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    The Flash #243

    The Flash » The Flash #243 - "If I Can't Rob Central City, Nobody Can!" / Dust of The Earth! released by DC Comics on August 1, 1976.

    Short summary describing this issue.

    "If I Can't Rob Central City, Nobody Can!" / Dust of The Earth! last edited by MickRory on 03/08/23 11:13AM View full history

    "If I Can't Rob Central City, Nobody Can!"

    The Top has died. A half dozen of the Flash's Rogues' Gallery gather to mourn their fallen compatriot in crime. An emergency beacon top alerted the Mirror Master to the Top's fate. Now, the Mirror Master plays a cassette recording of the Tops' last words, for his fellow Rogues. A week ago, the Top had robbed an express train, carrying a ten million dollar gold shipment. The Top completed the crime, utilizing his newly discovered mind over matter power. The Top leapt from the train, with a whirling top of gold bars spinning behind him. By chance, the Flash happened to be on the scene. With the Flash bearing down on him, the Top telekinetically raised a massive top-shaped mound of Earth.

    With the Earth spinning beneath his feet, the Flash held on for dear life, as the top launched itself into the air. Racing in the opposite direction to the top's spin, the Flash is able to slow it down. Having safely fled, the Top released the Earth top, which plummeted to the ground. Vibrating his molecules at super-human speed, the Flash became insubstantial, and passed harmlessly into the ground, without injury. While the Mirror Master turns the cassette over, the Rogues respond to the Top's theory on the Flash's secret identity. After the successful completion of the gold heist, the Top suffered a bout of agonizing pain. Running a battery of tests, the Top learned that he was dying.

    Close proximity to the Flash's super-speed vibrations had set off a chain reaction within the Top's own super-charged cells, derived from years of high-velocity spinning. The Top would be dead in a matter of days. As a final farewell to the Flash, the Top went on a crime spree. Though he suffered ever closer calls with each robbery, the Top ultimately managed to outwit the Flash at every turn, for six straight crimes. The Flash, clearly furious over the Top's string of success, held a press conference, and vowed to bring the Top to justice. The Top's last crime was particularly baffling for the Flash, as it was simply a stolen tape recorder.

    Knowing his time was at an end, the Top recorded his last message for his fellow Rogues, then sent for the Mirror Master. The Top's very last words, are the most chilling. For each of his final robberies were merely a ruse, to conceal the fact that he planted a powerful explosive device at each crime scene. The bombs are set to go off at Midnight, on June 30, 1976. The resulting blast will devastate Central City. The only way to stop the countdown is to stack all six explosives on top of one another. The Rogues will have to commit the Top's exact same crimes to retrieve the bombs. The Top is counting on the Flash to stop just one of the Rogues, thus, inadvertently, dooming his own city to destruction.

    Dust of the Earth!

    The Ravagers of Olys have been on a "Holy" mission to complete six tasks of planetary destruction, throughout space sector 2814. They have embarked on this terrible crusade in order to garner placement within a large galactic federation. Said federation tasked the Ravagers of Olys with reversing the Hebrew Bible's story of creation, as proof that they were worthy of joining their enclave. The Green Lantern has thwarted the Ravagers of Olys at every turn. Now, on Earth, he interrogates his prisoners. Before the Green Lantern was able to disable the Ravager's ship, they exposed him to a "Reversion Ray". In moments, the Green Lantern devolves into a primitive savage.

    It is a fate the Ravagers of Olys intend for all humankind. Acting solely on an instinctual level, the Green Lantern still recognizes the Ravagers of Olys as his enemies. Riding atop a power ring constructed, winged sabre-tooth tiger, the Green Lantern descends upon the Ravager's ship. Fearing they will be horribly slaughtered by the raging savage, the Ravagers rapidly re-evolve the Green Lantern. Possibly still fueled by his primitive fury, the Green Lantern orders the Ravagers of Olys off Earth, with a veiled threat of the terrible fate that will befall them should they ever return. The crisis over, the Green Lantern recharges his ring.

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