Was it originally a different title?
It began as golden age flash and they kept the numbering when Barry came about
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Think about this, batman arrives in detective 27 and is still around in issue 1000 while the much loved barry allen shows up in flash 105(after some showcase appearances) and that book gets canceled at 350.
Cancelled at 350 because Barry died and Wally took over.
Wasn’t It more than 350? Thought the trial was like 370s or something
Way back in the day, retailers didn’t like ordering brand new, untested periodicals - they preferred books with a history of guaranteed high sales. Unlike the comic industry today, they hated #1s.
So instead of starting with a new #1 in 1956 (after Barry Allen’s initial appearances in Showcase), DC decided to continue the numbering of ‘Flash Comics,’ the book that had run for 104 issues starring the Golden Age Flash and had been canceled in 1949. That made it look like the book had a long history, even though DC fudged the name a bit, rechristening it ‘The Flash,’
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What I always thought was weird is that they kept the golden age numbering for Flash but when Hal Jordan got his own Green Lantern title they started from number one. I wonder what the decision making process behind this was since the idea that high numbers were always preferrable wherever possible right through the mid eighties.