(Flash I #287) - The newly discovered element dyrithum possessed the density of diamond and the Central City police were interested in using it to make improved bulletproof vests. The snag was that dyrithium was a heavy element, causing a weight problem when used to make bulletproof vests, so Barry Allen and Patty Spivot were tasked with coming up with a formula for a lightweight dyrithium alloy. Patty went to work while Barry stepped out to get coffee and donuts. Dr. Alchemy used his Philosopher’s Stone to melt a hole in the police lab’s wall, knocked out Patty with ether, and stole the dyrithium. Barry was disappointed to see that Al Desmond had returned to a life of crime, and changed into Flash and confronted him, but Alchemy knocked him out with a cloud of carbon monoxide. When he recovered Barry visited Al Desmond’s wife Rita, and she admitted things looked bad for her husband, who was pulling up in the driveway. He told Barry someone had clearly adopted his MO, but Barry was unconvinced, saying the Dr. Alchemy he confronted had his voice and mannerisms. Al said he’d spent all morning cleaning up at home after the washing machine overflowed, but Rita said he was lying, having left the house at 6 AM. The police arrived, and after finding the dyrithium vest in his garage they arrested him. Barry still hoped there was a way to help his friend, convinced that his split-personality had resurfaced. The next day Flash found the  police station had been transformed into pure sodium, making every surface dazzling and blinding.. He found Desmond gone from his jail cell, with the bars having been turned to gold and bent apart. Dr. Alchemy had Al Desmond shackled in a cave outside town. He took off his hood, revealing himself as another man named Al Desmond and boasted that after he’d finished pinning his crimes on Al he’d be in jail for life while Alchemy was living it up on a beach somewhere.

(Flash I #288, 289) - Captain Frye gave the squad a briefing on Dr. Alchemy and how Al Desmond had reformed in the past only for his criminal personality to resurface in times of stress and return to a life of crime. Barry Allen gave a scientific talk, theorizing that Al had escaped police custody because he now had a telepathic link with the Philosopher’s Stone. At home Barry’s neighbor Troy was in a panic because the S.T.A.R. Labs where his dad Mack worked had been targeted by Alchemy, who turned the steel girders to rubber, causing the building to start to collapse. Barry changed to Flash and rushed to the scene, getting all the scientists out of the building, including Mack, who was thrilled to see him. Flash created an updraft under the building to stabilize it until the girders returned to steel, and Alchemy used the distraction to rob a bank. The new Dr. Alchemy told Al they were psychic twins, with Albert being born at the exact minute Alvin had been. They were both obsessed with chemistry, but when Albert turned to crime as Mr. Element Alvin kept his urges under control with therapy. He noticed that when Albert was committing crimes his own criminal instinct subsided, but when Albert reformed those urges came on stronger, and he had to undergo psychotherapy and take anti-aggression drugs. The last time Al reformed to good and Alvin could no longer control himself, so he used his psychic link to Al to find the Philosopher’s Stone to become the new Dr. Alchemy. Alchemy discovered a new element that he named desmondium in honor of both of them, and used its’ hypnotic properties to convince Rita that Al had no alibi. Alchemy told Al his next goal was to kill the Flash. Alchemy released noxious sulfer in Central City Park, luring in the Flash, and then turned him into water vapor, which started to blow away. Alchemy couldn’t help but gloat and took off his mask to reveal himself as Alvin and brag about framing Flash’s friend. After Alchemy left Flash sped up his molecules to turn his water vapor body into a cloud, regaining enough molecular stability that he was able to vibrate his molecules back to normal. Albert Desmond escaped captivity and once again donned the costume of Mr. Element. Dr. Alchemy tracked Mr. Element to an abandoned warehouse, where Element blasted him with a stream of niobium acid. Alchemy dodged in the nick of time, but realized he could have been killed, and said Al had outlived his usefulness and planned on killing him. Alchemy set the air ablaze, but Element slipped away. The fire department responded to the blazing warehouse, but the roof collapsed, trapping a number of firefighters inside. Flash managed to rescue most of them, with Mr. Element saving the last man inside by forming a cocoon of oxygen around him surrounded by nitrogen to keep out the fire. The firefighter told Flash what happened and Flash was puzzled as to why Al had adopted his Mr. Element identity again. Flash visited Rita Desmond, who admitted she’d just met with her husband, and explained that the new Dr. Alchemy was his psychic twin. Al blamed himself for the existence of the new Dr. Alchemy, and was determined to take him down, despite Rita trying to talk him out of it, and asked Flash to help her husband. Alchemy froze a train and stole a hundred pounds of nuclear waste material. Mr. Element got a telepathic flash of Alchemy’s location, and Flash, disguised as Mr. Element using a spare costume from the Flash Museum, confronted Alchemy in an abandoned mine. He allowed himself to be captured to learn Alchemy’s plan. The mine was used to store nuclear waste, and alchemy had added his stolen cache, revealing that he needed uranium to create desmondium, and intended to create enough for him to hypnotize vast populations of people and conquer the world. “Mr. Element” revealed himself as Flash, and Alchemy turned his body to cavorite, an anti-gravity element. Flash rapidly floated into the air and was soon in the stratosphere. Mr. Element confronted Alchemy in the mine, but was defeated. Once Flash was in space he vibrated his body until he turned his matter into anti-matter, expelling the cavorite from his system, and floated back to Earth. Flash defeated Dr. Alchemy and Al Desmond dsaid he hoped that was the last the world would ever see of Dr. Alchemy or Mr. Element.

(Flash II #40) - Tina and Jerry McGee were working on their artificial intelligence project when they got a call from Wally West, Barry Allen’s successor as the Flash. His friend Linda Park had seemingly been possessed by the ghost of an Irish bard named Seamus O’Relkig, and he needed them to look through university employment records to find out the current address of Al Desmond, the former Dr. Alchemy, since he was the only expert in magic that Wally knew of. Mason made Linda some cocoa and she thanked him again for looking after her. The next day Wally and Linda approached Desmond’s crumbling home in Morningside Heights when O’Relkig took possession of Linda, and he came on strong to Wally, telling him Linda fancied him and they could make love. Wally was having none of it, and was relieved when Linda regained control of herself. They met with the disheveled Desmond, who was disheveled and intensely working on a lab project. Wally didn’t realize he wasn’t talking to Albert, he was talking to evil “psychic twin” Alvin who’d learned they were coming over and had tied up Albert Desmond and locked him in the closet. Alvin told them he was furtively trying to transmute elements, but found it impossible without the Philosopher’s Stone. He believed Linda’s story of possession, saying psychic energy like what he shared with his “twin” was similar to the spiritual energy that would explain a ghost. He used an instrument of his own invention that detected energy pouring off Linda, and started getting handsy with her. She yelled at him to back off, and he disappeared into another room. Linda was furious at Wally for taking her to see a madman, and Wally changed into Flash, hoping to shake some sense into Desmond. Desmond emerged from the other room as Dr. Alchemy, armed with his Philosopher’s Stone, and tried to kill Flash, first by turning him into chalk, and then by turning everything in sight into boiling steam. Flash tossed lab equipment ta him, distracting Alchemy, and giving him time to run behind him and knock him out. Flash found the captive Albert and freed him. Albert bemoaned that anytime his life got on track Alvin showed up and ruined everything. Flash tried to reassure him that with Alvin going to jail his troubles would be over.

(Flash II #41) - Dr. Alchemy robbed a bank and asked the teller if she’d go on a date with him. When she turned him down he turned her into gold. Linda’s morning talk show was supposed to feature Albert Desmond talking about his life as a reformed supervillain with Flash as another guest to give his perspective. Desmond no-showed, and Linda was fuming. The network was about to bump her show to cover a hostage situation when Flash came up with the idea of handling the situation live on Linda’s show. He zipped back and forth between the station and the hostage standoff, bringing police Lt. Cleveland and the hostages in for interviews with Linda before disarming the hostage-taker Wilfred Petty and bringing him in. He said his sister had been turned to solid gold during a bank robbery, causing him to snap and decide to kill his tax attorney Benjamin Harrison Hughes. Flash suspected Dr. Alchemy, and he and Linda went to check in on him in prison. The only thing in Desmond’s jail cell was a salt figure, and O’Relkig possessed Linda, informing Flash that the salt figure was never alive. Flash wasn’t convinced, fearing Albert had gone rogue again and killed Alvin, so he called up Tina McGee, who said there was something fishy about the whole “psychic twin” business. Flash asked Linda if he could talk to Seamus, who took over her body and led Flash straight to Dr. Alchemy. Alchemy turned the road under Flash to tar, and then the air around him to stone, crushing him. Albert Desmond, having once again taken the identity of Mr. Element, freed Flash with his element gun. He fought Alchemy, but was overwhelmed, with Dr. Alchemy proclaiming that he didn’t just use the Philosopher’s Stone, he was the stone. Flash realized that when Albert reformed a part of him missed his old ways, and the Philosopher’s Stone responded by creating Alvin Desmond. No jail could hold him because the Stone could just let him crumble to dust and create a new Alvin elsewhere. Mr. Element reconciled himself with his darker instincts and wrested the Stone away from Dr. Alchemy, who in a flash of light was turned into the concrete from which the Stone last created him. Albert used the Philosopher’s Stone to return the teller Alchemy had turned to gold to normal. She hugged Albert, and Flash said he’d really proved he could be a hero.

Comments: Created by Cary Bates & Don Heck.

Doctor Alchemy received a profile in Who’s Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe #6.