It’s no secret that The Flash is the fastest man alive! But how can he be capable of such an amazing prowess? The Flash’s speed is derived from the Speed Force, which is defines as ‘a strange other-dimensional energy field that gives all speedsters their power‘ and ‘a mysterious ancient power that caused the extinction of the Mayans and sped up the evolution of a tribe of gorillas in East Africa‘ (DC Encyclopedia, 2021.)
Mark Waid and Mike Wieringo created the Speed Force 30 years ago, in The Flash (Vol. 2) #91, after speedster Wally West attempted to travel faster using Johnny Quick’s super speed formula and began going so fast that he stopped time. At this moment, Wally’s mentor and Golden Age Speedster, Max Mercury, informs him of his link to the Speed Force. For Wally West, it was some « Zen Mumbo Jumbo », unaware that the Flash Mythology had just been drastically transformed.
Entering The Field of Energy
For a long time, there appeared to be a different explanation for how our superheroes acquired exceptional speed. Jay Garrick, the First Flash, gained his abilities after inhaling hard water vapor during a laboratory experiment. Barry Allen and Wally West were both struck by lightning. As previously stated, Johnny Quick used an Egyptian tomb-derived formula 3×2(9YZ)4A=?.
As Wally West quickly discovered, there had been many speedsters before him, including a certain Winderunner. A young messenger in the American West, he was given incredible speed by tribal magic to defend his camp from the US Army. He then became Ahwehota, which means “he who runs beyond the wind” (Flash vol.2 #97).
Several years later, Winderunner felt the call of the Speed Force, briefly touching the source of his power. But, as he was about to become one with the power, Winderunner allowed doubt to intrude and was catapulted into the time-stream, landing in the future. While trying to recapture the lightning, he repeatedly journeyed into the future, taking on new identities such as Bluestreak, Quicksilver, and… Max Mercury. With each failed experience, Max learned more about the Speed Force.
The Speed Force, Source of Great Powers
Simply put, The Speed Force is an extra-dimensional energy source in the DC Universe. It could also be defined as a force of nature that exists everywhere, in all the universes, at any time. For lack of a better term, Max called it the Speed Force, but it actually is quite reductive. The Speed Force is about more than Speed and more about everything that is related to motion.
People connected to it can break the scientific laws of motion, but what one can do with it depends on who is wielding it (and its comprehension of the Speed Force). Primarily, users of the speed force run faster, but advanced users can also manipulate kinetic energy, control their age, and simply manipulate time. A speedster can travel in time by either breaking the time barrier or using the Speed Force to run through it at one moment in time and still exist at another.
With that information, it is easy to rethink how characters such as Barry and Wally became Speedsters. In the laboratory, both were struck by an electrical discharge which was really a bolt of energy from the Speed Force. But what if the Speed Force didn’t exist before Barry Allen?
Barry Allen, Father of the Speed Force?!
For more than a decade, The Speed Force has always existed. Things changed in 2009 with Geoff Johns’ The Flash: Rebirth. The story reveals that Barry Allen created the Speed Force himself!
We return to the iconic scene where Barry was struck by lightning. This accident activated his metagene, and he started to use his own super speed. As a result of his use of powers, the Speed Force began to generate, expanding forward and backward in time, consequently existing in every moment past and future from its point of creation and empowering all speedsters before him and since.
Is this concept still valid? Since that story, the DC Universe has gone through multiple relaunches and other writers have largely ignored it. It is mostly established that the Speed Force has always existed during New 52 while Joshua Williamson’s 2016 Flash series portrays the Speed Force as one of numerous similar forces! But that is a subject for another time!
While having Barry as the Father of the Speed Force was an unsuccessful retcon, we can still point out that Speedsters share a unique connection with the Speed Force, which is a semi-sentient force, and that their powers (to some extent) are inherited by their children (it’s just not genetic).
Read some Flash adventures with our Complete Guide to All The Flash Comics, or dive into our Wally West Reading Order to read about the introduction of the Speed Force and beyond!