The Flash
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This Flash quiz has 99 free questions with answers and runs from Flash Comics #1 in 1940 to the multiverse-hopping 2023 movie. It covers all four men to wear the lightning bolt: Jay Garrick and his winged helmet, Barry Allen and the lightning-and-chemicals accident that kicked off the Silver Age, Wally West's promotion after Crisis on Infinite Earths, and Bart Allen's brief, doomed turn. It also takes in the Rogues and their code, Eobard Thawne's grudge from the 25th century, Flashpoint and the timeline it wrecked, and the story that invented the DC multiverse. The screen Flashes get their due too: John Wesley Shipp's 1990 CBS series with its Danny Elfman theme and $100,000 of suits, Grant Gustin's nine seasons on The CW, and Ezra Miller's film with Michael Keaton back in the cowl. About a third of the questions are entry level; the rest are for people who know which issue Barry vibrated into Keystone City. Every answer has been checked against a cited source, shown under each explanation.
30 of 99 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which writer created the original Flash with artist Harry Lampert in Flash Comics #1 (1940)?
Gardner Fox
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.
Q 02How did Jay Garrick, the Golden Age Flash, get his super-speed?
Inhaling hard water vapours in his lab
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.
Q 03Jay Garrick's winged metal helmet is modelled on which Roman god?
Mercury
Mercury, the fleet-footed messenger of the gods, inspired the winged helmet, which Jay Garrick also throws as a ranged weapon.
Q 04Barry Allen's 1956 debut in Showcase #4 is generally regarded as the start of what?
The Silver Age of comics
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.
Q 05What is Barry Allen's day job?
Police forensic scientist
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.
Q 06In the original comics, what gave Barry Allen his powers?
Lightning striking his lab chemicals
Lightning striking his lab chemicals drenched him in the electrified mix, and afterwards the world seemed to move in slow motion around him.
Q 07Where does Barry Allen keep his costume when he is in civilian clothes?
Compressed inside a ring
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.
Q 08The Flash #123 (1961), in which Barry Allen first meets Jay Garrick, introduced what to DC Comics?
The multiverse and Earth-Two
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.
Q 09Before the two Flashes met in 1961, what did Barry Allen believe Jay Garrick to be?
A fictional comic book character
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.
Q 10Barry Allen operates out of which fictional town?
Central City
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.
Q 11In the comics, how is the original Kid Flash related to Barry Allen?
His nephew by marriage
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.
Q 12In which 1985 event did Barry Allen die a hero's death?
Crisis on Infinite Earths
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.
Q 13In the comics, whom did the third Flash marry, later raising twins named Jai and Irey?
Linda Park
Q 21In the 2009 comic The Flash: Rebirth, the Reverse-Flash was revealed to have murdered which member of Barry Allen's family?
His mother Nora
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.
Q 22Hunter Zolomon, the arch-enemy of the third Flash, is better known by which name?
Zoom
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.
Q 23What device did Barry Allen invent that allows precise time travel?
The Cosmic Treadmill
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.
Q 14Who took over as the Flash after Barry Allen died saving the universe in 1985?
Wally West
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.
Q 15In the comics, how is Bart Allen, the speedster Impulse, related to Barry Allen?
His grandson from the 30th century
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.
Q 16Which Green Lantern is Barry Allen's longtime friend and frequent team-up partner in the comics?
Hal Jordan
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.
Q 17Who leads the Rogues, the Flash's regular gallery of villains?
Captain Cold
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.
Q 18Which of these rules is part of the strict code the Flash's Rogues operate under?
Never kill unless necessary
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.
Q 19In the comics, Eobard Thawne began as the Flash's what?
Biggest fan
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.
Q 20How did Barry Allen kill the Reverse-Flash in the comics, leading to 'The Trial of the Flash'?
He broke his neck
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.
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.
Q 24Which writer scripted DC's 2011 crossover in which Barry Allen's time travel creates a dark alternate timeline?
Geoff Johns
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.
Q 25In the 2011 comics crossover where Barry Allen's time travel rewrites history, who is Batman?
Thomas Wayne
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.
Q 26What is the Speed Force?
An extradimensional energy source for speedsters
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.
Q 27The 1990 live-action Flash series starring John Wesley Shipp aired on which US network?
CBS
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.
Q 28Which Star Wars actor played the Trickster in the 1990 Flash series and again in the 2014 show?
Mark Hamill
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.
Q 29Which film composer wrote the main theme for the 1990 Flash TV series?
Danny Elfman
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.
Q 30The Flash TV series that began in 2014 was a spin-off from which show?
Arrow
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.