The Other Woman

I had a fairly good collection of the Flash in either original or reprint, but I confess I had never read the first two stories about Daphne Dean earlier, so I thought I would discuss them here. We learn in Flash #126 that Barry is on his way back to his hometown of Fallville to visit his parents, which means that Mr Allen is one of the very few heroes of the Silver Age with a living mom and dad.

By plan, a young Hollywood starlet who grew up in Barry's hometown and who was his childhood sweetheart is also on the train. Her publicity agent thinks it would make a great story for her to fall in love with her former beau. So they are thrown together and revisit some places they used to frequent in the past:



But when they see a tree behind the schoolyard where Barry had carved their initials, they become lost in a weird sort of daydream:



What the heck? But actually this turns out to be a night-time dream that Barry's having in his parents home. The next day, a masquerade ball is planned at which there will be a reenactment of a key scene from Daphne's latest movie (which sounds like a mixture of Gone with the Wind and Mata Hari). A band of union soldiers captures her at the ball and takes her away with them.

But it turns out the reenactment has gone awry, as crooks have taken the place of the actors playing the soldiers, kidnapping Daphne to steal the fabulous jewels she's wearing. Fortunately the Flash comes to her rescue. In the end, Barry tells Daphne about his engagement to Iris and she accepts it, but:



Comments: Barry's parents only appear as shadowy figures as Barry is having his dream about Daphne in the pasture with the bull.

Daphne returned in Flash #132's The Farewell Appearance of Daphne Dean. Iris is initially worried to see that Barry's former girlfriend is in town, but learns that she is not longer in love with Barry, but with the Flash. This may relieve Iris, but it still leaves her fiance in hot water, as we know he's really the Flash.

Reasoning that Daphne's probably in love with his powers, Flash decides to convince her that he's not really all that fast:



But trouble arises as the Flash spots some crooks about to rob a bank. He distracts Daphne:



And takes care of the crooks, but Daphne suddenly decides to leave Central City. It turns out that she saw Flash dashing off in the reflection of the store window, and realized he was fibbing about his speed in order to let her down easily.



She did pop up one final time in the Silver Age: