Telling modern FLASH stories *without* referencing the Speed Force.

[Buried Alien]

More than twenty years have passed since Mark Waid introduced the concept of the Speed Force into the FLASH mythos. Since that time, a number of writers have come and gone on the FLASH, and Wally West has passed the mantle of the Flash to Bart Allen and back to Barry Allen, but the Speed Force has persisted...seemingly an inextricable part of the entire mythos.

It leaves one a bit surprised to think that more than fifty years of FLASH stories beginning with Jay Garrick's first appearance, through Barry Allen's entire Silver and Bronze Age run, and the first seven years of Wally West's run were told *entirely* without any reference to the Speed Force.

FLASH writers (including the writers of the current popular CW Network television series) of the past two decades have been so reliant on the Speed Force concept that I wonder...are writers today even capable of writing an extended FLASH story without referencing the Speed Force at all?

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[BohemiaDrinker]

It leaves one a bit surprised to think that more than fifty years of FLASH stories beginning with Jay Garrick's first appearance, through Barry Allen's entire Silver and Bronze Age run, and the first seven years of Wally West's run were told *entirely* without any reference to the Speed Force.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

The thing is, the speed force is a great tool to explain even the stories that predate it. If you go re-read some of the insanity on the Silver Age Flash stories, you need it to just make sense of it. Time travel trough running, Barry coming back from complete disintegration trough "molecular control", multiverse hopping, hell, even the vibrations thing. Not to mention Wally's classic Kid Flash costume first appearance.

That said, the Speed Force does need some strict guidelines. Pretty much everything done with it from Flash: Rebirth on was different levels of crap that make no sense at all; with Manapul and Booch having the best (but not really perfect) take.

[K. Jones]

Looking at it with a bit of a Multiversal eye has been interesting lately. Morrison's map depicts a barrier separating time and space from thought and imagination, and the notion of speed allowing you to break that barrier is a sci-fi concept we saw in like, Star Trek: The Next Generation "Where No One Has Gone Before" back in 1987. (They literally go to like the Flash Rebirth "speed nirvana" type places in that episode, as well as fifth-dimensional realms where thought can change reality. Rather similar to "The Three Doctors", too, while we're at it.)

I quite liked the way that in Justice League, Johns (crikey, it just occurred to me that he's still essentially working on his Flash run by doing JL, too, the same way JL has effectively been a sister-title or continuation of his work with Green Lantern, Superman and Aquaman, and a smidge of Teen Titans) ... anyway I quite liked how Johns had Grail fast-travel through Flash's connection to that barrier. As a fifth-dimensional entity, half Apokoliptian and half rooted in the Skyland dimension's Olympian pantheon, and clearly a multiversal traveler, it was neat to see her refer to Flash's unique connection in terms that made more sense to her as a somewhat mythic being with a foundation in these broad ideas and iconographies. A barrier is a wall, and if you want to pass through a wall, you walk through a doorway.

So she just straight up walks through Barry.

[K. Jones]

Another built-in element of the Speed Force is the notion of mind-over-matter. Flash is able to overcome certain limits and dilemmas because he's able to think about how quickly, and then his access to the energies beyond those barriers allow his thoughts, desires and imagination to influence his actual matter in timespace. He's a definite "think it, achieve it" type character, provided this is all in the context of doing things at incredible speeds.

[Adset]

capable? yes. likely? probably not. i think we'll see the speed force used just like we'll forever see green lantern rings of all different colors in the GL books. it's an introduction to the mythos that's been accepted and i just don't see any turning back now.

personally, i thought waid did it best. i liked the speed force as an ominous presence that both wally west and the reader failed to fully comprehend. i have not at all enjoyed the stories in the new 52 that have taken place within the speed force itself. i don't mind exploration of the concept, i've just found the execution lacking.

[Lee]

The Speed Force hasn't really been used in the TV show yet. The phrase has been used, but not much beyond that. It didn't come up in the Young Justice cartoon either.

[DrNewGod]

To me, it's real genius was as a way to attribute almost identical abilities to multiple people, whether related or not, without having to resort to factors like power rings or genetic mutation.

[FlashEarthOne]

Grant Morrison may be trying to tell one in his Flash Multiversity story.

[Frontier]

The TV show seemed to work fine without explicitly mentioning the Speed Force aside from the two times it actually did, even if it was ever-present in a lot of what Barry did on the show and what Thawne was after. Though they might get more into it in season 2 with Earth-2, Jay, and Zoom coming .

As far as the comics though? I think you can easily do a one-in-done story that doesn't mention it, but considering how engrained it is in the mythos now I think it would be kinda difficult to do a longer, more extensive, storyline without it being brought up.

I'm trying to recall how much it got mentioned during the Rogue reintroduction issues up until they all got back together and took on Flash before Grodd showed up...

[BohemiaDrinker]

I'm trying to recall how much it got mentioned during the Rogue reintroduction issues up until they all got back together and took on Flash before Grodd showed up...

In Johns run? It wasn't a big focus, except for the Cicada arc.

[Tony]

I've always hated the speed force and found Waid's run vastly over rated. I'd love it if writers dropped it.

The title is so bad right now I they should go in a new direction after they get a new creative team.

[JackDaw]

I've always hated the speed force and found Waid's run vastly over rated. I'd love it if writers dropped it.

The title is so bad right now I they should go in a new direction after they get a new creative team.

I don't quite hate it, but I think it's a load of crap. In two main ways:-

First, it fails in what most claim is its prime purpose of giving a scientific explantation of Flash's powers. Analyse it and basically it's really just asking reader to "Let's assume that a limitless force exists that once used allows user to ignore ALL known laws of physics". That's no more "scientific" than saying "Let's assume Flashes do anything they want by magic".

Second...it's given Flash a power set that effectively gives him limitless un-stoppable power...so much so that the only way he's shown as having a problem defeating anybody is for writer to forget extent or range of his powers. The prime example of that is his ability to steal speed from objects or living beings. No firm limit has ever been established to extent of that...so reader is left to wonder why Flash doesn't win most key confrontations by just stealing speed from foe, and leaving them as a frozen statue.

To answer Buried Alien's original question: Of course, there are writers capable of writing perfectly good stories without the concept but it's now become so embedded in the Flash character that its become equivalent to writing a Green Lantern story without anybody using a power ring. Best to junk it all (just write a story arc where it emerges that if speed force is not destroyed then universe will be destroyed), and start again.

[kivatt]

I wish there were stories like that now. But I don't see that happening. The speed force is the end all be all now. Even villains have been touched by it now.

[Radix]

I don't quite hate it, but I think it's a load of crap. In two main ways:-

First, it fails in what most claim is its prime purpose of giving a scientific explantation of Flash's powers. Analyse it and basically it's really just asking reader to "Let's assume that a limitless force exists that once used allows user to ignore ALL known laws of physics". That's no more "scientific" than saying "Let's assume Flashes do anything they want by magic".

Second...it's given Flash a power set that effectively gives him limitless un-stoppable power...so much so that the only way he's shown as having a problem defeating anybody is for writer to forget extent or range of his powers. The prime example of that is his ability to steal speed from objects or living beings. No firm limit has ever been established to extent of that...so reader is left to wonder why Flash doesn't win most key confrontations by just stealing speed from foe, and leaving them as a frozen statue.

To answer Buried Alien's original question: Of course, there are writers capable of writing perfectly good stories without the concept but it's now become so embedded in the Flash character that its become equivalent to writing a Green Lantern story without anybody using a power ring. Best to junk it all (just write a story arc where it emerges that if speed force is not destroyed then universe will be destroyed), and start again.

1. The speed force IS mystical. Im not sure if it ever was scientific, but it is a mysterious source of energy related to speed.
2. This seems an issue more in powers rather than their source. Flash is ridiculously overpowered which is why it is impossible to write a story without weakening him,or putting him up against a speedster. Frankly the idea that the story has to make "sense" has done a lot more to hurt Flash. Im fine with saying Flash is fast enough to do a lot, but suddenly becomes slow to give villains a threat.

[HsssH]

Never liked it, wouldn't mind if it was forgotten.