’80s Flashback: Flash vs. Colonel Computron

Whenever I get nostalgic for those bygone days of videogames known as the early 1980s, I question my sanity when I come across things like this bit of videogame inspired lovliness.

In an old box of comic books I unearthed for an upcoming garage sales, I found issue 304 of Flash published by DC Comics, Inc., in December 1981. On the cover it features the dark profile of one of the weirdest comic book villains – Colonel Computron. Oh yeah, you read that right. Col. Computron – reducing Flash to a poorly pixelated videogame. The cover reads:

“When Colonel Computron plays the game, Flash… the name of the game is DEATH!”

Now that is some ’80s greatness right there.

Col. Computron is a man wearing a computerized suit of armor and may be the first comic book villain who uses a videogame for evil (I don’t know of any others). His primary weapon is a “Molecu-Siphon” gun that traps Flash inside a crappy videogame where Flash bounces off the walls, Pong style. He’s most likely the toy designer (Basil Nurblin) who created the Captain Computron toy, but you never really can tell with super villains.

Apparently DC execs didn’t find him to be that great a super villain, either, only using him in a couple more Flash issues and letting him loose years later as a floating head named Computron left to guard some computer network.

For your viewing convenience, I’ve posted select pages from that issue to our photo gallery. Enjoy!

I don’t know about you, but that image of Computron (above) may become my new avatar.

For those of you who dig credits, that issue notes Cary Bates as the writer, Bob Smith as inker, Carmine Infantino on pencils, Costanza (it is just one word here so I am guessing John Costanza) as letter and Gene D’Angelo as colorist. Mike W. Barr was the editor.

Photo Gallery [Flash #304] Read [Hyperborea]