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Barry Allen needed Superpowers, and that's what he did? (Spoilers)

Guy Gardener

Guy Gardener

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Talking about Flashpoint.

The reverse Flash has backed up time and butterfly effected the shit out of the DCU, and only Barry Allen knows. A powerless Barry Allen.

Zoom is treating him like a putz.

So what does Barry Do?

Doused in familiar chemicals he straps himself into an electric chair and flicks the switch.

Dudes bacon.

C'mon Barry has been at it against thousands of villains side by side with hundreds of heroes for the most part of 2 decades whose powers he could steal or replicate, but this is the best he could do?

A suicide kick?

The pipers tools are excellent for taking down population masses (or armies), then there's gingold which powers up Elastic Man and if Allen had done an ounce of research he could probably find a yellow ring or raid some tomb of Hawkman's full of nth metal and wings... But if all else fails, a couple hours practice in the back yard and surely Barry Allen could become this Universes new (or first?) Captain Boomerang?
 
Why would you want Barry Allen not to be the Flash?

Besides, Barry has good reason to believe it'll work, since the same mix of chemicals struck by lightning induced speed powers in both him and Wally West. He's got repeatability. Alternatively, I'm not sure, but hasn't DC established that a lot of people who got powers by accident were actually latent metahumans who just needed a triggering event? And he knows the triggering event for his speed power. It's a power that's part of him, it's the one he knows best and can wield effectively without needing months or years of practice, and it's one of the most potent superpowers in the whole DC Universe. Naturally he'd favor recovering his own power over trying to gain somebody else's.
 
In Barry's and Wally's case the lightning was themselves from the future. It wasn't the chemicals that gave them the power, it was themselves.

The only person who got speed powers naturally was Jay Garrick who inhaled "soft water" fumes.
 
Hound of UIster said:
In Barry's and Wally's case the lightning was themselves from the future. It wasn't the chemicals that gave them the power, it was themselves.
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My immediate reaction to the end of Flashpoint #2 was, "Damn, Barry's an idiot."

I wonder. Does Barry know about the Speed Force and its role in his own creation? Pardon the pun, but did anyone bring Barry up to speed after his return?
 
Almost. In the annual/special I recall, Wally alone was the magic lightning bolt that hit both himself and Barry. 90s tosh easily forgotten. How sad.

Barry is the hero supposedly. The person he is and the decisions he makes. The powers he had acquired are incidental and just tools toward putting his point of view out in the universe that good is good and bad is bad.

Remember the JLA (51-53?) by Waid I think, and the world is remade perfect where it doesn't need or never needed a Batman? Which rolled back "Batman" into an idle playboy Bruce Wayne... but what we ended up with was a still rotten and plagued angry angry angry Bruce Wayne who wanted to bash evil but no longer knew any Kung Fu so got his ass kicked at ever turn.

As far as repeatability goes Christopher, the hilarious ending to episode 2 of Flashpoint was that, it appeared that the "accident" which created the Flash wasn't repeatable, or at the least not repeatable without some serious injury.

Bacon.

Hmmm.

The triggerevent for existing powers you speak of, sounds like something they used to say about the Mutants over in Marvel Comics, triggering the mutant gene, and was used to explain Cloak and Dagger, which has since been retconed. Metahuman is a broad term that covers almost everything and everyone with powers in the DCU and hardly nails down a specificity to superpowers despite issue three of the Invasion.

However, still focussing on the Invasion from back in '88. The creation of the "blasters" was proof positive about the scary mutancy potential of your baseline human being after the Invaders created a gauntlet of exotic weapons to mow down a few dozen prisoners and inadvertently origined 7 new metahumans including Snapper Carr. It scarred the poop out of them that anytme they blew up a building they might accidentally be making 5 new Supermans.

I want to see Barry Allen appreciate how hard everyone else works to get their jobs done without being almost alpowerful with perhaps the best super power ever... Unless he cops out and quests the helm of Fate. You know the Atomic weapon of Super Powers.

What about the Spear of Destiny which Hitler used to keep the All-Star Squadron out of Europe during World War II? Sometimes that doohicky is retconed to be a super human and the spear was just a decoy and sometimes it isn't.
 
It was established in the DC crossover Invasion that a high percentage of earth humans had the metagene which would trigger in times of stress.
 
Guy Gardener said:
Barry is the hero supposedly. The person he is and the decisions he makes. The powers he had acquired are incidental and just tools toward putting his point of view out in the universe that good is good and bad is bad.
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Of course, and I wasn't saying otherwise. I was saying that, given a choice, it's clearly preferable to use the tools you know best, that you've spent years wielding and perfecting and are already an expert in, over a different set of tools you've never tried using before and would need years to master at a comparable level.
 
Flashfried. You think the bacon comment is an exaggeration?

(Barry is a cop. Bacon, get it? Get it?)

fp2legioncps045.jpg

Christoper, I am sorry for being so obtuse, but it's a hard day when you have to look to McJagger for wisdom... "You can't always get what you want, you can't always get what you want, but sometimes you get what you need."

If you know anything about the speedforce, which Barry probably doesn't, that was never going to work. And even if he did know about the speed, or the writer chose to ignore the last 15 years of continuity, there still wasn't a 100 percent certainty of success using that method of powering up.

I see that Black Adam has some territory on the world map, but I wonder if Captain Marvel has been tapped that that power might be up for grabs if Barry took a hike up to the Rock of Eternity to see the Wizard?

That's more than enough power to take on Wonder Woman and Aquaman together...How "powerful" are your bogstandard Amazons and Atlanteans in the pages of flashpoint?

Evolution has a way of weeding out children who try to stick their fingers(among other extremities) into light sockets called light sockets but somehow Barry Allen fell through the cracks.

In all fairness to Barry, this probably would have worked if Zoom hadn't thought about it first and countered the procedure making it preimpossible (or it worked, but then Zoom went back in time to jigger with the outcome), that is if Zoom is less of a moron than Barry.

The reverse Professor Zoom would be Professor Mooz, who would have all sorts of cow themed super powers.
 
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Guy Gardener said:
The reverse Professor Zoom would be Professor Mooz, who would have all sorts of cow themed super powers.
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Like this?

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEG88UCQqe8[/yt]

That would be an udder disappointment, trying to milk it for all it's worth. Just sounds like bull, y' know? I think that'd be steer-ing the fans the wrong way.
 
wasn't Barry part of the Speed Force at one point? i think Flash Rebirth covered that aspect. but yeah, i thought the ending of Flashpoint #2 was pretty over the top. thus far Flashpoint has been pretty meh.
 
"living inside" seems like a bit of an over anthropomorphication. the Flash tripped into the speedforce during the First Crisis and "got stuck" but how likely is that he was aware of where he was or what was happening to him, that he was energy inside the Speedforce and not just a ghost in heaven or blissfully and completely unaware? How much control did Barry have as he fell out from time from time to time to help out Wally and his friends till he one day found himself on "earth 2" living out his retirement with his wife and Bart.

This Flash's resurrection was a complete mess, but not such a mess as the horror of Impulse supersized into his 20s playing grown up. I'm not sure if I finished reading Flash Rebirth because it was so dire?

Doctor Alchemy, he's got that Philosophers stone which can turn the Amazons by the bushel and pound into Salt Peter, meanwhile that other magic rock Doctor Destiny uses can make sure the Atlantean's never wake up and starve to death.

This reminds me of that kid in a John Byrne Comic back in the 80s who doused himself in Kerosene and lit up to be just like his hero the Human Torch.
 
Great Caesar's ghost!

I'm watching the Flash right now. 90s live action, you know the one. In the episode where the Flash accidentally travels into the future, loses his powers and gets captured, the bad guys decide to torture Barry with an Electric Chair.

ZAAAP!

Guess who got his powers back?
 
Guy Gardener said:
I see that Black Adam has some territory on the world map, but I wonder if Captain Marvel has been tapped that that power might be up for grabs if Barry took a hike up to the Rock of Eternity to see the Wizard?
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What would happen if Barry doused himself in chemicals and was hit by Shazam Lightning?

Short of that, I think he should have stuck with putting his tongue on a 9-volt. Maybe worked up to tasering himself.
 
Guy Gardener said:
Great Caesar's ghost!

I'm watching the Flash right now. 90s live action, you know the one. In the episode where the Flash accidentally travels into the future, loses his powers and gets captured, the bad guys decide to torture Barry with an Electric Chair.

ZAAAP!

Guess who got his powers back?
Click to expand...
i wonder if that is where Johns borrowed the idea from or if its just a happy coincidence?
 
So Barry Allen died? By his own hand, doing something stupid? Is Flashpoint #2 possibly the best comic of the year?
 
Praetor_Shinzon said:
Guy Gardener said:
Great Caesar's ghost!

I'm watching the Flash right now. 90s live action, you know the one. In the episode where the Flash accidentally travels into the future, loses his powers and gets captured, the bad guys decide to torture Barry with an Electric Chair.

ZAAAP!

Guess who got his powers back?
Click to expand...
i wonder if that is where Johns borrowed the idea from or if its just a happy coincidence?
Click to expand...

Surely coincidence. Or rather, convergence. Given that Barry got his powers from electricity, an electric chair is a rather obvious controllable substitute for a lightning bolt. Too obvious for it to be remotely surprising that two writers could independently come up with it.
 
Barry's not dead. Just fried. I'm sure Dr. Wayne will find some way to heal him. That was funny that Barry thought that would work.
 
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