A Deep Dive into Barry Allen's Speed: Exactly How Fast is The Flash?

With the recent release of the new movie The Flash, I've found myself pondering the iconic character, his bio, as well as his powers and abilities -- in particular, how fast he's portrayed to be. When it comes to comic book heroes and their superpowers, this sort of speculation is common and makes for great geek debate. But it's worth noting that the Flash character has undergone a good deal of retconning over the years. In addition, the recently concluded WB “Arrowverse” TV series The Flash has greatly added to and confused Flash's mythology, sometimes even venturing into storytelling that deviates from canon. So for this article, I chose to go back and look at the DC Comics Flash and bring to light references to the speed of this earlier version of the character. To help with this I dug into the Pop Culture Fiend Archives and my stash of DC comics from my youth. 

To begin, it's important to remember that 1956-1970 was the "Silver Age of Comics" and 1970-1985 (a timeframe that encompasses my aforementioned collection) the so-called “Bronze Age". The Flash from these two eras is none other than Barry Allen, a Central City police scientist who gained his super speed via an accident in which he's accidentally doused with a mix of chemicals after a lightning strike in his lab (more on this later.) This iteration of the Flash is widely considered to be the definitive version of the character – moreso than Jay Garrick, the original Flash created by Gardner Fox in the 1940's, and also more than Wally West, who began as Kid Flash before later succeeding Barry. The Barry Allen version is also the Flash appearing and/or referenced in the new Flash movie, the aforementioned Arrowverse series, 2017's Justice League and other “Snyderverse” DC pics, as well as several recent video games based on the DC Universe like Justice League Heroes and the Injustice series. So there's no question that when looking to determine how fast "The Flash" is, it's best to begin with Barry Allen, as this is the version who appears the most across all of pop culture.

So with Barry as the focus, when you examine his history and look for references in the comics about his speed, you discover a lot of inconsistency. Early Silver Age issues make a big deal about Barry running on water (something by the way, that would be scientifically possible for a human running even as "slow" as 50 mph) as well as overcoming gravity by running up the sides of  buildings. On the higher end of the scale, we see Silver Age Flash breaking the sound barrier. Comic book writers magnifying each of these specific exploits made a lot of sense at the time. In the 50's and 60's, rocket technology, jet engines, Chuck Yeager going Mach 1, etc., represented the outer reaches of what humans could achieve -- so an “ordinary man" gaining powers to match these types of things was superhuman enough for the comics. (It's very similar to the way Superman, around the same time, was heralded for being "more powerful than a locomotive.") But as we moved into the 1970's and travel faster than sound became so routine that even commercial airlines offered it, the limits of Flash's speed predictably creeped up and his exploits (as we'll see) became more fantastical. 

As Barry carried on through the Silver and Bronze Ages, his extraordinary speed resulted in cool new powers, like the ability to generate mini tornadoes and even time travel. (In the comics, this sometimes -- but not always -- occurs through a combination of Flash's otherworldly speed and a device known as the "cosmic treadmill", which was first introduced in 1961's The Flash #125.) Now follow me here: the speed of light has been calculated since at least the 17th century and in 1905 Albert Einstein theorized time dilation -- the idea that time passes more slowly for objects moving at high speeds and that this effect becomes more pronounced as the object approaches the speed of light. Further theorizing maintains that if a person could actually reach the speed of light, time would in fact stop relative to that individual. So if Silver Age Flash writers like Fox and John Broome knew all this, than by having Barry run so fast that he travels back in time, were they implying that Barry could move faster than the speed of light?...  It's entirely feasible, likely even, that the creative talents at DC were keenly aware of Einstein and his theories. He was, in fact, quite well known and heralded at the time of his death, which was only a year before the Barry Allen character was created. Is it crazy to think that the creators of a fictional character possessing super speed would use Einstein's thoughts on light speed as background and inspirational material for stories about the "fastest man alive?" It's worth noting that the concept of time dilation (i.e., time slowing down and potentially stopping as you approach the speed of light) has been incorporated into Flash comics and TV portrayals over the years, so it seems that at least some Flash writers familiarized themselves with the scientific implications of superspeed and used them to make the Flash and his flirtations with light speed more credible and "realistic." Silver Age Flash comics were also the first to recount incidents of Barry vibrating his molecules so quickly he's able to pass through walls and solid objects. Mastery of his body down to this molecular level is what enables what is arguably Barry’s most notable superpower --- traveling to other universes. This occurs in numerous Flash tales beginning with #123 Flash of Two Worlds. 

Flash's speed has even been defined via comparisons to Superman and in the pages of various DC titles the two have actually raced several times. Many of these head-to-heads were interrupted by emergencies of some sort but the record shows that Barry has bested Kal-El in the vast majority of their matchups. I bring this up because as I painstakingly poured through the history of Barry Allen’s Flash for references to precisely how fast he can run, I happened across a discussion of Superman vs. Flash that actually quantified the latter’s speed quite conclusively. Specifically, within my Justice League of America issues, I recalled an item in the "JLA Mailbag" (a monthly Q&A with DC's editorial staff that appeared at the back of many issues during the late 70's) where a reader asks how fast the Flash can run around the earth. The rather definitive answer given is that while fellow JLA member Superman can fly around the entire earth in about one second, the Flash can run around the earth in 1/10 (.10) of a second. With the circumference of the earth being approximately 25,000 miles, this means the Flash can travel 250,000 miles per second – about 33% FASTER than the speed of light. Extrapolating further, we get a measurement of Flash's speed of 15,000,000 miles per minute and a whopping 90,000,000 miles per hour! This 90,000,000 mph figure represents the highest quantification of Barry's speed during the Silver or Bronze Ages. It is not, however, faster than Modern Age Barry Allen. I'll explain...

For DC, the Bronze Age ended with 1985's Crisis on Infinite Earths in which DC's "multiverse" was eliminated in favor of a single Earth and the entire DC universe was neatly consolidated. The fallout from this was particularly impactful for the Flash because in Crisis on Infinite Earths #8 Barry Allen dies as a result of running so fast and with such intensity that he literally disintegrates. At the same time, to maintain consistency, The Flash comic was canceled. When it was brought back shorty after, Wally West became the new Flash until Barry's return in 2009's Flash: Rebirth. When Barry returns, he is notably faster than he was during his original run through DC's Silver and Bronze Age comics. This is significant because the explanation provided in Rebirth for Barry's absence for more than 20 years is that he wasn't actually dead but rather that he became one with (and/or was trapped in) the Speed Force. 

So now we have to take another step back...

The Speed Force is an energized plane of existence from which DC's "speedsters" draw power. Modern issues of The Flash, the WB series, the new movie, and every other modern take on the Flash include the Speed Force as part of the character's lore. It was introduced, in part, to address and/or resolve questions regarding the anatomical damage a human body would most certainly suffer by running at such incomprehensible speeds. The Speed Force puts a powerful aura around whoever is tapping into it, thereby protecting them from speed-related friction, G-forces, etc. In other words, the Speed Force explains why Flash's costume (and skin) don't tear off... how he's able to see and hear while he runs... and why he doesn't constantly cause sonic booms. 

But the Speed Force is much more than just a protective barrier. It’s also a cosmic realm speedsters can use to travel anywhere in space and time. Those deft or experienced with the Speed Force can enter it and exit anywhere they like. Those not so skilled can get trapped and lost in the Speed Force indefinitely.

But here's the thing... The Speed Force was never a part of the Flash's original lore... Not even close. The first reference to it occurs in 1994 in The Flash #91 written by Mark Waid. He and other Flash writers, including Grant Morrison and Geoff Johns, through their stories, established the Speed Force as an integral part of the Flash's mythology moving forward and also retroactively applied it to Barry Allen's history, along with Jay Garrick's, and well, all other speedsters (good and evil) who ever existed in the DC universe. 

This means that Barry's speed and all of his speed-related past deeds, including time travel, are now explained as being made possible by the existence of the Speed Force. Johns, in Flash: Rebirth even took things a step further by explaining that Barry actually created the Speed Force himself when the lightning bolt struck him in his lab. Once that happened, the Speed Force began expanding in time and space to empower all speedsters before and after Barry. (This origin, however, has been contradicted multiple times and it's now generally accepted that the Speed Force has always existed.) Still, as confusing as its origin may be, the main thing to know about the Speed Force is that it essentially removed all limits to how fast the Flash can travel, up to and including light speed and even beyond.

Modern Age DC comics back this up.  JLA Vol 1. #89 begins with Wally West outrunning a nuclear explosion to save a city of 532,000 people by carrying each inhabitant (1-2 at a time the comic tells us) 35 miles away to safety until every single person is evacuated. Wally does this in .00001 microseconds. I was told there'd be no math but I'm told this equates to a speed of roughly 13 trillion times the speed of light. (But again, that was Wally West and this article is about how fast the definitive Flash, Barry Allen, is.)

Upon Barry's "rebirth" he too demonstrates enhanced speed and performs feats infinitely more impressive than he ever had previously, including running in the sky. It seems the "new" Barry is more dialed into and able to draw more power from the Speed Force than most other speedsters apart from Wally West. This results in a vast increase in Barry's top speed during the Modern Age. And it's precisely because the existence of the Speed Force has been retconned into Barry's history, there are presumably no limits to how fast he potentially could have been during the Silver and Bronze Ages either. Looking at it this way neatly reconciles and gives more credibility to the 90,000,000 mph attestation by the DC editorial staff I identified earlier.

In the end, we know this is the world of comics, which is rife with inconsistencies, contradictions and countermanding in matters relating to both character bios and storylines. Arguably, it's Wally who has proved most adept at marshalling the Speed Force and usurping its power to reach new limits but Barry too has used the Speed Force to reach incomprehensible speeds. Depending on how much he's able to tap into it, he has unlimited speed -- faster than light, faster than thought, faster than death, faster than time... He's even fast enough to live an all-encompassing, entirely instantaneous existence... 

So yeah, he's pretty freaking fast.