Photojournalist John Chambers had been raised by genius mathematician Professor Gill, who discovered an ancient scroll with a special formula “3X2(9YZ)4A“. Uttering this series of number and letters grants one the ability to travel at superhuman speeds. As he was nearing death, Gill entrusted this formula to his protégée, who used it as the superheroic speedster Johnny Quick.
With these powers, Quick rivaled the Flash as one of the fastest men alive, and joined the All-Star Squadron. There he met his future wife Libby “Liberty Belle” Lawrence, whom he a whirlwind romance culminating in marriage. Sadly, their relationship wouldn’t last, although his career as Quick did or several years to come.
On one adventure, while protecting his home of Earth-Two, Johnny was captured by aliens and taken aboard their spacecraft to their native world. On that planet, his powers didn’t work correctly, although Chamber’s superfast mind allowed him to conceive of other power enhancing skills derived from various mathematical formulas.
This was reminiscent of the H-Dial found and used by young Robby Reed, granting him a wide array of meta-human powers. Among these abilities, he became the projectile persona Human Bullet, the dynamic digger the Mole, the zooming zipster Human Comet, the ginormous grower Giant Boy, the shape shifting Plastic Man, the phenomenal physique Muscle Man. These were just a few examples of Robby’s various tremendous talents during his short yet notable career as several costumed crusaders. Reed's H-Dial turned him evil as the Master, battling Vicki Grant and Chris King, two children granted similar dials.
Chambers likewise had similar diverse powers, from the following formulas:
- 7X7(3XY)-(4XY)-(5KY) turned him into a projectile persona.
- (5XY)2C-3C-4C-5C turned him into a dynamic digger.
- (7QZ)4Z-(8QZ)52-(9QZ)62 turned him into a zooming zipster.
- (4QY)6Y…(5QY)7Y…(6QY)8Y turned him into ginormous giant.
- D(19X)…L20…L22…L22 turned him into a shape shifting shrinker.
- X4(19B)-1X5(19C) turned him into a phenomenal physique.
However, as Johnny states, it might be the unique atmosphere of this alien world granting him different powers. When his counterpart Wally “Kid Flash” West travelled to the alien realm of Dimension X with the Teen Titans, he maintained his superspeed and didn’t gain any new powers.
It seems Robby’s heroic alter egos’ doppelgänger Burp the Twerp gained his various powers through mechanical means. Although conjecture has led to the possibility that Burp was a cartoon brought to life by cartoonist Scribbly Jibbet, using technology similar to that developed by the criminal known as Funny Face. This felon was himself a failed cartoonist unable to “bring to life” his creations in the printed page yet invented the bio-ray projector which could transform 2-dimension drawing into 3-dimensional automatons. These entities could think and operator based on their creators’ designs, and employed the various attributes and abilities attributed to them in their published adventures.
There is a possible mathematical correlation between Johnny’s speed formula and the other power-additive formulas he stumbled upon, and that which spawned Scribbly and Funny Face’s cartoon characters.
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