When we think of the Flash, regardless of what iteration, we often associate the hero
with being a noble speedster and time traveler.
But upon closer inspection into his history, the character, from Barry Allen to Wally West,
has pulled some shady stunts over the years.
So today, we’re taking a closer look at the mantle’s past with our list of the top
10 times the flash went too far.
Also, heads up friends, there are some spoilers for the CW Arrowverse Flash series on this
list.
10.
Killing everyone in sanctuary- Heroes in crisis Let’s start off our list by looking at the
most recent Flash, Wally West, doing some pretty darn crazy stuff.
So between 2018 and 2019, Heroes in Crisis was a DC story event that, despite having
crisis in the title, was a murder mystery by Tom King that essentially doubled down
as a mental health PSA.
In theory, fantastic idea, in execution, wasn’t all that great, or at least as far as some
fans are concerned.
In it, we see that there’s a mass shooting as a place called Sanctuary, a rehabilitation
center for superheroes that was set up by DC’s holy trinity, Batman Superman and Wonder
Woman.
This massacre kills off a slew of heroes, and Booster Gold and Harley Quinn become the
primary suspects.
But it’s later revealed that the shooting was an accident caused by Wally West, whose
family was wiped from existence.
Turns out Wally West, who was amongst the death count, ran to the future, KILLED himself,
and brought back his corpse to shed any onus.
Eventually the truth comes out and Wally ends up in a Justice League prison.
9.
Ignoring a woman's cry for help- The Flash #89
‘Heroes in Crisis’ hasn’t been the only time Wally West has found himself in a pickle
involving the well-being of others.
In the 1994 volume 2 of The Flash, issue 89, we witness the events of a civil lawsuit against
Wally in which the plaintiff Allison Armitage was badly injured during a conflict in which
Wally was fighting crime.
Her injuries resulted in her legs being amputated afterwards, and she claims that Wally had
ignored her cries for help.
She sought out 20 million dollars in compensation.
Of course, Wally believes that villain Abra Kadabra, who was Allison’s lawyer is truly
behind this, and because of the incident, the Barry Allen Foundation makes a deal with
Allison and prohibits Wally from using the costume, the persona and the powers of the
Flash.
In the following issue, Wally makes amends with Allison and manages to defeat Abra Kadabra,
but that definitely isn’t gonna give Allison her legs back, will it Wally?
8.
Letting Savitar Kill Iris Moving from the comics and into the CW Flash
show for this number, let’s talk a little about the TV version of Barry Allen from the
Arrowverse.
In season 3 episode 22 of the show, Barry makes a series of mistakes that eventually
lead to Iris death at the hands of Savitar, who is his own time remnant.
The team had actively tried to prevent Iris’ death, with the creation of the Speed Force
Bazooka to trap Savitar.
The plan was to hide Iris on Earth-2.
But Savitar is already one step ahead of them, disguises himself as Barry and then gets Iris,
and takes her to Infantino Street (the location of where she’s supposed to die, and also
a street named after comic book legend Carmine Infantino!)
Savitar knew ahead of time how to stop the Speed Force Bazooka, and he still manages
to kill Iris after all.
C’mon Barry, we all know you’re smarter than that!
7.
Accidentally causing Dante Ramon's death Returning to the CW show for this number!
Barry Allen is arguably responsible for the death of Dante Ramon, the older brother of
Cisco.
Barry does this thing where he believes that he can change the events of tragic occurrences.
Like the deaths of characters.
Remember Flashpoint in the comics?
Yeah (although, apparently according to Doomsday Clock Doctor Manhattan was really to blame)
ANYWHO!
In the show, in his grief over the death of his father at the hands of Zoom, Barry believes
he can reverse things, so he goes back in time to save his mother Nora from being murdered.
But in the process, his actions result in the Dante’s death, and a whole lot of grief
for Cisco.
And the worst part?
When Cisco found out who you KNOW was like, seriously dude, another death thanks to Barry
screwing with the timeline?
WHAT GIVES.
6.
Mind In Geoff Johns’ The Flash issue 200, Wally
West decides to use his time manipulation abilities in a more psychological way; by
making Zoom relive his worst memory over and over and over again.
Harsh, Wally!
So let’s backtrack for a sec.
Wally and Zoom had been hashing it out several issues prior, and our hero was having a real
tough time bringing the reverse flash to justice.
He had even siphoned off the speed of other good speedsters in an attempt to have more
power than Zoom, but he still struggled.
Zoom decided to hit Wally where it hurt most, attacking his wife Linda.
Except, it wasn’t just Linda he was hurting.
Linda was pregnant, and in the process of Zoom’s attack, the twins inside of her womb
were killed, causing her to having a miscarriage.
That pushed Wally over the edge, and he decides to do the worst thing he possibly can to Zoom
out of revenge - he freezes Zoom, and forces him to watch the worst day of his life over
and over again, causing the villain to shed a tear.
5 Mind wipes the world and lets crime run rampant - The Flash #200
That’s not the only terrible thing Wally did in that issue.
He also let crime run rampant, and mind wiped the world.
So a bit of a double whammy at this number!
And after the conflict with Zoom wraps up, Wally decides he needs to reconsider having
his identity be public, because, you know, he just did some terrible stuff that doesn’t
look all too great.
And, as you can recall from our Heroes in Crisis number, Wally doesn’t like to take
blame.
Plus, having his identity be public knowledge put Linda and his family and friends at risk.
So he decides to call up his pals Hal Jordan and the Spectre to help him figure out what
he should do.
And Wally decides that the best approach is to mind wipe the world, so everyone forgets
that the Flash is Wally West.
They do it, and the mind wipe is so powerful that even Wally forgets that he was the Flash
for a hot second.
And, the worst part is, the comic explicitly states after the mind wipe that because of
this, there’s a big boost in crime that occurs, meaning Wally’s decision put a whole
lot of innocent people in danger in the aftermath.
4.
Gloated over the body of a dead criminal - Flash comics #1
This is one of the earliest cases of the Flash being a tad extra comes in Jay Garrick’s
tenure are the scarlet speedster in The Flash issue 1.
It was the golden age, so the occasional criminal homicide was much less of a big deal.
In Flash Comics issue 1, Jay is really starting
to take crime fighting and the responsibilities that go with it seriously, so he goes and
seeks out a group of villains.
But here’s where it gets fun - a villain, named Sieur Satan, attempts to get away from
the speedster by driving off, but Jay pursues him, and cuts the car off, causing it to tumble
down a hillside and kill Satan in the process.
Instead of being like oh crap, accidents happen I guess, Jay Garrick is like NAH time to gloat
over this criminal’s corpse as its trapped in a still steaming crashed vehicle!
Which he does, while announcing “I’m on hand, just to see your finish sieur satan!”
3 Suicidal Killing Spree The premise for this is pretty straight forward
- the Flash in the future becomes evil, goes on a killing spree, goes back in time to kill
himself, all as a means of saving himself.
If you’re not following, essentially, Flash went evil, and in order to save himself from
being evil and killing everyone (despite killing ALL of the villains in the future, might I
add), he attempts to stop more tragedy occurring by offing himself before he turns evil.
You can tell it’s the evil Barry Allen because he wears blue and snaps necks.
Yikes.
2.
Kills Professor Zoom - Flash #324 While you could take a look into any superhero’s
history and find that they’ve committed at least one homicide since their time having
powers or beginning their careers as vigilantes, the Flash is a character who, when he’s
killed, has done it in more contemporary times.
Golden and Silver age murders, sure, we’ll let those slide, but when murdering a foe
is a pivotal plot point in your solo series, that we can’t ignore.
Such is the case in the story leading up to the famous Trail of the Flash story arc.
In The Flash issue 323 from 1983, Barry is getting married to Fiona Webb.
In the lead up to the wedding, Zoom beings to leave creepy messages for the scarlet speedster,
the likes of ‘guess who’s going to kill your wife again?’
For context, Zoom aka Reverse Flash, had previously murdered Iris on the day of her and Barry’s
wedding.
Barry, late for the wedding, rushes to Fiona, who thinks she’s been left at the altar.
But Barry gets there just in time THIS time, and instead of beating Zoom up like he did
previously, he snaps his neck, just fractions of a second before Zoom was about to kill
Fiona in literally the exact same way he had killed Iris.
Barry is then arrested for manslaughter in the death of Eobard Thawne, and the Justice
League are forced to decide whether or not to kick him out of the group.
1.
Eternal Punishment What’s worse than murder?
How about eternally freezing someone’s body but keeping them conscious so that they are
frozen for all time, forced to stare into the face of the one they killed?
Talk about an intense punishment!
Well, that revenge was a dish Barry Allen served REAL COLD to Thaddeus Thawne, aka Inertia,
Bart allen’s clone who was mixed with Zoom’s DNA.
Inertia is a little sh*t; not only did he steal the real Bart Allen’s speed, but was
also responsible for Bart Allen for being gunned down by a group of super villains,
resulting in his death.
Oh, and he also taunted Barry over it, noting that Bart “screamed like a little .” Barry
decides that death isn’t enough for Inertia.
He steals Inertia’s speed force powers, turning him into a literal representation
of his name - he’s frozen for eternity in unblinking horror, only capable of breathing
and thinking, forever immobilized.
Barry then places Inertia in the Bart allen museum, forcing him to stare at a statue of
Bart, describing it as Thaddeus now being, I quote, “force to stare with eyes that
take a hundred years to blink at the ghost of the man he could never be.”
Like, good on you Barry, real creative punishment but also THAT’S UP MY DUDE.
There we have it friends!
Unfortunately, there’s quite a few other shady things that the Flash has pulled over
the years that definitely don’t help his wholesome and decent image, so if you’d
like to see a part two of this video, be sure to give us a shout in those comments below
and let us know!
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In the meantime though, thanks for watching friends.
I’ll catch you all in the next video.