The Flash Is Only Mostly Dead!!

I know what you're thinking...

...you're thinking that this is one of those lying DC covers, and nothing resembling that cover tableau actually appears on the inside of the comic book.

Good guess, but you'd be wrong:

How did this happen?

Well, a certain Dr. Hollister was working on developing a suspended animation formula.

After talking about in on a local talk show, vile gangster Keech decides he wants the formula for himself, even though it hasn't been tested on humans yet. It's a good way to hide out from the FBI, and when he wakes up in 100 years, his stolen loot (including a Rembrandt!) will be less hot, more valuable, and easier to fence!

Fortunately, Flash is on hand to help out...

Oops!!

And about 3 seconds after rousting the bad guys...

Now, you'd think that if you dosed someone with suspended animation formula, and he collapsed, you'd want to make quadruple sure that he's actually dead, and not in, you know, IN SUSPENDED ANIMATION. I'm just sayin.

But apparently, everyone had tickets for Star Wars or something, because even the JLA can't wait to bury Barry:

But the dejected Dr. Hollister makes it all about him!

So he sneaks into the Flash Museum...

But that plan doesn't go so well, because, well, he's just a suicidal depressive, not a hero...

Which leads us back top our cover/splash page.

Our lessons: when you find a super-hero sleeping on a park bench covered with newspapers proclaiming his death, A) The paper is probably wrong, B) The guy on the bench probably isn't the hero, and C) Make damned sure your hero is actually dead before you have a funeral.

SPOILER ALERT: Barry wan't dead, he was just in suspended animation. Who would have thought?

From Flash #199 (1970)