>>106244266Flash wanted to make a difference like Spidey, his personal hero, so he joined the army. After a few tours of Vietnam he and Peter were still kind of cagey with each other, but after the Hobgoblin stuff they started talking and eventually became good friends. Flash was the best man at Peter's wedding to MJ, which Harry wasn't all that mad about. He even dated Felicia for a while, which she did to make Peter jealous after she found out he got hitched. Unexpectedly she actually fell for him until he was the one who ended up breaking it off between them.
The big turning point was him enlisting, and the others finding out that his hero cop dad was an abusive alcoholic who beat Flash up. Flash was always a pretty three-dimensional character, even in his bully days he was colored by his insecurities about Peter's newfound confidence and Liz's new attraction to him, along with his complete adoration of Spider-Man to contrast him shitting on Peter.
