99 Fun Facts About The Flash

Which writer created the original Flash with artist Harry Lampert in Flash Comics #1 (1940)?

Gardner Fox practised law for about two years before the Depression pushed him into comics, where he is estimated to have written some 4,000 stories.

How did Jay Garrick, the Golden Age Flash, get his super-speed?

Inhaling hard water vapours in his lab knocked him out, and he woke with super-speed that he first put to use as a college football star.

Jay Garrick's winged metal helmet is modelled on which Roman god?

Mercury, the fleet-footed messenger of the gods, inspired the winged helmet, which Jay Garrick also throws as a ranged weapon.

Barry Allen's 1956 debut in Showcase #4 is generally regarded as the start of what?

The Silver Age of comics dawned with this revival: once the new Flash sold, DC tried a new Green Lantern in the same tryout title and superheroes were back.

What is Barry Allen's day job?

Police forensic scientist Barry Allen had a reputation for being slow and always late, which became a running joke once he was the fastest man alive.

In the original comics, what gave Barry Allen his powers?

Lightning striking his lab chemicals drenched him in the electrified mix, and afterwards the world seemed to move in slow motion around him.

Where does Barry Allen keep his costume when he is in civilian clothes?

Compressed inside a ring, the suit shrinks to a fraction of its size and springs out full-size when he needs it, then shrinks back in afterwards.

The Flash #123 (1961), in which Barry Allen first meets Jay Garrick, introduced what to DC Comics?

The multiverse and Earth-Two arrived when Barry vibrated his molecules during a charity stage show and slipped across to the parallel world Jay lived on.

Before the two Flashes met in 1961, what did Barry Allen believe Jay Garrick to be?

A fictional comic book character was all Jay seemed to be: Barry had grown up reading his adventures, which is why he borrowed the name for himself.

Barry Allen operates out of which fictional town?

Central City is Barry's beat while Keystone City belongs to Jay Garrick; later stories moved the two side by side as twin cities facing each other across a river.

In the comics, how is the original Kid Flash related to Barry Allen?

His nephew by marriage: the boy was the nephew of Barry's girlfriend Iris, and he gained his speed when the same freak accident repeated itself while Barry was showing him around his lab.

In which 1985 event did Barry Allen die a hero's death?

Crisis on Infinite Earths had him run himself to death around the Anti-Monitor's antimatter cannon, destroying it before it could be fired at the Earth.

In the comics, whom did the third Flash marry, later raising twins named Jai and Irey?

Linda Park, a television reporter, is the one he calls his lightning rod: his love for her is what let him become the first speedster to enter the Speed Force and come back.

Who took over as the Flash after Barry Allen died saving the universe in 1985?

Wally West, until then the sidekick Kid Flash, took up the fallen hero's costume and name, though at first he could manage only about the speed of sound.

In the comics, how is Bart Allen, the speedster Impulse, related to Barry Allen?

His grandson from the 30th century: Bart was born ageing at super-speed, so scientists raised him inside a virtual reality that could keep pace with his metabolism.

Which Green Lantern is Barry Allen's longtime friend and frequent team-up partner in the comics?

Hal Jordan befriended Barry in the Justice League, and when Green Lantern's own comic was cancelled in 1972 his adventures carried on in the back pages of The Flash.

Who leads the Rogues, the Flash's regular gallery of villains?

Captain Cold, real name Leonard Snart, charged an experimental gun at a cyclotron hoping to slow the Flash down, and found it froze things to absolute zero instead.

Which of these rules is part of the strict code the Flash's Rogues operate under?

Never kill unless necessary: the gang's leader enforces a code of honour, and they rarely aim higher than robbery, preferring to steal for a living rather than conquer the world.

In the comics, Eobard Thawne began as the Flash's what?

Biggest fan: Thawne grew up in the 25th century idolising the Flash, then snapped on learning he was destined to become his hero's greatest enemy.

How did Barry Allen kill the Reverse-Flash in the comics, leading to 'The Trial of the Flash'?

He broke his neck while stopping Thawne, who had already murdered Iris, from killing his fiancée on their wedding day, and was put on trial for the killing.

In the 2009 comic The Flash: Rebirth, the Reverse-Flash was revealed to have murdered which member of Barry Allen's family?

His mother Nora was murdered when Barry was a boy and his father was jailed for it, and Thawne boasts that he went back in time to do it, along with every other tragedy in Barry's life.

Hunter Zolomon, the arch-enemy of the third Flash, is better known by which name?

Zoom is not really a speedster at all: instead of tapping the Speed Force he alters how fast time flows around himself, which lets him outrun even the Flash.

What device did Barry Allen invent that allows precise time travel?

The Cosmic Treadmill outlasted its inventor: centuries later it turned up in a 25th-century antique shop, where the man who would become the Reverse-Flash got hold of it.

Which writer scripted DC's 2011 crossover in which Barry Allen's time travel creates a dark alternate timeline?

Geoff Johns wrote the five-issue series with Andy Kubert on pencils, and its ending wiped away decades of continuity so that DC could relaunch its entire line as the New 52.

In the 2011 comics crossover where Barry Allen's time travel rewrites history, who is Batman?

Thomas Wayne: in this timeline the mugger's bullet killed young Bruce instead of his parents, so his father became a brutal Batman while Martha Wayne went mad and became the Joker.

What is the Speed Force?

An extradimensional energy source for speedsters, it also serves as their afterlife, a kind of Valhalla where Barry Allen was shown among legendary speedsters after his death.

The 1990 live-action Flash series starring John Wesley Shipp aired on which US network?

CBS scheduled it on Thursday nights to steal young viewers from The Cosby Show, only for Fox to move The Simpsons into the very same slot with the same idea.

Which Star Wars actor played the Trickster in the 1990 Flash series and again in the 2014 show?

Mark Hamill played the Trickster in 1991, a manic turn that foreshadowed the Joker he began voicing the following year, and he returned to the part in 2015, 24 years on.

Which film composer wrote the main theme for the 1990 Flash TV series?

Danny Elfman had just scored the 1989 Batman film, and the show chased its dark look, trading comic-book tights for a sculpted latex muscle suit.

The Flash TV series that began in 2014 was a spin-off from which show?

Arrow gave Barry Allen two guest episodes in December 2013, ten months before his own show began, and he kept running back for crossovers right up to its finale in 2020.

In the 2014 TV series, what causes the accident that gives Barry Allen his speed?

A particle accelerator explosion at S.T.A.R. Labs left Barry in a coma for months, and the same blast created the metahuman villains he spends the series fighting.

Which actor played Barry Allen for nine seasons of The CW's Flash series?

Grant Gustin came from the musical series Glee, and the show put that to use in 2017 with a musical episode that ends with Barry singing to Iris and proposing to her.

In the 2014 series, which actor played both Harrison Wells and the Reverse-Flash?

Tom Cavanagh's kindly mentor turned out to be Eobard Thawne, who had murdered the real Wells and stolen his identity, and the actor later returned as other Wellses from parallel Earths.

Who played Iris West in the 2014 Flash series?

Candice Patton got her start as a university student by winning a nationwide CBS viewer vote, the Soap Star Screen Test, whose prize was a role on the soap The Young and the Restless.

Who directed the 2023 film The Flash?

Andy Muschietti came over from horror, having directed both It films, and took on a project its previous directors had walked away from, with his sister Barbara as producer.

Which former Batman actor plays the long-retired Bruce Wayne whom the two Barrys recruit in the 2023 film The Flash?

Michael Keaton, Tim Burton's Batman of 1989 and 1992, is coaxed out of a long retirement in the altered timeline, while George Clooney's version turns up as a surprise in the film's final scene.

Which actor cameoed in The Flash (2023) as an alternate Superman fighting a giant spider?

Nicolas Cage had been cast as Superman in Tim Burton's Superman Lives, which collapsed in the late 1990s, so the cameo finally put his Superman on screen, digitally de-aged to look as he did back then.

The 2023 film The Flash was influenced by which comic storyline?

Flashpoint, the 2011 comic, runs on the same idea: Barry races back in time to change one day in his past and returns to a present he no longer recognises.

Ezra Miller first appeared as Barry Allen in a brief cameo in which film?

Batman v Superman slipped Miller into security footage in 2016, stopping a shop robber in a blur, before a second cameo in Suicide Squad and the full role in Justice League in 2017.

Which Smallville star voiced the Flash in the animated Justice League series?

Michael Rosenbaum, Smallville's Lex Luthor, got to play both parts at once in a 2006 episode in which the Flash and Luthor swap minds, voicing a Flash whose body Luthor had taken over.

In his 1959 debut, telepathic super-ape Grodd seized control of which hidden metropolis?

Gorilla City lies hidden in the African jungle, home to super-intelligent apes who want only to live apart in peace, and it was Solovar, an ape held captive by humans, who broke free to fetch the Flash.

Which Prison Break star played Leonard Snart in the 2014 Flash series?

Wentworth Miller was soon joined by his Prison Break brother Dominic Purcell as the villain's partner in crime Mick Rory, and in 2016 the pair moved together to the spin-off Legends of Tomorrow.

In the 2023 film The Flash, Sasha Calle made her movie debut as which Kryptonian?

Kara Zor-El, better known as Supergirl, is the prisoner the two Barrys set free when they go looking for Superman and find his cousin locked up in his place.

Which Justice League member turns up drunk after the credits of the 2023 Flash film?

Aquaman, played once more by Jason Momoa, staggers down the street roaring drunk beside Barry, falls into a puddle outside his friend's apartment and refuses to get back up.

Which Superman villain returns to invade Earth in the 2023 film The Flash?

General Zod, played again by Michael Shannon, was killed off in Man of Steel, but Barry's meddling creates a timeline where he invades Earth all over again, with no Superman waiting for him.

On The CW's The Flash, Danielle Panabaker's Caitlin Snow develops which icy alter ego?

Killer Frost began as a second personality sharing Caitlin's body, later dropped the 'Killer' to fight alongside the team as Frost, and Panabaker ended the series as a third character, Khione.

Carlos Valdes's S.T.A.R. Labs engineer Cisco Ramon fights under which hero name?

Vibe could open breaches to other worlds, but at the end of season five Cisco took the metahuman cure he had helped invent and gave up his powers.

Jesse L. Martin played which detective, Barry's foster father, on The CW's The Flash?

Joe West lost his full-time actor after eight seasons, when Martin stepped back to star in the NBC drama The Irrational, returning only now and then during the ninth and final season.

Which member of the Flash's Rogues later became a mainstay of the Suicide Squad?

Captain Boomerang started out honestly enough, hired by a toy company to promote its boomerangs, before deciding his throwing arm would pay better stealing jewels.

The CW's The Flash, set in a fictional American city, was filmed mainly in which Canadian city?

Vancouver hosted the shoot from the pilot in March 2014, with extra scenes filmed across the border in Portland, Oregon.

Which Harry Potter star joined The Flash in season three as Julian Albert, alias Doctor Alchemy?

Tom Felton, Draco Malfoy in the wizarding films, held the role from 2016 to 2017, while Tobin Bell voiced the character's Alchemy persona.

Con man Frank Abagnale poses as Secret Service agent Barry Allen in which Steven Spielberg film?

Catch Me If You Can borrows the Flash's civilian name for the alias, and shows the teenage forger with a stack of Flash comics in his room.

In which sitcom do all four main characters turn up for a Halloween party dressed as the Flash?

The Big Bang Theory staged the costume clash in its 2007 episode 'The Middle-Earth Paradigm', after which the four changed so they would not all match.

Which Glee star played the Music Meister in 'Duet', a musical crossover episode of The Flash?

Darren Criss was reunited on screen with two former Glee castmates, one of them the Flash's own lead actor.

In the 2017 film Justice League, Barry Allen joins Bruce Wayne's team at once because he needs what?

Friends are what he asks for: other people, he explains, are 'a little slow' for him. Then he asks to keep the Batarang.

By vibrating his molecules at extreme speed, the Flash can famously perform which feat?

Pass through solid walls: the comics explain the trick as quantum tunnelling, and later Flashes can even lend and borrow speed.

Before gaining super-speed, Barry Allen was known to his colleagues and fiancée for which habit?

Arriving late was his trademark, a running irony for the future fastest man alive. One retelling says he was even born two weeks overdue.

On The CW's The Flash, Ronnie Raymond and physicist Martin Stein fuse into which hero?

Firestorm needs both men: Ronnie acts as the body while Stein's mind is mostly in control.

Which filmmaker directed Flash episodes including 'The Runaway Dinosaur' and cameoed in one as a security guard?

Kevin Smith, the director of Clerks, shared the cameo with his regular screen partner Jason Mewes, and directed four episodes of Supergirl as well.

Which Machete star played Breacher, a bounty hunter from another Earth, on The CW's The Flash?

Danny Trejo's Breacher is the father of Gypsy, girlfriend of Cisco Ramon, and shares the dimension-crossing powers of his daughter.

On The CW's The Flash, in which prison is Henry Allen held for a murder he did not commit?

Iron Heights later holds Barry Allen too: framed for murder in season four, he is locked in the very cell Henry once occupied.

Which 2016 CW series spun off Flash characters such as Heat Wave and Martin Stein?

Legends of Tomorrow gathered heroes and villains from two CW shows aboard a stolen time ship, the Waverider.

Which colour completes 'The Man in the ___ Suit', the Flash episode where Barry first battles the Reverse-Flash?

Yellow marks the speedster out before he has a name. Barry is swiftly beaten, and the villain hints that the two have been enemies all their lives.

John Wesley Shipp, star of the 1990 Flash series, returned in The CW's 2014 version in which role?

Barry Allen's father, Henry, was only the start: Shipp later also played Jay Garrick and reprised his own 1990 Flash in crossover episodes.

Where does Barry Allen help to stop a robbery in the opening sequence of the 2023 film The Flash?

Gotham supplies the opening rescue, with Batman and Wonder Woman at Barry's side, before he revisits his childhood home.

On The CW's The Flash, private investigator Ralph Dibny joins the team under which hero name?

Elongated Man can stretch to superhuman lengths and even reshape himself to pass as other people. In the comics he debuted in a 1960 issue of The Flash.

On the CW series, what is the hero called in Iris West's early writing, before Barry suggests 'the Flash'?

The Streak was the name she used until Barry, hiding his identity, nudged her towards 'the Flash' as the two made up after a falling-out.

In The Flash's season one finale, which detective shoots himself to erase his descendant, the Reverse-Flash?

Eddie Thawne's sacrifice comes just as his descendant is about to kill Barry, and it wipes the villain out of existence.

The Flash's 2014 premiere was The CW's most-watched series debut since which 2009 supernatural drama?

The Vampire Diaries had set the mark five years earlier. Counting a week of delayed viewing, the pilot became the network's most-watched telecast.

On The CW's The Flash, Barry and Iris's speedster daughter from 2049 fights under which codename?

XS, played by Jessica Parker Kennedy, hides who she is until after she helps Barry stop a villain's satellite.

Which artificial intelligence on The Flash serves the Reverse-Flash but was built by a future Barry Allen?

Gideon was created by Barry in the original future timeline, yet also proves loyal to other masters, among them Harry Wells.

Which version of Harrison Wells, introduced in season six of The Flash, is a swashbuckling explorer?

Nash was almost written as an Australian. Later in the show, the minds of every other Wells end up fused into his.

Which season five Flash villain, played by Chris Klein, hunts metahumans with a power-nullifying dagger?

Cicada, a grieving uncle named Orlin Dwyer, vows to wipe out metahumans after falling satellite debris leaves his niece in a coma.

Which alien race attacks Earth in 'Invasion!', the 2016 crossover of The Flash and its sister CW shows?

The Dominators had first landed on Earth in the 1950s and mysteriously left. On their return they abduct the President of the United States.

On The Flash, which experimental drug makes Trajectory disintegrate after she takes a second dose?

Velocity-9 was developed by Caitlin Snow to restore the lost speed of Jay Garrick; a colleague who helped with the formula reverse-engineered it and became the speedster Trajectory.

Which producer developed The CW's The Flash alongside Andrew Kreisberg and a DC Comics executive?

Greg Berlanti also co-wrote the pilot, which was officially ordered in January 2014 with David Nutter directing.

Which monstrous Flash villain, voiced by David Hayter on the CW series, is sent from Earth-2 to kill the hero?

King Shark, once a marine biologist named Shay Lamden, was mutated in an accident. He later defeats the gorilla Grodd in battle.

On The Flash, which career does Iris West begin in season one and later build a company around?

Journalist is the job she lands at a city paper, only to realise she was hired to write about the Flash. She later heads her own media company.

Which actor, Titanic's shipbuilder Thomas Andrews, played physicist Martin Stein on The Flash?

Victor Garber played Stein from 2015, carried the role into a spin-off, and returned for a voice cameo in the 2023 series finale.

In DC Comics, original Flash Jay Garrick was first based in New York before a retcon moved him where?

Keystone City later became a twin to Barry Allen's home town, the two separated only by a river.

Jay Garrick, the Golden Age Flash, was a founding member and first chairman of which superhero team?

The Justice Society debuted in All Star Comics in the winter of 1940–41 and is regarded as the first superhero team in comic books.

Flash Comics #1, the 1940 debut of Jay Garrick, also introduced which long-running DC hero?

Hawkman stayed in the anthology for its entire run, from the first issue in 1940 to the last, #104, in 1949.

In DC Comics, which dark figure plays the role of Death for anyone who possesses super-speed?

Black Flash was created in 1998 by Grant Morrison, Mark Millar and Ron Wagner. One hero beat him by racing to the end of time, where death has no meaning.

Convict Sam Scudder and mercenary Evan McCulloch have both fought the Flash under which Rogue identity?

Mirror Master travels through any reflective surface via a 'Mirror Dimension'. The CW's series recast the second version as a woman, Eva McCulloch.

Which Flash villain is a stage magician from the 64th century whose 'spells' are really advanced science?

Abra Kadabra travelled back in time to find an audience, and carries a hypnotic device that forces crowds to applaud even when his tricks fall flat.

Lisa Snart, younger sister of a Flash rogue, vowed revenge on the hero under which villain name?

Golden Glider is an Olympic-level figure skater whose experimental skates make their own ice, letting her skate in mid-air. She debuted in 1977.

Which writer of a celebrated 1990s Flash run created the speedster Impulse and later wrote Kingdom Come?

Mark Waid took over the title in 1992, the job that first brought him wide recognition, a decade before his Fantastic Four run for Marvel.

Golden Age speedster Johnny Quick, unlike the Flash, triggers his powers by reciting what?

A mathematical formula, '3X2(9YZ)4A', does the trick. His guardian derived it from inscriptions found in a pharaoh's tomb.

Which reformed Flash rogue, Hartley Rathaway, was revealed in 1991 as one of DC's first openly gay characters?

Pied Piper joked that the news was ironic, since he was one of the few villains ever to have 'gone straight'.

Which actress played scientist Tina McGee in both the 1990 Flash series and The CW's 2014 version?

Amanda Pays returned as a reimagined McGee, now a lab director who works out that Barry Allen is the Flash.

Which Almost Famous actor appears uncredited as Henry Allen in the 2017 film Justice League?

Billy Crudup was replaced in the role by Ron Livingston for the 2023 film The Flash.

In which 2003 Eddie Murphy comedy does a boy named Tony refuse to take off his Flash costume?

Daddy Day Care cast Jimmy Bennett as Tony, a boy convinced that he really is the Flash.

Which vengeful DC speedster, introduced in 2016, is secretly August Heart, a detective friend of Barry Allen?

Godspeed turns vigilante after the man he blames for his brother's murder goes free, and kills criminals rather than jailing them.

In DC Comics, the Flash's civilian first name, Barry, turned out to be short for which name?

Bartholomew Henry Allen is his full name, though 'Bartholomew' went unused until long after his 1956 debut.

Mark Mardon, who took the research notes of his late brother Clyde, fights the Flash under which name?

Weather Wizard turned those notes into a wand that generates weather. His brother Clyde appears in the pilot of The CW's series.

Which actor plays the Reverse-Flash in the villain's original likeness on The CW's The Flash?

Matt Letscher's version turns up as a guest across the show's run, from the first season to the ninth.

In a 2017 crossover of The Flash and its sister shows, invaders from a Nazi-ruled Earth interrupt what?

Barry and Iris's wedding collapses into a battle, so the couple finally marry at the story's end, with an ordained friend, John Diggle, officiating.

The Flash suits worn by John Wesley Shipp in the 1990 series were built by Stan Winston Studios from what?

Latex was treated to look like a simple stretch unitard, and Shipp wore a water-cooled undergarment to cope with the heat.

Which actor played Ronnie Raymond, the fiancé of Caitlin Snow, on The CW's The Flash?

Robbie Amell, later the lead of the sci-fi comedy Upload, is a first cousin of Stephen Amell, another CW superhero star.