Hello and welcome to Comic Drake, where I talk about comic books and my name is Drake!
The Flash is the fastest man alive, but Superman also has super speed.
So is it possible for the Last Son of Krypton to actually be faster than The Flash?
Let’s find out.
So The Flash and Superman have actually raced in comics several times and when I say The
Flash, I mean both of the most popular characters to have ever taken up the mantle, Barry Allen
and Wally West.
In 1967, there were actually two races back to back in Superman #199 and The Flash #175.
The first race was for charity, but rival crime syndicates places bets on the race and
tried sabotaging the competition.
This would be a recurring theme in the Flash/Superman races since there’s never really a straight
track.
There’s always stuff that goes wrong from people in peril to physical barriers to deliberate
foul play from third parties.
Anyway, this first race ended in a tie with neither syndicate winning the bet.
The second race took place just a few months later with the villains Abra Kadabra and Professor
Zoom disguising themselves as powerful alien gamblers and forced The Flash and Superman
to race under the threat of destroying the loser’s hometown.
Now I bet you’re probably wondering “Why didn’t the Justice League step in?”
Well that’s because they were taken down pretty much instantly.
Anyway, Flash and Supes had to literally race THROUGH SPACE with Kadabra and Professor Zoom
sabotaging the race, hoping to take out their nemeses in the process.
They were defeated though and there was really no clear winner of the race.
You see, depending on your perspective in relation to the Justice League’s 3D computer
monitor, (It’s the sixties, what did you expect?)
it looks like either racer was the winner and in a fourth wall breaking moment, the
Justice League puts the question on us and they want to know who we thought won.
Three years later, we received another race in World’s Finest #198 and #199 where the
Guardians of the Universe set things up because robots called the Anachronids were moving
at the speed of light and were disrupting the flow of time.
That’s why they summoned Flash and Superman to run in the opposite direction to fix it…
Because comics.
Flash decided to turn this into a race, thinking that the element of competition might help
the two of them run even faster, but as you’ve expected by this point, shenanigans ensue
with it ultimately culminating in both heroes severely having their powers drained, but
still managing to destroy the Anachronids and preventing more from being created in
the future.
On a technicality, The Flash won this race since he was able to crawl fast enough to
victory, but come on.
Do you seriously expect me to count that?
Eight years later, we had another race in DC Comics Presents #1 and #2, but this one
is just…. bizarre and yes, that’s even including the last race which was literally
through space to stop super speed robots.
Okay so in this one, to two alien races are at war and they choose Flash and Superman
to be their champions, threatening to blow up Earth and Krypton… before it actually
blew up.
This causes Flash and Superman to literally race through time and it’s just weird.
It’s really REALLY weird.
On another technicality, The Flash won, but again, this is not very satisfactory.
Unfortunately though, Barry Allen seemingly died saving the multiverse in the event Crisis
on Infinite Earths with the mantle of Flash being passed to Wally West who previously
held the title of Kid Flash.
Twelve years after the previous race, Wally stepped up to the plate in The Adventures
of Superman #463 when the trickster, Mr. Mxyzptlk, came into the picture and before you guys
start going into the comments saying that I didn’t pronounce Mxyzptlk properly, I
want to let you know that I’m going off of the pronunciation of the animated series.
Fight me.
“It’s mix-yes-spit-lick.”
Anyway, Mxie was causing trouble as always, but this time it was Flash to step in and
not Superman.
After finding out that Wally’s whole thing is going fast though, Mxyzptlk decided to
force him to race Supes.
Initially, neither one of them was on board, but when Superman thought that Wally was slower
than Barry and therefore just assumed that he was faster, it.
was.
on!
Well that and the fact that Wally didn’t want people to think that he was a “wimpy
weenie”.
As always, this wasn’t a straight up race since Mr. Mxyzptlk threw several traps and
obstacles at them, but at the end of the day, Wally was the winner straight up.
Finally, a Flash had a definitive victory against Superman, but that was Wally.
What about Barry?
Well, this debate was brought back nineteen years later along with Barry Allen who sort
of came back from the dead.
That’s right, in Flash: Rebirth #3, we got to see Barry and Superman race all over again.
This wasn’t a formal race, but when trying to keep up with Barry, Supes remarked that
the two of them had raced several times in the past and that Superman had actually won
a few times.
Barry’s response was cold, stating that those races were for charity and then he INSTANTLY
runs faster, leaving Superman in the dust.
Without a doubt, this proves that both Barry and Wally are faster than the Big Blue Boy
Scout.
Now, we actually had one more quick race right here in 2017 against Wally and Superman as
they were the only two beings to have made it over past the universe altering event,
Flashpoint.
However, this race was cut short and there wasn’t any sort of real winner, but it’s
just a fun tidbit that I wanted to throw in for good measure.
Now all I’ve done in this video is rattle off a bunch of races and their results, but
why exactly ARE the Flashes faster than Superman?
Well for that, we need to bust out our old friend, the map of the DC multiverse.
As you can see, there are fifty two universes that exist in this space called The Bleed,
but keeping it all together is the Speed Force Wall or as I explained it during my twenty
first birthday party after several drinks…
And the Speed Force goes around it.
Like encompasses all of it.
It’s the Speed Force Wall.
Look at this chart!
Somehow somebody thought it would make sense…
Which doesn’t.
If you want to learn more about the Speed Force is then I actually did an entire video
on it, but in layman’s terms, the Speed Force is this barrier that encompases the
entire DC multiverse and not only is it time itself, but it’s also all of the kinetic
energy in the entire multiverse.
There are people who can draw upon these powers and they are called Speedsters and that’s
exactly what The Flash is.
Superman might have super speed, but he’s not a Speedster, he’s just a guy that goes
really fast.
Now don’t get me wrong, Superman is fast as hell.
In fact, he’s probably one of the fastest non-Speedsters out there, but because he doesn’t
utilize the Speed Force, Superman is NOT a Speedster and he is not as fast and never
will be as fast The Flash.
Hopefully this puts this debate to rest once and for all even though the comics have made
it very obvious for years, but I do realize that pretty much all of you guys watching
this right now don’t read comics.
So I’m here to explain it for you.
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