By the end of the 1940s, the Flash feature approached the form it would take in the mid-1950s revamp that kicked off the glorious Silver Age of Comics.
The art had improved considerably from the character’s first appearance in 1940. Instead of run-of-the-mill gangsters and spies, the Flash now faced colorfully costumed foes with strange powers who were armed with eccentric weapons and accouterments.
“Barry Allen, in his early Flash caree,r tackled gadget-enhanced bank robbers and jewel thieves, and Wally West, in his early Flash career, dealt with super-powered menaces, but Jay Garrick, in his early Flash career, opposed common gangsters, kidnappers, racketeers, corrupt politicians, swindlers, and frauds,” observed Keith Dallas in TwoMorrows’ Flash Companion. “In other words, the kinds of foes Jay Garrick confronted never had a chance against him. Later in his career, the Golden Age Flash faced opponents — which would eventually include the Fiddler, the Thinker, the Thorn, and the Shade — who were much more formidable and who had each devised ways to counter the Flash’s super speed.”
The Jay Garrick Flash’s speed was based on a kind of “fantasy physics,” as were the powers of his archenemy, the Fiddler, who wielded versatile sonic abilities through his violin.
The enemies of the Barry Allen Flash would provide many variations on that fantasy physics theme through their control not only of sound but of temperature, reflectivity, climate, gyroscopics, the periodic table, etc.
Their battles would develop into a series of arcane, chess-like counter-moves, as when the Fiddler launches his bow like a harpoon but the Flash wards it off with a shield of super-speed vibrations.
Created by writer Robert Kanigher and artist Lee Elias for All-Flash 32 (Dec. 1947-Jan. 1948), the Fiddler — Isaac Bowin — was a sort of dreamlike extension of the idea that music can be hypnotic.
Borrowing from Batman, the Green Arrow, and the Green Hornet’s bag of tricks, the Fiddler had himself outfitted with a personally themed method of transport, a flamboyant “Violin-mobile.” Such super-vehicles were as absurd as they were delightful.
The Fiddler teamed up with the Wizard, the Harlequin, the Huntress, the Icicle, and Sportsmaster in the second iteration of the Injustice Society (All-Star Comics 41, June-July 1948). He made his last Golden Age appearance in Comic Cavalcade 28 (Aug.-Sept. 1948), but reappeared when he teamed up with the Shade and the Thinker to tackle the Scarlet Speedsters in Flash of Two Worlds (Flash 123, Sept. 1961).
The Fiddler appeared on the screen in the second Flash TV series as Izzy Bowin, a young female violinist played by Canadian actress Miranda MacDougall.
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