A Google search on “Hard water” and “athletes” didn’t pop up any webpages that talked about late-1930s-era reports of hard water speeding up your reaction time, but it did show a few modern webpages suggesting that the minerals in hard water – particularly magnesium – could be very useful in replacing the electrolytes that athletes lose when they sweat.
But I suppose “Never Runs Out Of Electrolytes Man” just wouldn’t have been as big a seller as The Flash.
I was going to make a joke about Jay Garrick falling into a vat of Gatorade to gain his super powers, but in the course of finding The Flash’s real name (having forgotten that it was in the OP :smack:), I stumbled over this page:
So did it actually say “heavy water” in the comics at some point, or is the author of that web page making the same assumption that we are?
Unless it was retconned (and I don’t think it ever was), tracer’s link above conclusively shows it was “hard water.”
Page 100 of Feiffer’s **The Great Comic Book Heroes ** clearly shows the Jay had been studying “hard water” for the past three years at Midwestern University. He knocked the apparatus over while sneaking a cigarette.
I am beginning to suspect that my long-held conviction that folks believed hard water increased reaction time may be based directly on this comic. I have come up with no other source.
And here I thought it was an antique meme, as useful to me as knowing where the Melonheads live…
Another thing just hit me that makes it even sillier.
If the Shark had such great mental powers, why not just use them to mess up GL’s concentration? Concentration plus will power were everything to using the ring.
The Earth-3 counterpart of Batman, Owlman, used just such a tactic and GL just barely defeated him.
True Blue Jack
Actually he did–he had a mental “Cause fear” attack. In addition to the invisible yellow aura, and super strength, flight, etc.
Actually he was a pretty tough customer (as you’d expect a super-evolved SHARK OF TOMORROW to be! 
)
Just curious, but is it possible that the Hard Water that gave Jay Garrick his powers is the Atlantian Hard Water from the Aquaman comic?
Apparently the writers of the hit CW TV series “The Flash” favor the heavy water origin story. In the second episode of the second season, entitled “Flash of Two Worlds,” which aired on October 13, 2015, the Flash of Earth 2 makes his first appearance on the show. As Jay Garrick explained it, when asked how he gained his speed: “I was trying to purify heavy water without any residual radiation when there was a blinding light. I fell into a coma … when I woke up, I could run almost as fast as the speed of light.”
Although all superhero origin stories require a healthy dose of imagination, some are more scientifically plausible than others. Hence the writers of the show, who really seem to be doing their homework into The Flash mythology, and who are creating a highly entertaining show (some are calling it the best action-adventure series on television), have opted for the heavy water origin story.
Radiation can cause cellular changes and mutations, and can alter DNA. Advantageous mutations are what drives evolution, and it provides at least a plausible basis for the acquisition of enhanced functional capabilities or “super-human” powers. Inhaling the “fumes from hard water” would not have this physiological effect. Moreover, hard water does not release fumes, it releases steam when it is boiled, and the water vapor would not contain any dissolved minerals (this is how distillation works).
However, the heavy water explanation is also flawed, because contrary to popular belief, heavy water is not radioactive, so there is no “residual radiation” associated with it. Nevertheless, the fact that radiation is mentioned in connection with Jay Garrick’s origin story, indicates at least a general scientific awareness that radiation is capable of causing cellular changes and mutations.
Whether the “fumes of hard water” in the 1940 origin story of The Flash was simply a misprint, or whether the writer, Gardner Fox, was scientifically misinformed, may never be known with certainty, but the writers of “The Flash” television series wisely chose to stay as true to the original Flash origin story as possible, while choosing the more scientifically plausible explanation for the Flash’s super speed.
Well, that update sure wasn’t riding the speed force.
Could be that physics works slightly differently on Earth Two. Which would explain Jay’s lack of powers “here”.
How did that post get graped? Did the grapist get beyond the grave powers from sniffing hard wine fumes? Or is it the grapist of Earth 2?
I am waiting for the appearance of Jay Garrick’s arch-nemesis, Culligan Man.
Regards,
Shodan
Would the Culligan Man ever team up with the Tidy Bowl Man?
All the heroes as portrayed on The Super Friends were lame. It is a puzzlement why that image stuck to Aquaman but not the others. The efforts to change that perception by making him a harder, more Namoresque anti-hero in the comics gave results of varying quality. For my money, the AQUAMAN variant of the character from the animated* Batman: The Brave and the Bold* animated series is the best version of the character yet. It corrects the Super Friends silliness without a lot of angsty grim n’ gritty bullshit.
Agreed.
Annoyingly gung-ho Aquaman is my current favorite.
Because he talked to fish.