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

[Frontier]

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

I meant the Manapul/Buccelato run, but interesting to know about Johns' run nonetheless .

[BohemiaDrinker]

I meant the Manapul/Buccelato run, but interesting to know about Johns' run nonetheless .

OH, in this case, there qwas some focus on it, yeah; mostly some repair work after what we got in Flash: Rebirth. They actually did a pretty good job with it before the current team screwed up again.

[K. Jones]

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.

That's exactly right. It's sort of the crux as far as Morrison's usage, without getting too specific into individual hero power-set minutia, that the Barry Allen lightning IS in some ways (obviously metaphorically, but through the multiversal cosmology also on a somewhat "tangible" level) akin to the magic lightning that SHAZAMS Captain Marvel. Lightning heroes were all over Final Crisis. "Just add a chemistry set and somehow a blatantly magical hero is a 'SCIENCE HERO'."

Which rather always brings up an oddity about the Flash I've been wondering about a lot recently. He's called "The Flash". Why the hell is his symbol a lightning bolt? We don't describe lightning as "a flash of lightning", we describe it as a bolt. A flicker. A jolt. We refer to it streaking across the sky. But when the hell do we ever say "A flash of lightning"? (Exempting one Garth Brooks lyric I can think of off-hand, but I'm pretty sure the use of "lightning flashes in her eyes" in that song is more metaphorically tied to the cliche phrases about eyes and flashes of inspiration). Is it a more common saying elsewhere than it is here?

[GlennSimpson]

That's exactly right. It's sort of the crux as far as Morrison's usage, without getting too specific into individual hero power-set minutia, that the Barry Allen lightning IS in some ways (obviously metaphorically, but through the multiversal cosmology also on a somewhat "tangible" level) akin to the magic lightning that SHAZAMS Captain Marvel. Lightning heroes were all over Final Crisis. "Just add a chemistry set and somehow a blatantly magical hero is a 'SCIENCE HERO'."

Which rather always brings up an oddity about the Flash I've been wondering about a lot recently. He's called "The Flash". Why the hell is his symbol a lightning bolt? We don't describe lightning as "a flash of lightning", we describe it as a bolt. A flicker. A jolt. We refer to it streaking across the sky. But when the hell do we ever say "A flash of lightning"? (Exempting one Garth Brooks lyric I can think of off-hand, but I'm pretty sure the use of "lightning flashes in her eyes" in that song is more metaphorically tied to the cliche phrases about eyes and flashes of inspiration). Is it a more common saying elsewhere than it is here?

Yes, "a flash of lightning" is something I hear all the time. As in "you see the flash of the lightning, and then count till you hear the thunder..."

[Username taken]

The problem with the speed force is that it's become a story telling crutch.

As the op said, it's been a very long time that we've seen Flash written without references to the speed force.

[Deniz Camp]

I quite like it, still. It's a nice bit of mythology and it's murky, undefined nature makes it versatile enough to be used in a variety of situations for a variety of effects. It's quite a bit different from the monotone, lockstep paradigm of rings that Johns set up with the Emotional Spectrum.

I choose to see it as 'that thing which puts fire into the equations' of physics, to borrow a phrase from Hawking.

[HsssH]

I quite like it, still. It's a nice bit of mythology and it's murky, undefined nature makes it versatile enough to be used in a variety of situations for a variety of effects. It's quite a bit different from the monotone, lockstep paradigm of rings that Johns set up with the Emotional Spectrum.

How? To me it did look like SF was an inspiration for emotional spectrum.

[Deniz Camp]

How? To me it did look like SF was an inspiration for emotional spectrum.

Because the Emotional Spectrum leads to/demands uniformity, that all old and new concepts conform to the ring/battery/corps paradigm. It therefore becomes a limitation, serves to wash out the diversity of the antagonists/set pieces it births or retroactively is applied to.

The Speed Force, by contrast, is conspicuously nebulous. It doesn't really say much of anything at all -- it's the motive force of the DC Multiverse. Everything that creeps or crawls or walks into that good night is tapping it. It makes no demands or stipulations on the things it creates; suggests no form or motivation. It only expands the (logical) potential applications and powers of the main character, and any character who taps into it.