The Flash’s Lost Daughter Faces DC’s Perfect Doctor Doom Homage

Warning: Spoilers for Jay Garrick: The Flash #1 ahead!

Fresh from the pages of Stargirl: The Lost Children, Judy Garrick, lost daughter of the original Flash, brings a dose of classic comic charm to the modern age in both her style and her villains. Doctor Elemental, Jay and Judy’s heretofore “forgotten” arch-nemesis, is a clear call-out to ’60s icon and major Marvel villain Doctor Doom, whose presence juxtaposes classic and modern elements in the new miniseries.

Jay Garrick: The Flash #1 by Jeremy Adams, Diego Olortegui, Luis Guerrero, and Steve Wands follows Judy Garrick (the Boom) as she struggles to integrate into an unfamiliar present, having only recently returned after vanishing from existence in 1963. Attempting to go on patrol to clear her head, Judy is quickly cut off by her father, the original Flash Jay Garrick, and chastised about how she doesn’t know the dangers of the present, to which Judy scoffs “what [could be] more dangerous than Doctor Elemental?” – a villain Jay does not remember.

A flashback shows Judy about to apprehend the villain, seen as a cloaked figure in an iron mask, before vanishing from reality. With Judy gone, it is implied that Doctor Elemental used the opportunity to go underground, his exploits going unnoticed into the present.

Marvel and DC Love Mad Doctors from the 1960s

Doctor Elemental is a clear homage to Marvel’s Doctor Doom: they’re both cloaked menaces with metal gauntlets and ominous masks who seemingly cannot bear to have their faces revealed. Even their introductions bear some similarities, with each making their entrance in a bid to gain power from the heroes before smothering them to death. In Doctor Doom’s first appearance in 1962’s Fantastic Four #5 by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Joe Sinnott, Stan Goldberg, and Artie Simek, he takes Sue Storm hostage to extort the Fantastic Four into doing his bidding. Doom then later tries to asphyxiate them. For his part, Doctor Elemental takes Jay’s wife Joan hostage and later attempts to drown her in an elemental-infusion process.

The homage to Silver-Age villainy seems deliberate, as Judy Garrick’s tale is all about the past coming up against the present. Judy brings a much-needed dose of optimism to the sometimes bleak DC world: Jay even cites the Dark Crisis as an example of the kind of villainy Judy may not be ready to face. By introducing Doctor Elemental to readers as a hammy, over-the-top figure like Doctor Doom in his first appearance, it both establishes his credence as a viable threat to the Flash Family and invites readers to speculate how this figure has changed over time. This sets up the conflict between a hero representing a half-century of innocence and a villain who is expected to have only gotten worse over time.

The Flash Family Will Have to Face DC’s Doctor Doom

The Flash Family have always been some of DC’s more upbeat, positive heroes — especially Jay Garrick — and so this touch of a lighter tone with Judy and her nemesis feels both appropriate and a welcome callback to Silver Age shenanigans (despite a hint of modern darkness to come). If the Flash’s daughter is meant to bring some of the ’60s charm into the present with her, then there’s no better nemesis for her than DC’s own version of Doctor Doom.