The Flash #277

Dick Giordano's cover for this September 1979 issue sets up a genuinely disorienting scenario: multiple versions of the Flash collide in a city street, with one figure in a reversed yellow-and-black costume charging from the left, while the red-suited Flash squares off in the center and another Flash closes in from the right — all as a startled woman looks on from a nearby window. The cover's speech bubble — "Another Flash — about to attack me!" — perfectly captures the confusion of the story promised below: "The Self-Destruct Flash." It's a wonderfully strange premise from writer Cary Bates and artist Alex Saviuk, delivering the kind of speed-force identity puzzle that made this era of DC comics so much fun.