Amazing Spider-Man #574
Flashbacks
In Landstuhl, Germany, Flash Thompson is recovering in the hospital during the holidays. He has just opened a Christmas gift from Peter Parker who has given him a portal media player loaded with songs that Peter thought were appropriate.[1] He is listening to the song when he is visited by General Fazekas who has come to talk to Flash for a moment. When Eugene insists that the General call him Flash, he is asked how he got that nickname. Although Thompson earned the nickname for premature ejaculation during a make-out session, Eugene says he got it for his prowess on the high school football field. He says he also played college ball at Empire State University until he dropped out to volunteer for military service and did a number of tours.[2] After going over Flash’s military record, General Fazekas tells Thompson that he is going to be awarded the Medal of Honor, but has a few questions to ask him first. He says that they usually want to know the background of anyone awarded the Medal of Honor.
Flash confirms that he grew up in Forest Hills, Queens, and how his father was a police officer. Although this brings up memories of his father’s alcoholism and abuse, Thompson says nothing when the General suggests that he grew up following his father’s example.[3] Flash is surprised to learn that the military knows about the Spider-Man fan club he started when he was still in high school.[4] Fazekas explains that the FBI opened up a file on Thompson to investigate his fan club, particularly since Flash himself was once kidnapped by the leader of a sovereign nation, namely Doctor Doom.[5] Given Spider-Man’s reputation, the General is curious to know why Flash worships the masked vigilante. Flash explains that Spider-Man has always gotten a bad wrap and still continues to fight no matter how the odds are stacked against him. Thinking of how he endured the abuse at the hands of his father, Flash says that no matter how many times Spider-Man was pushed down he kept on going. This convinces General Fazekas why Flash did what he did, but Eugene doesn’t understand, thinking he doesn’t really deserve the medal. Asking to be humored, Frazenkas asks Eugene to run down the incident that led to his hospitalization.
Flash recounts that he was part of a military transport carrying troops sent into a city to do a cordon-and-search mission.[6] That’s when their transport struck an IED and they were all trapped inside. Despite this, Flash refused to give up fighting to get out of the transport.[7] Putting his shoulder into it, Flash was able to force the door of their transport open. However, when they got out they were soon surrounded by enemy fire. They were forced to open fire in an attempt to get out of the kill zone. To do so, the soldiers boxed the area, in order to get cover from enemy fire.[8] Once they had gotten to cover, Flash and another soldier named Santos were ordered to get up to the roofs and clear it of enemy soldiers. As they were making their way up, Santos was ambushed by an enemy insurgent and as they struggled, Flash tried to get a clear shot.[9] Unable to get a clear shot, Flash pulled the insurgent off his fellow soldier and as they fight, Flash had to make the grave decision to snap the enemy combatant’s neck so they could continue their mission.
As they continued on, Santos set off a trip mine, although Flash was able to leap in time to push Santos away from the brunt of the blast, Santos found himself buried under tons of debris.[10] After making sure his teammate was still alive, Flash decided to go back to get some help. Along the way, he ran into six enemy soldiers and engaged them even though he was greatly outnumbered.[11] After taking some bullets to the leg, Flash was forced to pull back but managed to take out the enemy soldiers with a grenade. Unable to feel his legs and needing to get Santos some help, Flash remembered that the enemy soldiers hop themselves up on Epinephrine and finds some on the dead combatants. He makes the decision to inject himself with the drug so he can get moving again without feeling the pain in his legs. Hearing this, General Fazekas understands that Eugene used whatever he had at his disposal, noting that the Epinephrine was distributed to American troops to use against chemical weapon attacks.[12] Eugene then double backed and saved Santos from enemy combatants who had found him. With no other choice, Flash pulled Santos from the rubble and carried him to safety. Walking on seriously injured legs, Flash and Santos were later found by a military helicopter and evacuated from the area.
Even though he knew he could have saved his legs had he abandoned Santos and gotten help sooner, Flash regrets nothing and wouldn’t have done things differently even though he lost his legs as a result, as it was the right thing to do. He concludes his story by saying he doesn’t need a medal to remind him that he did the right thing, and the truth is he’s been lucky to know people whose example reminds him every day of what it takes to be a hero.
Recurring Characters
Flash Thompson
Continuity Notes
There are a lot of topical references here to unpack all at once. Let’s deal with them now to get them out of the way:
This story states that Flash Thompson is fighting in the Iraq War. This war started in 2003 and while (as I write this) it is still ongoing it’s referenced here should be considered a topical reference as it will eventually become dated as much as past references to Flash fighting in Vietnam have since become topical. Modern readers should interpret this as being a story about Flash Thompson fighting in a conflict taking place in Iraq but not specifically the real-life Iraqi War but some, as yet unidentified Middle Eastern conflict unique to the Marvel Universe.
Peter gifts Flash with an iPod, which was ubiquitous to portable music players during the period this story was published. With advances in mobile phone technologies, portable music players like the iPod have since fallen out of popular use. As I write this, iPods are still on the market but you can bet these will become obsolete sooner or later.
Lastly, the song that Peter puts on the iPod is “Christmas in Fallujah” by Billy Joel. The song was released in 2007 during the high of the Iraq War. It’s a reference here should also be considered topical.
This is a reference to when Flash joined the military in Amazing Spider-Man #47. At the time of its publication, it was said that Flash was drafted to fight in the Vietnam War. This story ignores these facts, stating instead that Flash volunteered instead of being drafted (since the draft was abolished in 1971), this is how modern readers should remember Flash’s previous military service. Likewise, this story does not reference any specific conflict anymore, only depicting Flash fighting in a jungle environment. That’s because any reference to Flash fighting in Vietnam would prematurely age Flash and the rest of the characters as they exist in the modern age on the Sliding Timescale of Earth-616. One could assume that instead of Vietnam, Flash fought in the Sin Cong Conflict a fictional conflict that was invented in History of the Marvel Universe #1. This conflict is used as a catch-all to place all Modern Age character’s Pre and early Modern Age military service.
Harrison Thompson’s alcoholism abusiveness behavior was first chronicled in Untold Tales of Spider-Man #19 and Spectacular Spider-Man #-1
Eugene first formed his Spider-Man fan club back in Amazing Spider-Man #17
Flash was kidnapped by Doctor Doom in Amazing Spider-Man #5. At the time, Doom was tracking Spider-Man with a device that tracked his spider-powers. He mistook Eugene for the wall-crawler as Flash was wearing a Spider-Man costume and attempting to frighten Peter Parker.
The type of transport used is identified as a Stryker ICV and that they were operating in the Iraqi city of Mosul. The Stryker vehicles were used during the Iraq War between 2003 and 2011. They have since been reassigned to the battle against ISIS in Syria in 2014. They also specify the “breach of Mosul” which is referring to the US Army’s liberation of Mosul in May 2008. These should be considered topical references, particularly when considering that Mosul was later taken over by ISL in 2014 and later liberated again by coalition forces in 2016-2017 and is back in the control of the Iraqi government.
Flash’s attempts to escape from the Stryker are juxtaposed with Spider-Man trying to escape the Master Planner’s hideout in Amazing Spider-Man #33, particularly the iconic scene where Spider-Man liberates himself from under a pile of rubble in a room that is rapidly filling with water.
Flash Thompson and his fellow soldiers boxing the area is juxtaposed to a battle between Spider-Man and the Kingpin with Norman Osborn watching in the background. This is battle was from Amazing Spider-Man #61.
This scene is juxtaposed with a scene of Spider-Man battling the Juggernaut. Spider-Man first fought the Juggernaut back in Amazing Spider-Man #229-230.
The enemy combatants are referred to as Hajjis. It should be considered a topical reference here. It is also now considered a racist term and it’s used here because of the sensibilities of the time.
The six-to-one odds against Flash Thompson is juxtaposed with Spider-Man’s first battle with the Sinister Six, which happened in Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1.
Flash using the Epinephrine is juxtaposed with Spider-Man wearing the “Iron Spider” costume. This costume was created by Tony Stark — aka Iron Man — and given to Peter in Amazing Spider-Man #529. Peter wore this costume until he renounced support of the Super-Human Registration Act in Civil War #5, fearing that Stark could use it to track him.
