guest appearances. However, starting in 1976, Garrick became a regular character in the revived All-Star Comics, partaking in adventures with the Justice Society in stories set in modern times. In 1981, he and the Justice Society appeared in All-Star Squadron in stories set during World War II. In 1985, DC Comics merged all of its fictional characters into a single shared universe. Jay Garrick now shares the same world as the New Flash. DC wrote the character out of continuity in the one-shot Last Days of the Justice Society but brought the character back in the 1990s due to fan interest. Unlike characters such as Batman or Superman, DC decided not to update Jay as a young hero but portrayed him as a veteran of World War II with a magically-prolonged lifespan. Jay Garrick became a regular character in the JSA and Justice Society of America. Fictional character biography Origin Jason Peter Garrick is a college student, who, prior to 1940 (later retconned to 1938), accidentally inhales hard water vapors after taking a smoke break in his laboratory where he had been working (later stories would change this to heavy water vapors). As a result, he finds that he can run at superhuman speed and has similarly fast reflexes. Retcons imply that the inhalation simply activated a latent metagene. After a brief career as a college football star, he dons a red shirt with a lightning bolt and a stylized metal helmet with wings (based on images of the Roman god Mercury). He then begins to fight crime as the Flash. The helmet belonged to Jay's father, Joseph, who fought during World War I. He sometimes uses the helmet as a weapon or a type of shield, as seen in Infinite Crisis. He has also used it to direct a beam of light at Eclipso. In The Flash: Rebirth (2010), he used it to destabilize Reverse Flash. In the early stories, it seems to be generally known that Garrick is the Flash. Later stories would show him as having his identity secret, and that he is able to maintain it without the use of a mask by constantly "vibrating" his features, making him hard to recognize or clearly photograph. The effectiveness of this is debatable, as he later blamed his girlfriend, Joan, deducing his true identity from his lack of a mask. Garrick ultimately revealed his identity as the Flash