What do you imagine was the most valuable comic in Barry Allen's collection?

[Buried Alien]

In Pre-COIE times, Barry Allen (the Flash) was, like all of us, a fan and collector of comic books. His collection was quite extensive. What do you imagine was the most valuable comic that Barry owned?

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[married guy]

Considering his love of Jay I would imagine his Holy Grail was Flash Comics #1.

[Robotman]

Has to be Flash Comics #1. First appearance of Jay, Hawkman, and Johnny Thunder.

[Ascended]

You know what? I'm gonna take a page out of Johns' book here, and add some unnecessary tragedy to Barry's life.

Barry's prize comic is Flash #3. He couldn't find the first issue at all, and issue 2 got ripped up by bullies.

Quarantine has made me evil! Bwahahahaha!

Oh, but here's the catch! If Barry dug those old comics out of their longbox, he'd find a comic there he never bought. Ultra Comics.

Issue 1.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

I think it's the copy of Flash #167 he picked up during a visit to Earth-Prime a while ago.

Barry Allen is a huge fan of the Mopee origin

[Buried Alien]

I do wonder if Barry ever abused his time-travel abilities to go back decades to pick up valuable Golden Age comics for cover price.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[Güicho]

yeah going with personal value here, has to be Flash Comics #1 first appearance of Jay Garrick - The Flash.
Although what cover does that^ correspond with?
As well as All-Flash his first solo run, although it doesn't seem to correspond there either.
Looks like he was already pulling comics from an alternate time-line, from the go!

And of course he'd have a copy of Funny Stuff #1 first appearance of McSnurtle the Turtle -The Terrific Whatzit!

[Jim Kelly]

If we assume that Barry only collected the All-American line (Max Gaines books) and not the Detective Comics line (Harry Donenfeld books)--then the most valuable issue among those is ALL-AMERICAN COMICS 16 (the first appearance of Green Lantern) and not FLASH COMICS No. 1. I don't know why that book is more valuable, maybe there aren't as many copies to be found. For Barry himself, he probably prizes the first issue of FLASH more. ALL-STAR COMICS 8 is also up there in value because it has the first appearance of Wonder Woman. Barry would value the first issue of ALL-FLASH QUARTERLY since it's all Flash. And, of course, he'd be proud to own ALL-STAR COMICS 3, the first JSA gathering.

His white whale is that other FLASH COMICS No. 1--the one from Fawcett Comics with the first appearance of Captain Thunder. Barry would probably be willing to time travel into the past just to get that rare comic for his collection.

[BohemiaDrinker]

Captain America Comics #1.

Some early Kirby goodness.

[Jim Kelly]

Captain America Comics #1.

Some early Kirby goodness.

Well sure, for the debut of the Hurricane (created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby)--Marvel's second speedster. The better known Marvel speedster, the Whizzer (created by Al Avison) didn't make his entrance until some months after that in 1941, in U.S.A. COMICS No.1 (August 1941). Although dated March 1941, CAPTAIN AMERICA No. 1 came out at the end of 1940. Before that there had already been Jay Garrick (aka the Flash, created by Gardner Fox and Harry Lampert) in FLASH No. 1 (January 1940), on sale November 1939, Silver Streak (co-created by Joe Simon) in SILVER STREAK COMICS No.3 (March 1940), Marvel's first speedster, Mercury (co-created by Jack Kirby), in RED RAVEN COMICS No. 1 (August 1940) and Quicksilver (co-created by Jack Cole) in NATIONAL COMICS No. 5 (November 1940). Mort Weisinger and Chad Grothkopf's Johnny Quick was a Johnny-come-lately as he didn't show up until MORE FUN COMICS No. 71 (Septermber 1941), on sale July 1941.

[Digifiend]

yeah going with personal value here, has to be Flash Comics #1 first appearance of Jay Garrick - The Flash.
Although what cover does that^ correspond with?

It doesn't. It says Jan No. 13 on it - but that issue had Hawkman on the cover.

[Jim Kelly]

It doesn't. It says Jan No. 13 on it - but that issue had Hawkman on the cover.

Yes, the cover of Barry's FLASH COMICS No.13 doesn't look like any cover I can find on Earth-Prime, which suggests Earth-One had variant covers. His copy of ALL-STAR COMICS No. 37 (October-November 1947) does have essentially the same cover as our Earth-Prime version--as seen in THE FLASH 137 (June 1963)--the one where the Justice Society returned. Barry's thoughts in that story indicate he was a dedicated JSA fan, so one can assume he had all the comics.

[Restingvoice]

Considering his love of Jay I would imagine his Holy Grail was Flash Comics #1.

Def. And he got struck by lightning immediately after reading it too.

[superduperman]

We're assuming they had the same Flash comics we did. Which means "valuable" for them might not mean valuable for us. You're talking about a universe where Jay Garrick actually existed. Ditto Alan Scott and all the rest. The first issue would obviously be valuable but who knows how long they ran.

[Jim Kelly]

I'm assuming it's pre-Crisis and there's an Earth-Two, Earth-One and Earth-Prime. The comics on Earth-One had to be different from ours, but they had stories about the Earth-Two heroes. What Earth-Two had is a bit of a mystery. The JSA were aware of their readers and conducted their affairs based on our input. And Superman and Johnny Quick interacted with comics creators. If the Spirit was on the same Earth, he also had contact with his readers (who sent him mail to answer) and with Will Eisner, who appeared in the Spirit Section for December 31, 1950