The Flash/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


YMMV Tropes associated with the Flash:

  • And the Fandom Rejoiced: When Barry came back in Final Crisis. Well, a good portion of the fandom anyway.
    • When Bart returned as a teenager in Legion of 3 Worlds. This wasn't so much a matter of "OMG he's back!" and more "Finally!", but the point stands.
  • Broken Base: Mostly between Barry and Wally fans; Jay fans are mostly spared this, as there's a general consensus as to where and what he should be.
    • Bart is a major divider. From the time he went from Impulse to Kid Flash, to becoming the Flash, to his death. And now he's back to being Kid Flash and has his original Impulse personality, people are still complaining. Why? Because they want him back as purely Impulse and see Wally's daughter being Impulse III being "an obstacle for Bart to return to form."
    • Already some Bart fanboys are losing it and getting very angry with Iris claiming his former codename...
    • The New 52 has caused a Broken Base of San Andreas Fault proportions, what with Wally, Linda, and their kids missing (presumably into discontinuity), Jesse missing, Jay and Max apparently dead, Barry's marriage gone, Bart effectively a different person (and apparently no longer Barry's grandkid), and all of this being Barry's fault. If Wally returns, he will be pissed.
  • Character Rerailment: Bart, when he returned from the dead in Final Crisis, got back his ADHD and Fun Personified nature.
  • Complete Monster: Both Reverse-Flashes, Inertia, Grodd.
  • Crowning Moment of Awesome:
    • Barry destroying the Anti-Monitor's weapon during the first Crisis. Also his Dying Moment of Awesome.
    • Wally, faced with the prospect of Professor Zoom killing and replacing Barry, throws off 10+ years of psychosomatic blocks on his top speed and decks Zoom. The look on Zoom's face alone makes it worthwhile.
    • Wally becoming the first person to ever enter the Speed Force and return to kick Kobra's ass with a slew of new abilities, becoming the fastest man to have ever existed.
    • Wally again, this time defeating the Black Flash (the avatar of death meant to claim the lives of speedsters) by outrunning it to the end of time where death no longer has any meaning. To make it even better, he brings Linda back from the Speed Force on his return trip to the present.
    • The Rogues destroying their evil unprincipled counterparts during Final Crisis.
    • Blue Lantern Barry in Blackest Night. ALL WILL BE WELL.
    • How about Bart punching Zoom in the face? [dead link] Or defeating Blockbuster by collapsing an entire building on himself?!
  • Crowning Music of Awesome: Say what you will about Countdown to Final Crisis; it's probably true. But Pied Piper blowing up Apokolips by playing Queen? FREAKING AWESOME.
  • Draco in Leather Pants: Inertia.
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: Impulse in Young Justice.
  • Evil Is Sexy: Blacksmith.
  • Fashion Victim Villain: Rainbow Raider. To be fair, he's colorblind.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: In one episode of the live-action TV series, Barry pretends to be the scientist who "created" the Flash, and uses the alias of "Professor Zoom" (the name of Barry's Evil Counterpart in the comics). John Wesley Shipp would later actually voice Zoom in the "Requiem for a Scarlet Speedster" episode of Batman the Brave And The Bold.
  • Jerkass Woobie: Captain Cold and Golden Glider.
    • Many Impulse fans see Inertia as this at the very least, based off the Mercury Falling arc. There's actually a good deal of alternate universe fanfic and fanart branching off from this point.
  • Memetic Badass: A post explaining why "the motherfucking Flash" is the greatest hero ever began on Slashdot, and got reposted everywhere.
  • Moral Event Horizon: The first Reverse-Flash crossed it when he killed Iris Allen (she got better).
    • Gorilla Grodd when he ate an entire country!!! in JLA: Classified.
  • Replacement Scrappy: Every single speedster. Jay Garrick is the only one with immunity, only because he was the first.
    • Wally for Barry, at first.
    • Bart's brief tenure as the Flash, which was thankfully reversed.
    • Iris claimed the name of Impulse and fanboys have raged as result.
    • The second Trickster.
    • And now Barry for Wally. It also doesn't help that DC decided to demote Wally's role to the point where his current status in their new reboot isn't even shown.
  • Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Wally!Flash, under Mark Waid and Grant Morrison.
    • Gorilla Grodd: After decades of attempts at turning everyone into apes, Geoff Johns had him single-handedly demolish several city blocks before going on to give Zoom his Start of Darkness.
  • Ruined FOREVER: Any major change gets this reaction ever since Crisis on Infinite Earths.
  • Spotlight-Stealing Squad and/or Creator's Pet: For some people, Barry Allen under Geoff Johns, whose favorite character Barry is. You'll often hear one specific panel referred to in discussions of this issue, in which someone comments to Barry that the crime rate has gone way up since he's been dead... despite the presence of Wally, a far faster and more powerful Flash (facts even Johns acknowledges).
  • Tear Jerker: Barry's death in Crisis on Infinite Earths.
  • Too Good to Last: The TV series.
  • Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny: The Flash vs. Superman races, which, most of the time, would end in a tie. Wally West, the then-current Flash, beat Superman by a slim margin in the first Post-Crisis race between the two on the basis that Supes is unused to running much as compared to the easier flying option while that's what Flash does all the time.
    • As the writer pointed out, it would be kind of lame if Flash weren't the best at his only power.
    • As of the Flash Rebirth mini-series, all of the races between the two are only close because the Flash let them be close. When Barry Allen really wants to outrun Superman, The Man of Steel might as well be standing still compared to The Fastest Man Alive.

Barry: You can't stop me.
Superman: I've raced you before, Barry. I even won some of those races.
Barry: Those were for charity, Clark.
Barry runs off, leaving Superman standing in his wake.

      • It was necessary to do this due to all the retcons that had happened since the last time Barry and Superman raced. Pre Crisis Superman really was nearly as fast as Barry and his superior stamina and strength gave him an edge (Barry was able to compensate by vibrating through obstacles Superman had to run around.) However, Post-Crisis, Superman has been considerably slower and with Barry's return they had to explain why the races were close.
    • Jay Garrick is the only Flash capable of any Super Speed without tapping into the Speed Force since he's a metahuman as well. His natural top speed is "only" the speed of sound.
      • This appears to have been changed somewhat. He still has a metagene that allows him to travel fast without the speedforce, but he is now partially empowered by it.
  • The Woobie: Pied Piper.
    • Minor character Fallout grieves over the deaths of his wife and daughter, who died when he tried to get close to them upon first transforming into his nuclear form.
    • Magenta can also qualify, as her mother believed that she possessed by the devil and the cause of the car crash that claimed her father and brother. She was pretty much pushed into heroics by her then boyfriend Wally West, and was later exploited and brainwashed twice, first by a doctor at STAR Labs who created her split personality as an assassin, and later by Raven during one of her jaunts on the dark side. Her fragile psyche and damaged mental health can be attributed to the times that she's fallen in with the Rogues, or any other villain the Flash has fought, such as the Cicada cult.
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