The 15 Best Covers Featuring The Flash

The Flash returns to the CW on October 6, ad what better way to celebrate the return of a show that had an insane amount of success than looking at some iconic and sometimes hilarious moments on the covers of the many appearances of The Flash.

As we went through all the Flash-related covers we could, we had one rule in mind: Only use covers that feature Barry Allen. It makes sense because it is Barry as the Flash on the CW show. After sifting through the hundreds of covers Barry was featured on, here's out favorites.

CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS #8 by George Perez

First on the list is an iconic issue and cover for Barry Allen. It's CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS #8 by George Perez. Spoiler alert: This issue is the death of Barry Allen. He gave his life to save everyone else's. This cover has Barry holding the dead body of Psycho Pirate.

THE FLASH #226 (Volume 1) by Nick Cardy

THE FLASH #226 (Volume 1) by Nick Cardy. Barry has to decide whether to keep being The Flash or become one of his rogues, Captain Cold. This is a lovely piece from the late, great Nick Cardy.

THE FLASH #105 (Volume 1) by Carmine Infantino

THE FLASH #105 (Volume 1) by Carmine Infantino. What better way to celebrate Barry Allen than the cover to his first issue of his own solo-series, continuing the numbering from FLASH COMICS. This is also the first appearance of Mirror Master.

THE FLASH #349 (Volume 1) by Carmine Infantino and Klaus Janson

THE FLASH #349 (Volume 1) by Carmine Infantino and Klaus Janson. Infantino is responsible for a lot of great covers in Flash's history, but this one just strikes a pretty sad cord, especially considering its the second to last issue in the volume and months before Barry's death.

THE FLASH #177 (Vol 1) by Ross Andru and Mike Esposito

THE FLASH #177 (Vol 1) by Ross Andru and Mike Esposito. Moving away from the depressing and onto the absurd, something DC did extremely well, cover wise, in the Silver and Bronze age, here's Barry with a gigantic head and some shocked citizens.

THE FLASH #115 (Vol 1) by Carmine Infantino and Joe Giella

THE FLASH #115 (Vol 1) by Carmine Infantino and Joe Giella. Whatever happened to Lex Luthor's fatray? The world may never find out, but moving forward with a silly, but incredibly memorable cover is this one, yet again from Infantino.

THE FLASH #1 (Vol 4) by Francis Manapul and Brian Buccellato

THE FLASH #1 (Vol 4) by Francis Manapul and Brian Buccellato. Volume four marked Barry Allen's entrance into the New 52, DC's reboot. With that came this iconic piece showing off Barry Allen in the new world and in a brand new series. Easily, this is one of the best covers to come out of the New 52 so far.

THE FLASH #123 (Vol 1) by Carmine Infantino and Murphy Anderson

THE FLASH #123 (Vol 1) by Carmine Infantino and Murphy Anderson. What? Did you think we'd skip out on the cover that brought the Golden Age Flash, Jay Garrick, together with Barry Allen? In addition, this cover seems to be a big inspiration for the upcoming season of the television show too.

THE FLASH #4 (Vol 3) by Francis Manapul and Brian Buccellato

THE FLASH #4 (Vol 3) by Francis Manapul and Brian Buccellato. This took place during the Brightest Day story line and it's one of the few really cool covers that features a good chunk of The Rogues. The reflection in Captain Cold's badge and the overall perspective of the piece are just fantastic.

THE FLASH: REBIRTH #1 by Ethan Van Sciver and Moose Baumann

Here's THE FLASH: REBIRTH #1 by Ethan Van Sciver and Moose Baumann. Here's the issue that brought Barry Allen back to life, after decades of staying dead. It's another modern and iconic cover and one of the few times on this list of books where Barry Allen looks completely bad ass. This is a Flash you don't want to mess with.

THE FLASH #255 (Vol 1) by Rich Buckler and Jack Abel

THE FLASH #255 (Vol 1) by Rich Buckler and Jack Abel. Maybe we're a little bias because we love Mirror Master (both of them) so much, but this was one of our favorite Buckler and Abel pieces because of the sense of movement here and it's really easy to follow. Did we mention that we love Mirror Master?

SHOWCASE #4 by Joe Kubert and Carmine Infantino

SHOWCASE #4 by Joe Kubert and Carmine Infantino. It's Barry Allen's first appearance, bringing the Silver Age Flash into the world! Numerous other artists have paid homage to this cover, and it's easy to see why. It's memorable and extremely important to Barry's history.

THE FLASH #190 by Joe Kubert

THE FLASH #190 (Vol 1) by Joe Kubert. Here's another Joe Kubert cover coming your way. We're back to some silly cover action, but this is another cover with a great perspective and who is Barry going to run is his legs are useless? I'm sure he'll be fine...

THE FLASH #22 (Vol 4) by Francis Manapul

THE FLASH #22 (Vol 4) by Francis Manapul. Wrapping up the modern covers for Flash is this piece by Manapul which has a modern and simplistic yet complex style and features one of Flash's Rogues, Reverse Flash.

THE FLASH #326 (Vol 1) by Carmine Infantino and Gary Martin

THE FLASH #326 (Vol 1) by Carmine Infantino and Gary Martin. Wrapping this all up is another piece from Infantino and features Barry in handcuffs. It's simple, but the close-up view of the handcuffs and Barry's emblem is a really cool touch to the overall composition of the cover.

There you have it. That's some of our favorite covers featuring Barry Allen. Are there any that you really loved? Let us know in the comment section below!

The Flash gets arrested a lot is what I get from this.

My favorite Flash covers, Wally of course.

@artyom:

Beata

Terrific idea for an article Mat!

Damn even Flash can't outrun police brutality

~MiB

@madeinbangladesh: yep.

This makes me miss @k4tzm4n and his Character of the Month stuff. That was the best.

It'll be back for October. We were going to start back this month, but I just decided to do a month's worth of Barry Allen stuff because The Flash comes back on Oct 6.

REALLY good picks. I definitely approve :D

Um......about that fat raygun, that's my new favourite weapon ever!

Cool list

Damn the police can take down ppl like the flash and thanos. Impressive

Needs more Manapul covers. In the future you should try doing some artist/writer showcases instead of just strictly characters. Sorry if I just suggested something you already have done. @inferiorego

i always love when you guys do lists like this. cool seeing old covers and seeing some of the best covers of certain characters.

loved these, my favorite ones were the buccelato ones, and the flash of 2 worlds one

@farkam: I'm pretty sure both those covers are from the Trial of the Flash where he went to court for pulling a MOS on Zoom's neck.

Always dudes in the comment section that have to bring Wally into the conversation...

Nothing against Wally, but come on guys...

What about the emrgency stop one?

@inferiorego

Please make an article like this for Deadpool.

Thanks

All very cool covers !! So the tv flash is barry allen ? And the new 52 flash series is barry also ? Or the black flash ?

Because it's Wally! XD

great array of covers

Some great covers- especially Rebirth 1.

For Barry I would have also included Blackest Night: the Flash 3 (blue lantern barry).

My favorite Wally cover is probably issue 226 (volume 2).

Nice thread. Some of my favourite Barry Allen covers are variants, but these are still some of the best.

My favorite Flash cover.

No Michael Turner?

There's a Flash cover from the 1970s (I think, maybe early 80s) that had him running, and then one of the Rouges zapped him with a ray and he withered to a skeleton as he ran. That cover freaked me out when I was a kid, but I can't find it anywhere. Anyone know which issue I'm talking about?

@inferiorego: YAY!!!

@sinestro_gl said:

IKR?

I really hope that Fatray makes it into the show, seems like a good weapon for The Trickster

I have actually wrote about him here.

http://passionateviews.blogspot.com/2015/10/17-stunning-and-uncanny-views-about.html

Flash Vol. 5 #67 Variant Cover by Ryan Sook