Jay Garrick

Origin

As a boy, Jay Garrick used to read pulp magazine stories about super-hero, Whip Whirlwind. Little did he know that he would be granted the same powers of super speed.  Jay would go to Midwestern University in Keystone City. He was double-majoring in chemistry and physics. An experiment he was working on during his junior year was to purify hard water without any residual radiation in a cyclotron. When a test tube of the hard water was accidentally spilled, the fumes knocked him out. His friend Elliot Shapiro dragged him from the lab. After a week of unconsciousness, during which Jay's metabolism increased and his body rejected nutrients, he discovered that he had been given superhuman speed by the accident, and he used this speed as the fastest man alive, the Flash. 
 
Jay wears his father's helmet. His father served in World War I. He uses this helmet sometimes as a weapon, such as a throwing disc or a shield as seen in the "52" epic. 
 
Eventually he retired from super-heroics and married his long-time sweetheart Joan Williams.  Early in their marriage, Jay and Joan adopted a baby who subsequently died of pneumonia. 

Since World War II

Jay is an active member of the Justice Society of America.  He even served as the first chairman. Like the rest of his comrades, certain spells kept him from aging much as the years went by. He would become close friends with fellow member Alan Scott. Jay also remained a prominent scientist. He worked at Chemical Research Incorporated before founding the Keystone-based Garrick Laboratories.

Three of Jay's enemies, the Fiddler, the Thinker, and the Shade, built a resonator that vibrated Keystone City out of real space, putting its citizens in suspended animation, and causing the rest of the world to forget the city's existence. However, much later, Barry Allen discovered the lost city when he vibrated at a certain frequency. After waking up Jay, the two Flashes were able to beat the villains and save the city. After this event, Jay retired, leaving Barry to continue the mantle. However, Jay would fluctuate in and out of retirement, helping Barry or Wally West out if needed. He also continued to work as a scientist. When the very life on Earth was threatened by solar flare radiation, Jay was put in charge of the situation by the government.

Jay eventually disappeared, along with the rest of the JSA, and Joan believed him to be dead. He returned, however, and soon was back in action with Wally. When Professor Zoom arrived at Jay's doorstep on Christmas Eve, genuinely believing to be Barry Allen and convincing everyone else, Jay and Joan let him stay with them. Soon, however, it became obvious of this Barry's malevolent intent. After it was falsely revealed that Wally had died in a Combine trap, Jay rounded up his old cronies Johnny Quick and Max Mercury, and together they went after Barry. They were defeated quite handily. In a subsequent fight with Barry, whose identity had been revealed by Wally as Professor Zoom, at the state penitentiary, Jay's leg was broken.

Zero Hour and Recent years

During Zero Hour, all the members of the JSA were aged to their chronological ages by the villain Extant, including Jay. He stripped himself of his Flash symbol, giving up. Soon, however, he was back in action with Wally West. Wally brought in Jay to help teach Bart the ways of super-speed, an adventure that soon transformed into a fight against Kobra. Jay was unable to participate for long, however, because of sheer fatigue.

A few years ago, the Justice Society of America reformed to help the JLA against an imminent threat rising from the 5th Dimension. While fighting the mad imp, Lkz, Jay and his JSA teammates helped to free the Spectre. This, in addition to the untimely death of longtime ally, Wesley Dodds (the Sandman), prompted the remaining JSA members to fully come out of retirement. Flash worked alongside contemporaries Alan Scott and Ted Grant to train a new era of heroes upholding the legacies of veterans such as Mister Terrific, the Star-Spangled Kid and Hawkgirl.
One of the adventures of the revitalized JSA included a battle with an old foe named Johnny Sorrow. During this incident, Jay had his first true brush with the Speed Field. He used his super-speed to trap Johnny Sorrow inside the field, but the battle propelled Jay three-thousand years into Earth's past. He arrived in ancient Egypt, where he met Teth Adam, the sorcerer Nabu and Prince Khu Kha-Tarr (all three of whom were analogs to Jay's future-teammates, Black Adam, Doctor Fate and Hawkman). With the aid of a device known as the Claw of Horus, Jay was able to return to his normal time period.

A short time later, Jay and his wife, Joan, took young Jakeem Thunder under their wing. Longing for the child they never had, the Garricks invited Jakeem to stay in their home in Keystone City. One of Jay's most harrowing battles in recent history involved an old war-time foe, the Dragon King. The Dragon King gained possession of the legendary Spear of Destiny, and used it to take control of Jay's mind. He forced Jay to engage in a brutal fight with his close ally, Wildcat – a fight that cost Wildcat nearly all of his nine lives.

Recently, a major battle with the Gentleman Ghost, as well as the aftershocks of the Infinite Crisis event destabilized the ranks of the Justice Society. Jay Garrick has joined with charter members Alan Scott and Ted Grant in an effort to reform the Justice Society of America. He has also devoted a portion of his time towards aiding Bart Allen – the latest inheritor to the legacy of the Flash, with protecting his home town Keystone City.

Recently, Jay has been helping Bart Allen against the crazed efforts of his former friend, Griffin Grey. Griffin stole a device from S.T.A.R. Labs designed to steal the Speed Force from Jay’s body. The intense radiation produced by the machine weakened Garrick to the point of death. However, Bart Allen found him moments later and channeled lightning from the Speed Field to restart Garrick’s heart.

Thy Kingdom Come and One World under Gog

With the coming of Gog Jay along with the rest of the JSA are very apprehensive of the deities motivations. When it appears that Gog's actions are becoming highly questionable a argument ensues between the JSA members who thinks he is a good and benevolent being sent to help the earth, and those who don't. The team becomes fractured as they decide to learn more about Gog. 

When the rebellious half of the JSA shows up to tell the other half what Gog is doing to the planet, a battle ensues. For the JSA's defying of Gog and his will, he undoes all the "miracles" he has done for them. Gog decides to punish the JSA starting with turning Jay into lighting, so that he could power and entire continent. While he was saved from the effects by Superman's Intervention the process had already started to take place causing him to move at high speeds and turning his body into pure Speed Force. Dr. Mid-Nite suggests they slow him down before his body disperses and fails.

 
 
 

Justice League: Cry for Justice

 In issue 2 

Powers

• Super-speed- Jay Garrick could run and move his limbs at superhuman speed. Jay is able to run so fast that he is able to run on water or on buildings. Also, he could create a wind vortex by running in circles very fast. Without the speed-force, he can run at the speed of sound. However, with the speed force, he can run near or at the speed of light although he is not as fast as the other flashes as he is a meta-human and his connection to the speed-force is not as strong.
• Speed steal-Wally West taught Jay Garrick how to steal speed. Jay is able to steal speed from other people to render them motionless like a statue.
  
• Speed lending- Jay can lend speed to other people so that they can move faster.
• Speed force aura- The speed force aura surrounding Jay Garrick  protects him from being killed or affected from the speed that he is running at. It also protects him from punches which he dishes out at super-speed.
• Increased processing of information- Jay Garrick can process information at super-speed, allowing him to react at super-speed.
• Decelerated Aging : his absorption of chronal energies early in his career, decreased the effectiveness of time and age on his body slightly.
  
• Vortex Creations: By running in a circle at a certain speed, Jay Garrick is able to create a vortex with a variety of affects. One effect is pulling the air away from the center in order to suffocate an enemy. Another effect is levitating whoever and whatever was in the center. Some other effects are acting as barriers to movement or funnels for toxic gas's.
  

Although it is never stated or used it has been speculated that Garrick also had the ability to phase through matter. Evidence supporting the theory is that Garrick used the ability to hide him self from photographers and so this level of self control over his atoms would allow him to use his phasing ability. Also Jay Garrick is a trained chemist. 

Strength level

Other versions

In the final issue of 52, a new Multiverse is revealed, originally consisting of 52 identical realities. Among the parallel realities shown is one designated "Earth-2". As a result of Mister Mind "eating" aspects of this reality, it takes on visual aspects similar to the pre-Crisis Earth-Two now called Earth-2 to distinguish the two separate realities. Included in one panel showing is a new counterpart to Jay Garrick among other Justice Society of America characters. The names of the characters and the team are not mentioned in the panel in which they appear , but is later specifically used in the

"Countdown: Arena" series where the new Earth-2 Flash is specifically identified as Jay Garrick and does not allow others to call him "Flash" in the series, opposed to openly using "Jay Garrick". Despite being an almost exact duplicate to the original World War II Garrick, it is shown that the new Earth-2 Garrick is much younger, having no gray hair at all Some suggest that this Post Crisis Earth-2 Jay Garrick is the son of the original Garrick who died in the New Earth history which would explain his drastic youth in comparison to the New Earth Garrick Flash.
 
The Flash: The Fastest Man Alive

A second young Jay Garrick lives on the unspecified Earth that Wally West went to with his young children at the beginning of Bart Allen's tenure as the Flash. This Jay is separate from the young Post Crisis Earth-2 Garrick as The Post Crisis Earth-2 heroes make no mention of Wally or his children on their Earth.

 
 
JSA: The Unholy Three
 
In the Elseworlds book JSA: The Unholy Three, Jay Garrick is portrayed as a post-WW2 United States intelligence agent stationed in Russia, working under the code-name Mercury. He is instrumental in bringing down the story's rogue Superman.