Crisis Classics #2 - Double Danger On Earth!

"Double Danger on Earth" by Gardner Fox and the  Carmine Infantino and Joe Giella team in 1962's The Flash #129 it's Jay Garrick's turn to make the vibrational trip to another Earth as he leaves Earth-2 which is suffering a radiation threat from space and is missing a key meteorite to solve it. He goes to perhaps discover if a similar meteorite is available to solve Earth-2's crisis and he goes about it in a logical way by actually talking first to Barry Allen and then the powers that be to arrange help. There is surprisingly little shock when the government and the world at large learn of Earth-2. But that doesn't stop Captain Cold and The Trickster from plotting crimes. Jay helps Barry battle the baddies, but has to then turn his attention on the global threat he's come to solve while Barry focuses on the robbers. This is the one aspect of this story that rings hollow. Clearly the threat to Earth-2 is far more grave than the shenanigans of the rogues, but somehow both are treated with the same level of significance. It makes Barry come off a bit unaware to be frank. Fox would've been better served to have had the Rogues' crimes more directly linked to the other threat. As it is, they seem a distraction in a much more serious adventure. Not surprisingly Jay solves the problem of mining and transporting the meteorite and then he and Barry wrap up the rogues. It's a fun tale, and the threat of the radiation is a worthy one, but despite its elegant craftsmanship the lack of focus does make this story seem a tad sillier than it needs to.

One thing that's been absolutely striking this reading is the delicacy of the art by Infantino and Giella. It's taken me some years to warm to Giella's soft inking style and I don't think he's used to best effect on some pencillers such Jose Delbo for instance, but here on these pages the combo works amazingly well. The figures are slight and scaled to human proportions, none of the overwrought musculature that has sometimes dominated comics. In fact as much as I like the Ross Andru and Mike Esposito team on Flash and elsewhere, I always thought their take on the "Scarlet Speedster" was too beefy. Give me this slim distance runner everytime. 

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