Bart Allen Sure Likes To Go On Joyrides A Lot, Doesn't He?

CBR

By Brian Cronin

Published Oct 31, 2018

In their latest look at recurring plot points, CSBG shows times that Bart Allen took a vehicle out for a joyride!

In Drawing Crazy Patterns, I spotlight at least five scenes/moments from within comic book stories that fit under a specific theme (basically, stuff that happens frequently in comics). Note that these lists are inherently not exhaustive. They are a list of five examples (occasionally I'll be nice and toss in a sixth). So no instance is "missing" if it is not listed. It's just one of the five examples that I chose.

Today, based on a suggestion from reader Nicholas P., we take a look at Bart Allen's long history of going on joyrides with whatever vehicle he can gain access to!

As you likely know, when Bart Allen came to the present from the future, he had grown up in a virtual reality simulator and as a result, every day life was very boring for him so he was constantly overactive. His restlessness gave him his initial superhero codename, Impulse. He grew so popular that he got his own ongoing series spinoff from Flash and in the fourth issue of the series (by Mark Waid, Humberto Ramos and Wayne Faucher, Bart began hanging out with some older boys at his school that he could get close to the criminal White Lightning. When she shows up at one of the high school parties and then drives off in her motorcycle, Bart chases after her in the car of one of the other boys...

Max Mercury helps Impulse create an air pocket below the car that allows them to gently lower it down to the ground. The other kid, of course, fainted in the process and so Max Mercury drove him home and then the next day in school, he tried his best to explain to everyone what happened the night before...

When Young Justice #1 came out (by Peter David, Todd Nauck and Lary Stucker), the initial setup for the book was that the three young heroes discover a Super-Cycle from the Fourth World of the New Gods and the Super-Cycle theoretically would serve as a sort of random plot generator, as the cycle could take them to various places for adventures, after they recklessly jump on board (led by Impulse)...

The Super-Cycle turned out to not be all that important of a plot point for the series a whole, but it was a nice aide for the earliest stories in the series, which brought the three young heroes into some wild conflicts.

Young Justice get their own spaceship around #25, but I don't think that their journeys with that count as "joyrides."

We would have to wait for the Teen Titans revamp to see the next great "joyride."

Page 2: [valnet-url-page page=2 paginated=0 text='The Teen Titans join in on the fun!']

In Teen Titans #9 (by Geoff Johns, Mike McKone and Marlo Alquiza), Robin showed the team that he had secretly shipped a Batmobile out to San Francisco. Bart (now Kid Flash) asked to drive it and the following ensued...

In Teen Titans #50, after Bart Allen had been artificially aged and turned into the Flash after Wally West disappeared during Infinite Crisis and then was killed in battle with the Rogues, the Titans paid tribute to their fallen comrade by telling stories about him. Geoff Johns, Mike McKone and Marlo Alquiza returned to the title to basically tell the Batmobile story again...only this time with the Batplane!

During Flashpoint, Kid Flash had his own little adventure in the future in Kid Flash Lost. In the second issue (by Sterling Gates, Oliver Nome and Trevor Scott), the issue kicks off with Kid Flash riding Hot Pursuit's futuristic motorcycle...