The Flash is too Fast

[Dred]

I don't think in 1940 it was established that Jay was fast as light. He was fast but not that fast. Maybe by the end of his run (pun intended) he did get up to that speed--I haven't read all his 1940s stories, so I don't know for certain. However, I think he was retconned once he met Barry in THE FLASH 123 (such a memorable issue number). Given he had to be the equal of the Earth-One Flash, he now had all of Barry's capabilities.

Maybe the Ray (Happy Terrill) was fast as light--didn't he virtually become as fast as a ray of light?

The one character that probably can travel at the speed of light, according to science, is the Atom (Ray Palmer). Photons--and theoretically other particles like them--have no mass. In regular time-space, anything with mass will increase in mass as it approaches the speed of light. Which is why it's virtually impossible for anything to go as fast as light, if it has mass--because the mass increases exponentially. But the Atom can have literally no mass and become as small as a photon, therefore he should be able to travel at light speed.

It would still take him a long time to travel across the universe. If he started now, going at the speed of light, he would never reach the end--because there would always be photons going ahead of him. That is, if the universe isn't a simulation.

In Jay's very first issue the narration says he's as fast as the speed of light. It's literally baked in from day 1. You can argue this is just flowery writing or superfluous metaphor but they use it frequently.

Speed of Light, speed of a bullet, speed of sound. Those are the only speeds anyone could use that was common to everyone, so when Jay was going extra fast they'd say he was going the speed of light.

Jayspeedoflight.jpg

But if you really want to fight me on it, here it is in the opening shot of issue 4, stating Jay is faster than the Speed of Light.

jayspeedoflight4.jpg

This continues on throughout the entire Golden Age. He does things that are also logically only possible for someone faster than light at times, too, though most of the time his speed seems to hover around being significantly faster than bullets.

Jay was also stated many times to be the fastest being in the world, "in all of reality," "on heaven and earth" etc etc. So no, this speculation about The Flash becoming too absurd or going too fast is silly. It's been there since literally the very first issue.

[Dred]

The problem is the scope of the Speed Force IMO. It's a pretty good attempt at a basic level to explain a character who has impossible powers. But it doesn't stop there; it's become a get out of jail free card for The Flash to violate the laws of physics when convenient, and observe those laws when convenient. There's just no end point for the Speed Force; it is whatever the writer at the moment needs to write his story without thinking about it too much. A cheat sheet basically to avoid doing real thinking about just what you need the character to do, when, why, and most specially how he does it. The Flash suddenly does something that is inconsistent with what he's just done? A wizard did it, the wizard in this case being the Speed Force.

We have the Speed Force being used to do contradictory things, what it needs is to be consistent. Establish what the Speed Force allows, and what it doesn't. That's what the Flash needs most, a plan that is consistently followed, with consistent powers and characterization.

This is not what the Speed Force actually is. All these things were infinitely possible long before Waid dreamed up the Speed Force. Barry and Jay were doing impossible, absurd, phenomenal things long before Waid was even a writer.

The Speed Force, in its original incarnation, was actually Waid imposing a limitation on most Speedsters to be slower than Lightspeed. And that in tempting that fantastical limit, there is danger and imminent death.

Of course, as is this case with superheroes, they overcome these obstacles. So yes, Wally and later other speedsters became capable of performing absurd feats of Speed after the Speed Force was invented. And sure, because now that Speed Force is the canon explanation for their powers, any time they do something fantastical you can chalk it up to the Speed Force. But the Speed Force is not to blame for any of this, just as it wasn't when Barry was running on rays of light through the galaxy from planet to planet billions of times faster than light could travel back in the Silver Age. Just as it wasn't when any Flash was time travelling long before the Speed Force existed.

The Flash is the one who causes these things. The Speed Force was only ever a limitation when it comes to going too fast.

Now they have used the Speed Force to introduce new powers that are not necessarily directly related to moving incredibly fast. Inertia manipulation and such. You can lay some of the blame for that at the feet of Mark Waid and the Speed Force.

But blaming the Speed Force for why The Flash is stupidly powerful and does impossible things is to completely discount all Flash history before 1994. It's just not true.

From 1940 to 1985 The Flash was a fundamentally absurd character who broke the concept of "physics" over his knee like cheap plywood. Barry Allen alone was the greatest threat in the multiverse to the Anti Monitor, the biggest, baddest cosmic villain to that point in DC's history and he was proven right. The only time in DC's long and storied history with The Flash that it wasn't about a preposterously, reality cracking demigod was in that brief period after Barry's death, from 1985 to 1994, where Wally was in a relatively lower powered state after Crisis.

And while there are many good comics in that era (I'm fond of WML, and some of Waid's best work predates the Speed Force), it is a small subsection of the larger Flash history. The reason Wally is so stupidly fast and powerful is because one of the fundamental points of Wally's character is to be the student who surpasses the master. Assuming his story does not get cut short, Wally was always set on the path to eclipse Barry, and because Barry was a similarly absurdly fast being, it is the natural state of storytelling progression that Wally becomes the same and more.

You did not need the Speed Force for that. You just needed the comic to be titled The Flash and to follow along with the obvious character arc.

[JackDaw]

That depends on what the writer is trying to do and what the chemical or gas is configuered to do. A villain can be clever and use the fact that the speedster can hypermetabolize against him or her. For example, rapidly metabolizing a slow release powerful anaesthic will make take the speedster out and they would not be able do anything while unconscious.

The speedster is very much vulnerable in all the ways a human is.

Honestly I stopped feeling that way when a criminal came across a sleeping Wally and put a gun to his head, pulled the trigger…

Wally sensed something wrong, immediately awoke, and before bullet could cause slightest bit of damage moved out of the way. (Or allowed bullet to phase through him, can’t remember which.)

Effectively full strength Flash is habitually written as being able to engage full speed mode instantly. None of them come across to me as convincingly human…but then I can say the same about Batman quite often when written in “god mode”.

[Dred]

Honestly I stopped feeling that way when a criminal came across a sleeping Wally and put a gun to his head, pulled the trigger…

Wally sensed something wrong, immediately awoke, and before bullet could cause slightest bit of damage moved out of the way. (Or allowed bullet to phase through him, can’t remember which.)

Effectively full strength Flash is habitually written as being able to engage full speed mode instantly. None of them come across to me as convincingly human…but then I can say the same about Batman quite often when written in “god mode”.

It was in a movie theater and a bunch of criminals unloaded some automatic weapons into the crowd. One of the bullets hit Wally in the back of the neck and the impulse kicked him into superspeed. He wasn't even aware he was in superspeed at first and continued talking in his previous conversation before the bullet started slowly inching into his neck, causing him to notice.

This was during WML's run and predates the Speed Force.

[achilles]

This is not what the Speed Force actually is. All these things were infinitely possible long before Waid dreamed up the Speed Force. Barry and Jay were doing impossible, absurd, phenomenal things long before Waid was even a writer.

The Speed Force, in its original incarnation, was actually Waid imposing a limitation on most Speedsters to be slower than Lightspeed. And that in tempting that fantastical limit, there is danger and imminent death.

Of course, as is this case with superheroes, they overcome these obstacles. So yes, Wally and later other speedsters became capable of performing absurd feats of Speed after the Speed Force was invented. And sure, because now that Speed Force is the canon explanation for their powers, any time they do something fantastical you can chalk it up to the Speed Force. But the Speed Force is not to blame for any of this, just as it wasn't when Barry was running on rays of light through the galaxy from planet to planet billions of times faster than light could travel back in the Silver Age. Just as it wasn't when any Flash was time travelling long before the Speed Force existed.

The Flash is the one who causes these things. The Speed Force was only ever a limitation when it comes to going too fast.

Now they have used the Speed Force to introduce new powers that are not necessarily directly related to moving incredibly fast. Inertia manipulation and such. You can lay some of the blame for that at the feet of Mark Waid and the Speed Force.

But blaming the Speed Force for why The Flash is stupidly powerful and does impossible things is to completely discount all Flash history before 1994. It's just not true.

From 1940 to 1985 The Flash was a fundamentally absurd character who broke the concept of "physics" over his knee like cheap plywood. Barry Allen alone was the greatest threat in the multiverse to the Anti Monitor, the biggest, baddest cosmic villain to that point in DC's history and he was proven right. The only time in DC's long and storied history with The Flash that it wasn't about a preposterously, reality cracking demigod was in that brief period after Barry's death, from 1985 to 1994, where Wally was in a relatively lower powered state after Crisis.

And while there are many good comics in that era (I'm fond of WML, and some of Waid's best work predates the Speed Force), it is a small subsection of the larger Flash history. The reason Wally is so stupidly fast and powerful is because one of the fundamental points of Wally's character is to be the student who surpasses the master. Assuming his story does not get cut short, Wally was always set on the path to eclipse Barry, and because Barry was a similarly absurdly fast being, it is the natural state of storytelling progression that Wally becomes the same and more.

You did not need the Speed Force for that. You just needed the comic to be titled The Flash and to follow along with the obvious character arc.

Of course the writers misusing it is the problem, not the actual concept, which I noted had a valid enough comic book reason to exist, but was being misused these days. All I was saying is that it's become the default excuse writers use when they tack on even more powers onto the Flash. And that they need to stop doing that and simply use it as it was originally intended, simply a "wizard did it" out for the character's impossible physics. And that they need to be consistent in how they use it; they can't simply have him do one thing and in the next panel do something that completely contradicts either the physics just shown, or the details of what he's doing and just did.

[Dred]

Of course the writers misusing it is the problem, not the actual concept, which I noted had a valid enough comic book reason to exist, but was being misused these days. All I was saying is that it's become the default excuse writers use when they tack on even more powers onto the Flash. And that they need to stop doing that and simply use it as it was originally intended, simply a "wizard did it" out for the character's impossible physics. And that they need to be consistent in how they use it; they can't simply have him do one thing and in the next panel do something that completely contradicts either the physics just shown, or the details of what he's doing and just did.

But the thing you're complaining about exists with and without the Speed Force. That's my point. The default excuse before hand was The Flash had a magical aura and had "full control over his molecules" which also isn't even how superspeed works. Barry was coming up with new powers yearly without the Speed Force.

The exact things you're saying they shouldn't do and do because of the Speed Force have always been present in Flash storytelling. It's just easy to make fun of the Speed Force because it's a silly name -- something Waid wishes he had more foresight about.

If you want consistency in power levels then, I dunno, I'm not sure cape comics are the right place to seek it. Maybe try a Brandon Sanderson book.

[Jim Kelly]

In Jay's very first issue the narration says he's as fast as the speed of light. It's literally baked in from day 1.

I hang my head in shame. It was the easiest thing for me to check my Archive, before I posted and then I wouldn't have been in error. I will be shot at dawn.

Probably a waste of the few hours I have left, but I don't think the Speed Force makes it any clearer how the speedsters can do physically impossible things. Either they are bubble wrapped in the Speed Force and not actually doing anything physical (like running faster than their muscles could possibly carry them or vibrating all of their molecules) or they are doing those feats, assisted by the Speed Force. So either the speedsters are just sitting inside a comfy bubble and have no actual speed skills or they are doing stuff that would kill a normal human being yet constantly being restored to working order by the miracle of the Speed Force.

[Dred]

I hang my head in shame. It was the easiest thing for me to check my Archive, before I posted and then I wouldn't have been in error. I will be shot at dawn.

Probably a waste of the few hours I have left, but I don't think the Speed Force makes it any clearer how the speedsters can do physically impossible things. Either they are bubble wrapped in the Speed Force and not actually doing anything physical (like running faster than their muscles could possibly carry them or vibrating all of their molecules) or they are doing those feats, assisted by the Speed Force. So either the speedsters are just sitting inside a comfy bubble and have no actual speed skills or they are doing stuff that would kill a normal human being yet constantly being restored to working order by the miracle of the Speed Force.

They explicitly show in the prelude to Terminal Velocity that as Wally approaches the speed of light his body starts to become pure energy. That said he's gone significantly faster than the speed of light dozens of times while maintaining his corporeal form so who knows. None of this is particularly relevant because the second you apply any logic to their powers there should be enormous problems. Not just from how they survive, but the fact that they move through the air so fast would constantly cause cavitation explosions well behind them, far outside of any aura. This is not a Speed Force thing, either. Or how they take a billion steps without dying from exhaustion or malnutrition (The Speed Force clearly provides you your B vitamins!). There's infinitely many thing you can nitpick about their powers beyond the fact that, sure, going lightspeed isn't possible.

Of course it isn't. They're superheroes. Nothing they do is ever in the realm of human capability. The amount of energy it would take to do thousands of things Superman has done before, while being contained in the frame of a human sized man, would instantly make him a singularity that would rip time and space apart at the seams! But no one cares because, what, Superman's an alien? Why is this suddenly a problem with The Flash? How is Alien any better an excuse than extradimensional power source that is explicitly outside the rules of our universe?

The Speed Force gave you a few decent explanations far better than anything we had before. It's never really been the problem, it just gets all the blame because it's now the explanation behind the powers. Superman being an alien doesn't logically or physically account for anything he does (including beating Barry in a race!). But we just accept it because he's Superman. Why aren't you all just accepting it because it's Flash?

[JackDaw]

If you want consistency in power levels then, I dunno, I'm not sure cape comics are the right place to seek it. Maybe try a Brandon Sanderson book.

That’s a good rec!

I do like more consistent/ more toned down power levels these days which is one reason I tend to read few cape comics now.

When I do I try to get long runs by favourite authors writing non team comics. That way tend to get a bit more consistency as there is only one writers take on the character…and by avoiding team comics the danger of writing really strong characters as less powered than usual and less strong characters as stronger than usual is avoided.

[Rightoya]

I don't think it breaks him any more than it breaks Supes, Diana, and Cap. Unlike them, he is entirely human which comes with a host of physical and mental vulnerabilities which balance things nicely.

Especially Wonder Woman feels often far more human with more physical and mental vulnerabilities than Flash at least since Flashpoint, and the last time Superman or Wonder Woman were reality bending and breaking wizards like Flash was during the Silver age, Shazam never even got that extreme, so about what balance are you even talking? The only thing that is balancing Flash is basically bad writing also called jobbing, but Superman, and especially Wonder Woman or Shazam obviously job a lot too.

Also, it depends on the rules of engagement the writer is using. Some writers would offer that while he is certainly fast enough to do what is shown there, the people would be obliterated by any number of physical realities.

The Speed Force is an absolute meme for a reason, especially a not jobbing Wally could have replaced the Justice League, the Justice Society, and the Titans at the same time in many situations, because he is not just a stupidly broken superhero, but also could imitate several other superpowers with the Speed Force or general speed shenanigans, people are often even talking about Martian Manhunter like that, but a not jobbing Flash would be far worse.