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Monday, May 14, 2007
The Flash Vs. The Lesbian
Oh sure, we all know about the time Wonder Woman fought evil lesbians, but did you know that Barry Allen once fought an evil lesbian as well? It all happened in Flash #211.
Barry Allen is characteristically late to a date with his wife Iris, at the look roller derby rink. Iris is working on a story about the star of the roller-derby, Kate Krasher. Clearly, an early human interest piece on the gay rights movement, because we all know what kinds of hard women get involved in roller derby, don't we? Barry knows for sure, because when he finally finds Iris he's none too pleased: "New fish! New fish!" all the girls seemed to be chanting.
When we finally meet Kate Krasher, she's the largest, manliest woman in the rink. You can almost sort of feel Cary Bates trying to get away with using the term "bull dyke"...
Of course, when Lee Marvin goes toe-to-toe with Mary Tyler Moore, the inevitable happens.
Iris responds to Kate the way you'd expect any uptight, middle-class Republican to react. By imagining her as some sort of alien creature. Oh, Iris, is it your beourgeosie background that gives you such a talent for othering people who are just trying to live their lives?
In case all that girl-on-girl violence wasn't enough for you, Central City is then hit with a "scientifically impossible" earthquake. At the Science Institute, the earthquake's origin is determined to be...can you guess? That's right, the roller derby rink? When the Flash heads over to investigate, he finds that all the roller skates glow with an unearthly radiation. He then pulls a Hal Jordan.
Waking up and finding himself trussed up over the rink, Flash, and by now the reader, is not at all surprised to find that Kate Krasher is, in fact, the bad guy, and she plans on destroying the world. Starting with Central City. Using the awesome power of roller derby. Hey, it was the 70s. Just go with it. I believe this panel was later reused in Maude's Handbook to Geology.
Anyway, Flash escapes, he undoes the earth-quake machine by skating around it in the opposite direction of the coil, and he saves the day once again for heteronormativity. And no, the aliens were never seen again.
