did not return to the series until issue #296 (1981).
The Rogues' Gallery team — Mirror Master (Sam Scudder), Captain Boomerang (Digger Harkness), The Top (Roscoe Dillon), Pied Piper (Hartley Rathaway), Captain Cold (Leonard Snart), and Heat Wave (Mick Rory) — appear together, marking their second assembled appearance as a group. The story's multiverse element has Mirror Master observing a parallel Earth where the Flash is a villain.
The cover design drew influence from Will Eisner's compositional approach and was later recreated by Mike Mignola for Secret Origins (DC, 1986 series) #41, the issue focusing on Flash's Rogues.
The issue has been reprinted multiple times, including in Countdown Special: The Flash #1 (December 2007), Showcase Presents: The Flash Vol. 4 (December 2012), Flash: A Celebration of 75 Years (2015), and The Flash: The Silver Age Omnibus Vol. 3 (2018).
A full-page letter to the editor from a young Peter Sanderson — who would later become a professional comics historian — appears in this issue, offering suggestions for improving each member of the Flash's Rogues Gallery.