Why? What are his other abilities?
His “vibrating” through solid objects tends to be destructive to said objects, at least in some versions. That is to say, things sometimes explode when he passes through them. I believe he can also induce similar destructive oscillations by touch. The most gruesome possible application of his phasing ability would be reaching inside someone and destroying their internal organs, something a superhero of Flash’s stripe would obviously not want to do–though he uses the ability to purge Brainiac from Lex Luthor’s body in the JLU episode Divided We Fall.
Also, using the upper ranges of his speed on Earth sometimes seems to leave a wake of destruction behind him: trenches gouged in streets, shattered glass, and so forth. It’s less destructive than one would expect, but still something he would probably prefer to avoid. In Divided We Fall, for instance, he apparently reaches light speed (since he begins to merge with the Speed Force), and his passage is shown to send cars flying and open deep fissures in a street.
I have a question: how does Flash percieve his environment when traveling at high speed? Like, how does he avoid obstacles? Or recognize people or landmarks that he’s passing? I never read the Flash comics, so I don’t know if it was ever addressed.
His reaction time is turned up to eleven as well. According to (mostly non-canonical) sources I have read (not having actually picked up a Flash comic since Wally took over the suit) the rest of the world looks like statues to him as he rushes past.
He sees at super speed. I remember a panel(back in the 60s) where he’s complaining he can’t watch movies as he sees each frame as a still picture.
Is that the result of the speed force on his brain? Because if it is, couldn’t it potentially, if not actually in the comics, make the rest of his brain process at higher speeds, instead of just the bit that controls his vision? And what about the Doppler effect? Is there a point where, normally, the light is too blue-shifted for the human eye to percieve? And if so, does his superpowered vision account for that too?
Speedsters tend to be a little short-tempered. Think about how you feel when you are stuck behind someone in the checkout line who is going too slowly, or someone is driving in front of you just below the speed you feel is right.
Now imagine feeling that ALL THE TIME ABOUT EVERYBODY ELSE IN THE WORLD.
Barry Allen, however, was a saint.
It was a fairly big character point with Bart Allen, he had the world’s biggest case of ADHD. I know Wally has experienced the same type of thing as well; but not to the same degree.
As for the Speed Force effect on the brain, recently it’s handled like this: Wally or Barry can read a libraries worth of information in minutes, but it only lasts for minutes. Bart retains everything he speed reads though.
I think it was Barry that read a ton of architecture books and helped rebuild parts of Central City exactly how they were before.
The simple homespun wisdom of his grandmother, and the love of a good woman.
::snort::
Dr. Fiedlius:
Well, for Quicksilver, at least.
“…but like Granny Flash used to say, ‘Why curse the dark…when you can light a 700,000 watt candle!’”
Interestingly, the original 1940s Superman couldn’t quite truly fly. What he seemed to do is combine being able to jump thousands of feet in the air with a sort of selective levitation where he could modify how soon and how fast he fell to earth. Or as Samuri Jack would say “jump good”.
Yes, wasn’t (possibly one of) Quicksilver’s explanations something about it feeling like being stuck behind the person at the ATM who can’t figure out how to operate the machine.
How many people have been killed by supersonic debris (hair, sweat, feces) flying off in his wake?
I immedately thought of this story, too, though the title is (for no apparant reason) both misleading and (heh) pedestrian. The story consists of five members of the JLA summoning Superman because one of them, Aquaman, has found a Kryptonian artifact - a recording Jor-El made of six highly-sophisticated computer simulations predicting Kal-El’s fates on various possible worlds Jor-El might send him to if he was unable to stop Krypton’s destruction. Three of the worlds had yellow suns, giving Kal-El the typical superpowers, while three had red suns.
Red sun planet 1: Kal-El lands in a medeival-ish society, uses his natural interlligence to vastly improve on the bow and arrow, developing many trick arrows.
RSP2: For some reason, this planet is in perpetual darkness because of an artificial satelite that blocks all sunlight (!). Kal-El becomes a vigilante crimefighter.
RSP3: Kal-El develops a ray that gives him superspeed, accidentally runs at escape velocity clear off the planet.
Yellow sun planet 1: The planet is entirely oceanic, though Kal-El’s powers enable to him to live underwater. He even develops telepathic abilities (!) to let him control the various sea animals.
YSP2: Kal-El is living among humanoid aliens who average 100 feet or more in height.
YSP3: Earth.
For the first five planets, Kal-El (rather contrivedly, of course) becomes a near-pefect analog of, respectively, Green Arrow, Batman, Flash, Aquaman and the Atom, who are the five JLA members who summoned him in the first place. Superman “becoming” the Flash is the last tale documented and like the others, runs two or three pages, tops.
Zero.
That does not apply to the comics Flashes.
Or he just hides the bodies really fast…
Shhhhh! It’s a secret.
As CandidGamera, points out, you need to determine which Flash you are talking about. They each have idiosyncrasies about there ablilities. Wally has trouble vibrating through things, although he has been improving, but he tends to be able to handle the Speed Force better than the others. Bart (When he was Flash) had problems with controlling his speed, but he can do the speed reading and retention better than any of the others. Barry can do no wrong, easily vibrating through things, with control over every molecule of his body. (Yes, that is one of the powers he has.) Theoretically, each of them should be able to do what all of the others can, but they just have different strengths, like anyone else doing the same job.
But they all have hyper-speed brains and senses. They can apparently turn them off, to join the rest of us in something closer to real time. One story from the earlier Wally West period had Wally watching a movie, when it suddenly stopped on one frame. He realized that his speed had kicked in automatically for some reason, the discovered the bullet just touching his skin as it came through the back of his seat. Somebody had fired off a machine gun from the back of the theatre, spraying the entire room with bullets.
Wally had to save all of the movie goers and catch the bad guy before there was a bloodbath. Now days that would be trivial for him, but at that point he had real limits on his top speed and how long he could go fast enough to keep time at a standstill. He could tell how much he was slowing down and running out of time by how long it took each frame to change on the screen.
It was an interesting take on his powers and the limitations he faced at the time.
Other stories, most explicitly in the JLA 1,000,000 story, have had Flash using his brain to go over millions of possible plans to determine the best way to win a fight.