If I was the Flash

Okay this one took a while. I almost wasn't going to do it. At least six or seven people (this includes women as well) have been the Flash in DC comics continuity. Each had their own way of using their speed powers that weren't necessarily common to each of them. As time went on each character who was the title lead started developing greater and greater speed related powers that one-uped the previous title lead. While that was interesting to read it basically made the flash unappealing to me to use as a subject for this blog. So I wasn't going to do it at all. However I didn't want to "punk out" and not touch on such a popular character. So I decided to pick the current Flash the recently restored to life Barry Allen who is essentially most well known and respected of all the Flashes.

So here we go.

Barry Allen was a university student who loved comic books in his childhood who was majoring in organic chemistry and minoring in criminology. While a senior he helped the police apprehend a bank robber and was consequently offered a job as a police scientist in Central City. Some unspecified time after he was in his lab during a thunder storm and somehow a lighting bolt came through the window (I say "somehow" but it was later revealed that he was the lighting bolt that came through the window) and hit a shelf full of chemicals and electrified them. The chemicals then fell on Barry. From then on he had super speed. After saving his then girlfriend Iris from a bullet using his new speed he decided to to use his powers to help people. I would note that he was a big fan of the original Flash Jay Garrick and I think that might have been an influence over whether or not he became a superhero.

In terms of super powers in the strictest sense he gained the power to tap into the Speed Force (the source of super speed for almost all super speedsters in the DC Universe) giving him the following super speed "related" powers:

His top running speed is unknown but is at least faster than the speed of light. He is speculated to be a fast as his nephew Wally West who was also the Flash at one point who could easily run at five hundred times the speed of light. What ever his top speed may be he usually cruises along at subsonic speeds when in populated areas and usually doesn't travel faster than ten times the speed of sound unless an emergency dictates it. Apparently the atmospheric disturbances caused by something moving that fast through the atmosphere is very harmful to living beings.

He has an aura that protects him and anyone who is running with him or carried by him, from the effects of using super speed including friction and damage from things like performing super speed punches or wiping out at super speed.

He can control his speed and "angular momentum" at the molecular level and control his molecular interactions allowing him to pass through solid objects. This ability also allows him to vibrate himself to invisibility. Unlike the other Flashes Barry Allen has complete control over every molecule in his body.

Not only does the Speed Force permit him to move faster it lets him perceive the world at super speed among other things granting him a super human reaction time. He can also learn faster and think faster permitting him to perform complex actions like building things at super speed. Or you know do things like catch bullets or disarm people so quickly that no one can perceive it happening. This ability also parlays into an ability to see things that vibrate so quickly as to be invisible.

He can also use his super speed to travel through time and to other dimensions. Although he couldn't do it unaided before. He used to have to use his "Cosmic Treadmill" now he can do it without it. For some reason although he can travel through time he can't affect the past.

He posses superhuman endurance that permits him to perform at super speed for extended periods of time. In the original "Who's Who of the DC Universe" comic book it was stated that he could function at super speed for up to twenty four hours.

As far as I'm concerned his ability to channel the Speed Force permits him some unexpected abilities like super speed healing and decelerated aging wich for some reason extends to his wife. This also works for the original Flash as well.

So that's the Flash in a nutshell and now what I would do if I had his powers.

First I would spend a lot of time just getting used to the idea that I could move so fast and how much I could do before anyone could do anything about it. Then I would probably become a "ghost" in the world. Like I said in the Magneto posting there are those who don't like what they can't control and I wouldn't want people who know me getting hurt. So I would probably just abandon my "identity" and function as the world's unofficial, unknown guardian. I would be virtually untraceable. I could deal with things that were previously out of my power. You know like stopping wars or saving people in the course of disasters. Since I could extend the same protection I enjoy from the effects of super speed to my passengers I wouldn't have to worry about curtailing my speed when saving people. Grabbing someone at five hundred mile an hour would normally kill them but with the protection of the super speed aura I could save hundreds or more people in a second without killing them in the process. Handy for saving the day and still permitting me to leave before anyone knew I was there.

On a personal note I would use my super speed to create full length animated features all by myself. Well now that I think about it I wouldn't. But I would use it to enhance my art work. I'm thinking giant graffiti stretching along acres of land. I would create huge Zen gardens in uninhabited desserts and of course crop circles. The whole super speed art concept is really appealing to me. While I'm not playing invisible savior I'd love to fill up that other part of my time creating huge works of art. Yeah I would be a super speed artist.

Thanks for reading