How Fast Is The Flash In DC Comics?

The Flash took a bit of a hit to his cultural credibility when 2023’s “The Flash” became a box office bomb of super-heroic proportions. But the character himself shouldn’t have to bear the brunt of the DC Extended Universe’s missteps. After all, he’s still the fastest man alive, which considering the amount of superheroes with super-speed should frankly make him a more popular character than he is. As successive comic book storylines have proven, The Flash can outrun anyone and anything. From evacuating entire cities in milliseconds to outrunning death itself, this super-hero isn’t just super-fast, he’s literally inconceivably fast. After all, can you imagine perceiving events that take place in 0.000000000000000001 of a second? Didn’t think so. You know who can? The Flash.

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As with so many comic book characters, there have actually been several individuals to take on the Flash mantle throughout his almost 90-year run. First appearing in “Flash Comics” #1 in January 1940, the very first Flash was athlete Jay Garrick, who was then replaced by scientist Barry Allen. Barry’s nephew, Wally West, then took on the mantle before Barry’s grandson, Bart Allen, became the hero. Finally Chinese-American Avery Ho adopted the Flash persona in 2017 and remains the Flash of the comics today. Most of these characters overlapped in one way or another, but they were united by their ability to tap into the extra-dimensional energy source known as the Speed Force, not only giving them the ability to think and move with superspeed but imbuing them all with the superhuman endurance required to withstand the effects of moving so quickly.

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Still, with all these caveats and complications, one question surely remains among both fans and casual fans: exactly how fast is The Flash? Well, the comic books have never officially confirmed any kind of “top speed” for the Scarlet Speedster, and different versions of The Flash have performed different feats, suggesting they have different abilities when it comes to using the speed force. Thankfully, we’ve gone and gathered all the information we can on how fast the comic book version of The Flash actually is, so you can learn everything you need to know on the subject almost as quickly as Barry Allen can catch a baby in a microwave.

In the absence of any kind of official figures for The Flash’s top speed, it’s helpful to take a look at the character’s past exploits to gain an understanding of just how speedy this speedster actually is. Take, for instance, the time Wally West evacuated an entire city in less than a millisecond. In the JLA storyline “Trial by Fire,” the Wally West Flash manages to rescue every single resident of the North Korean city of Chongjin after an evil version of the Martian Manhunter sets off a nuclear bomb. The moment sees West race into the city and carry all 532,000 inhabitants 35 miles away to a hillside in 0.00001 microseconds, essentially making the hero one millionth of a second faster than the speed of a nuclear warhead explosion.

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The comic book itself states that The Flash evacuated the entire city by carrying citizens one at a time, sometimes two at a time, at a speed “a hair’s breadth short of the speed of light.” As several Quora users have pointed out, in reality, he would have had to have been moving much faster in order to achieve this feat. Each time he went to and from the city he travelled a distance of 70 miles, though sometimes he would have been carrying two people instead of one. If we use the average of 1.5 citizens for each trip, The Flash would have travelled 70 miles 354,667 times, which makes a total of 24,826,690 miles, which he travelled in 0.00001 microseconds. This means he would have been traveling at an estimated 2,482,669,000,000,000,000 (2.5 quintillion) miles per second. The speed of light is about 186,282 miles per second which means The Flash can travel roughly 13 trillion times the speed of light or 1,750,000,000,000,000,000 miles per second. Meanwhile, the poor citizens of Chongjin are left to watch their city burn in what would surely be one heck of an apocalyptic movie were it adapted for the big screen.

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If you think evacuating half a million people from a city in 0.00001 microseconds is impressive, consider the fact that Barry Allen has actually outrun death. That is to say he’s proved he can outrun the Black Racer, one of the New Gods and a well-known avatar of death in the DC Universe, or more specifically, a manifestation of death’s inevitability. 

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In the “Final Crisis” crossover storyline from 2008, the Silver Age Flash, Barry Allen, is resurrected and, alongside Wally West, races the Black Racer to stop a bullet that was fired by Darkseid back through time with the aim of killing Orion. Though the heroes couldn’t stop the bullet, West is shown outpacing the Black Racer in one panel, suggesting he’s faster than a manifestation of death itself. 

This idea of The Flash outrunning death is revisited later, too. In issue #6 of “Final Crisis,” Wally West suggests that the Black Racer and the Black Flash are the same, essentially confirming that both characters are avatars for or manifestations of death itself. It was Wally West who outran the Black Flash and indeed the death of the DC Universe itself in “The Flash” #141. The Black Flash was always depicted as faster than every speedster in the DC Universe, but in this issue Wally West outpaces the character, traveling all the way to the end of the Universe itself, where death, as personified by the Black Flash, ceased to exist on a conceptual level. In this moment, Wally West as The Flash proved to be so fast he could even outrun death itself. “The Flash” movie might have been based on a 2011 crossover comic, but in retrospect, even though we saw Barry racing a version of Dark Flash, it would have been cool to see this race against death adapted properly.

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Outrunning death and evacuating entire cities in an imperceptible amount of time should be impressive enough on their own. But just in case that doesn’t give you some idea of just how quick The Flash is, there are several other impressive feats that reveal his immense abilities. For instance, there was a time that Wally West’s Flash actually ran faster than instantaneous teleportation (sort of). “The Flash” #136 contains a story entitled “The Human Race,” where villains known as Cosmic Gamblers force The Flash to race against Krakkl, a radio frequency being from the planet Kwyzz, for the fates of their respective home worlds. Instead, the pair challenge the Gamblers to a race, and after harnessing the kinetic energy of Krakkl himself and every human being on Earth, Flash outraces the Gamblers themselves despite the villains using instantaneous travel, thereby saving Earth and Kwyzz.

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Sure, in that instance, Flash had some help, but there are plenty of other moments where he’s proven his unique ability to outpace pretty much everything in the universe. Take the time he ran so fast he became an omnipresent being of pure energy, for example. In the “Kingdom Come” miniseries — an “Elseworlds” story that takes place in an alternate timeline and inspired Brandon Routh’s “Kingdom Come” Superman for the “Crisis on Infinite Earths” event — we see a world in which Superman has been retired for a decade and Wally West as The Flash has become a constantly moving entity that is essentially pure energy manifested as a persistent red blur that stretches across Keystone City. In this form, the hero has essentially never stopped running and rid his city of crime by becoming so fast he can stop misdeeds before they’re committed. He is, then, everywhere and nowhere at once and the comic describes him as living “in between the ticks of a second.” That’s pretty darn fast.

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For those unfamiliar with comic book history, one of the biggest questions will surely be whether The Flash is faster than Superman. “The Flash” of the erstwhile DCEU created an annoying continuity error with “Man of Steel,” but we didn’t get any direct face-off between the screen version of The Flash and Henry Cavill’s Supes. In the comics, however, they have gone head-to-head several times. It would seem a little silly to undermine the former’s title as The Fastest Man Alive by having him come second to Supes, and while that has happened, The Flash remains the winner in the aggregate.

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The two heroes first raced in 1967’s “Superman” #199, but the competition ended in a tie. Released that same year, “The Flash” #175 featured a rematch between the duo which once again ended in a tie. Then in two 1970 issues of “World’s Finest” Superman and The Flash race in opposite directions to reverse the time warping effects caused by the arrival of the robot Anachronids on Earth. This time, The Flash just manages to beat The Man of Steel — a feat he repeats in 1990’s “Adventures of Superman” #463, only this time, instead of Barry Allen, it’s Wally West who faces off against Superman and claims victory.

The Flash has actually beaten Supes several times since then, too. In “DC First: Flash/Superman” #1 the golden-age Flash, Jay Garrick, races Superman and wins by stealing his rival’s momentum in order to save Wally West’s life. We also saw the Wally West Flash outpace Superman in 2004’s “Flash #209,” while Barry Allen returned to beat Supes once again in the “Flash: Rebirth” storyline from 2009-2010.

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It should be noted that in the “Superman” storyline “Grounded,” Superman actually catches up to The Flash in order to remove his Kryptonian headband, suggesting he’s faster than the Scarlet Speedster. However, in that instance The Flash claimed he let his fellow hero catch up. Still, Superman manages to beat Barry Allen’s Flash in 2020’s “Superman: Up In The Sky,” just edging out The Fastest Man Alive in a race to see who can run ten laps around the world the fastest. Overall, though, The Flash holds more wins than the Man of Steel.

When we ask how fast The Flash actually is, we’re referring of course to his running speed. But the Fastest Man Alive isn’t just a quick runner. Aside from his superhuman endurance, The Flash has other abilities that allow him to be super-fast in a multi-faceted way.

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In “Superman” 709, from May 2011 — the issue in which Supes manages to catch up to the Scarlet Speedster — The Flash tells the Man of Steel, “I can think at the speed of light, I can perceive events that last for less than an attosecond, I can run faster than time.” This confirms that it’s not just The Flash’s body that’s fast, but his mind, too.

For reference, an attosecond is 0.000000000000000001 of a second, or one quintillionth of a second. As Space.com points out, there are roughly as many attoseconds in one second as there are seconds in the age of the universe. Apparently, then, The Flash is able to perceive events that happen in this inconceivably short timespan, proving his mind is as quick, if not quicker, than his body. If only there’d have been more of this in the “Flash” movie, we might have had less dodgy “intentional” special effects.

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