WARNING! LOTS OF SPOILERS AHEAD!
Release Date: February 1988
Title: The Chunk
Writer: Mike Baron
Penciller: Jackson Guice
Inker: Larry Mahlstedt
Guest Stars: Tina McGee, Mary West, Cyborg
Bad Guys: The Chunk
The Cover: Jackson Guice
A rather large black gentleman (neatly dressed in a suit with a bow tie) has his mouth open, and several diamonds are shooting out of it in the general direction of the Flash. Flash is trying to shield his face with his arms, and his right arm is at such an impossible angle that his elbow would have to be made entirely from elastic, but I believe this to be a result of poor drafting rather than some amazing power of today's villain.
The Comic
In a development that makes my head ache, we join Wally in the midst of a visit to a therapist. I'm only going to say this once – super-heroes do not need to see therapists. Bottle everything up until they snap and go an a killing spree, yes. See a therapist, no.
Anyway, the session is interrupted when a woman barges in to tell them that the diamond exchange across the hall is being robbed. Wally suits up, and zips off to investigate. He finds a portly black fellow in a bow tie holding a gun and rambling about how he hates all the "smooth, popular" people, and he should send them all "where I sent the others". Flash attacks, but numerous blows to the face appear to do no harm. Then the robber starts coughing, and a diamond shoots out of his mouth, catching Flash on the side of his head. Flash is stunned briefly, and unable to dodge the barrage of diamonds that follow, shooting out of the robber's mouth like bullets. While Flash is down, the robber leaves the room, and there is a rumble that Flash at first mistakes for an earthquake, but was in fact the sound the guy makes when he disappears.
Flash heads back to his mansion on Long Island, where we see some of his happy home life. His Mum is staying with him for a while, recovering from the attempt on her life made by Wally's Dad, and it's clear she doesn't like Tina, and thinks she's a gold digger. There's a little bickering, and then a cop arrives to deliver a message to Wally from the city council. Apparently they want him to move out of the area, because he's pushing up the inusrance premiums.
The next day, we see the big guy stroll up to an armoured truck transporting gold bullion, rip its door off, push out the guards, hop in the cab and disappear, truck and all. We then join Flash, who is visiting the diamond exchange, trying to find some more information on the robbery. Apart from telling Flash that it looked like the guy was eating the diamonds, the owner of the exchange isn't able to offer more than his assessment of insurance companies (scum of the earth, apparently). As Flash is leaving, his therapist sees him passing (his office is just across the hall, remember), and calls him in to watch the tv report on the disappearance of the armoured truck. As they watch, the shrink recalls the patient of a colleauge, a very fat kid who was fascinated with gold and diamonds. Flash immediately jumps to the conclusion that it could be they guy he's looking for, and in an amazing coincidence, he turns out to be right!
Flash visits Cyborg in Titans Tower, and after a little hacking Cyborg is able to find the name of Flash's therapist's colleague's patient (Chester P Runk) and some research Runk did into matter transmission and singularities. Since Cyborg is unable to find a clue as to Runk's current location, Flash can't do much else but go to the meeting the town council has called.
At the meeting (which is held in the Middlehampton Town Hall, right next to an art center that is hosting an exhibition of platinum) the council is in the process of telling Wally he has to move to save them all from exhorbitant insurance premiums when a cop bursts in to tell them all there's something going on at the art center next door. Wally suits up and heads next door, and finds (in another amazing coincidence) that it's Runk, stealing the platinum and holding a gun on a few innocent people.
Flash distracts Runk long enough for the others to escape, and then they have a little chat. Runk first tells Flash to call him "Chunk" rather than "Chester" or "Chet" and then explains that he built a matter transmitter that managed to send him across the city, but it then blew up, imploded and he swallowed it. Now he needs to keep eating dense materials to stop it from imploding again and sending him to "yet another awful place". Flash tries to talk him into giving himself up, but he doesn't trust "smooth popular people" like Flash, and they fight. Flash grabs the bag of platinum from him and is running off, when Chunk turns up the gravity - Flash is drawn back towards Chunk as if he's "a human black hole". When Flash is close enough Chunk grabs him in a bear hug and then there's a "Pop" and suddenly they're in a rocky wasteland, surrounded by other things Chunk's brought there, like an armoured truck, a big yacht, a few people in tattered clothes begging for help and a big black ominous-looking sphere.
Good Stuff
Chunk demonstrates his firm grasp on reality: "...the Archangel Michael warned me not to put banana peels in the garbage disposal. My uncle is sick but the highway is green."
Wildly implausible stuff
Okay, a neatly dressed fat man acting as a human black hole I can accept, but that he just happened to be Flash's therapist's colleague's patient, and that he just happened to rob places right next door to wherever Flash happened to be not once, but twice, is stretching things just a little.
Flashometer
Flash's current top speed is just under the speed of sound.
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