Even amid a bevy of other speedsters from disparate comic books and continuities, The Flash is the first name in fast when it comes to superheroes. Throughout the years, he's been joined by teenage sidekicks, Golden Age predecessors and several speedy women. One of the Scarlet Speedster's more esoteric supporting cast members is a veteran mystic superhero who shares his original moniker with another company's fleet-of-feet character.
Max Mercury was an ally of Wally West and Bart Allen, but he was originally an unrelated character with the same name as Marvel's mach-speed Avenger. Here's the history of one of the Golden Age's fastest superheroes and how Mark Waid brought his legacy back.
The man who would be Max Mercury debuted back in 1940's National Comics #5 by Will Eisner and Lou Fine, which was published by Quality Comics. He was created by Jack Cole and Chuck Mazoujian, the former of whom also created Plastic Man for the publisher. At the time, the character wasn't called Max Mercury, but instead, Quicksilver. Quicksilver first appeared about a year or so after the original Golden Age Flash, Jay Garrick, Quicksilver was one of the first copycat speedsters to hit comics.
Not much was known or developed about the character besides his real name of Max, and he was essentially just a generic speedster with no real backstory. Despite this, he remained a fairly popular part of Quality Comics' stable, remaining a firm fixture in National Comics until the end of the 1940s. Afterward, he would languish in obscurity and disuse until he finally ran back into comics in the 1990s.
The character made his return during Mark Waid's iconic run on The Flash where he received a new origin and a new name. His birth name was Maxwell Crandall, and he served as a US Cavalry scout in the 1830s before he found a tribe of Native American allies slaughtered. Their dying shaman bequeathed him with superspeed via a mystic ceremony, making him one of the few speedsters in DC Comics whose connection to the Speed Force was gained through magic instead of science.
His powers saw him bouncing to future eras in time, and the aliases that he took were Windrunner, Whip Whirlwind and the classic Quicksilver name. Eventually, he comes to the present after facing the villainous time-traveling Savitar. This saw him fighting alongside the older Jay Garrick, who along with Johnny Quick had been trained by Max in the past. Max would also do the same for both Wally West and Bart Allen, with Max's zen-like training helping Wally overcome the psychological barriers that had kept him from running faster and truly replacing Barry Allen.
In the modern-day, Max would also take on the superhero persona of Max Mercury. This was obviously a legal/publishing change, as, by that point, rival company Marvel Comics had long since introduced the Avenger Quicksilver who also had superhuman speed. Though his name and origin had changed, Max retained his classic debonair costume from the Golden Age. The character would again go back into obscurity along with the rest of the extended Flash Family following Flashpoint, but DC Rebirth has brought him and several of the other lost speedsters back. With the renewed focus on the Speed Force and its many users in the current ongoing Flash, it's only a matter of time before the first Quicksilver quickly comes back into the spotlight.
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