Current Events > Have any comics managed to overcome the fundamental problem with speedsters?

(+) Yeah! (+)

In pretty much every iteration of the Flash, he's able to move and see and punch at such a speed that everything and everyone else is basically standing still. This completely trivialises every encounter, or it should do. How could someone swing a punch at you when you can run 500 laps around a speeding bullet before its moved an inch? It's absurd.

So in general to create some tension the writing has to deal with this in two ways:

• The Flash somehow forgets that he is absurdly fast and manages to get punched or grabbed
• The bad guy is also a speedster

YouTube algorithm is pretty fast

simple don't make them so ridiculous in the first place, look at Sonic

tremain07 posted...

simple don't make them so ridiculous in the first place, look at Sonic

This. Even Archie Sonic managed to do just fine with only occasionally focusing on his speed.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/7/79dac66a.jpg

in second Mistborn era, there is the ability to make a bubble around you that makes time flow slower in it, so that everything outside is perceived slower, but if a bullet gets into the bubble it becomes dangerous again.

Wouldn't just running at super speed, depending on how fast the person is moving, just eventually leave a wake of explosions or at the very least super heat due to the friction?

you would think they would go through a lot of shoes

tremain07 posted...

simple don't make them so ridiculous in the first place, look at Sonic

sonic is faster than the speed of light even with out the chaos emeralds

Yo-Yo from Agents of SHIELD had a pretty fun quirk that made her very strong but not completely impossible. She could move at superspeed, but after a heartbeat, she'd snap back to her original position. So she could run through a room and take the weapons from a group of bad guys, but actually catching anyone was a no-go.

pegusus123456 posted...

Yo-Yo from Agents of SHIELD had a pretty fun quirk that made her very strong but not completely impossible. She could move at superspeed, but after a heartbeat, she'd snap back to her original position. So she could run through a room and take the weapons from a group of bad guys, but actually catching anyone was a no-go.

Could she catch someone and when snapping back, snap him along with her? Would that cause some unexpected scenarios like her being knocked out herself from the force of someone else flying at her?

Also by the end of the series they just have her unlock regular super speed after she achieved super yoyo final form. Still relatively novel in a market saturated with speedsters the last 20 years.

When I was a kid, one of the superheroes I made up for myself was a speedster. It very quickly (no pun intended) got to the point where the only supervillains I regularly faced were another speedster and a time traveller, with most others being just one-shot villains. Overall I dealt more with things like invasion fleets and multiversal wars and such.

Theres more than enough ways to handle speedsters than trying to match the speedforce. Its like the flash is against lex luthors as a nemesis of superman

What if they were just, like, really clumsy

Sure he's fast, but dammit he keeps tripping over things!

Yo-Yo from Mighty Avengers / Secret Warriors. The show got her and her slingshot thing from those comics. I know it's anal but I gotta give the actual creator their due.

I do like when there are unique twists to speedsters (or any super character, really). Another with one is the Whizzer on Squadron Supreme, who needs to balance each day's hyper-metabolic activity by spending a proportionate amount of in sedentary hypo-metabolism or suffer severe health problems. And there's Surge from Xavier's school, whose primary power is electricity, but gets faster & faster as she builds up a static charge.

Rai_Jin posted...

in second Mistborn era, there is the ability to make a bubble around you that makes time flow slower in it, so that everything outside is perceived slower, but if a bullet gets into the bubble it becomes dangerous again.

You got the effect of the bubble mixed up. Cadmium makes a bubble that slows time around you, and makes everything outside the bubble effectively faster relative to you, a bullet entering the bubble is less dangerous then one outside. Bendalloy makes a bubble that speeds time up around you, and makes everything outside the bubble effectively faster relative to you, a bullet entering the bubble is more dangerous inside then one outside.

PhD in creative writing from Harvard here:
Fast bad guy

The Flash can't beat freefall. He can't go where he needs to be if he doesn't know where he needs to be. He might be forced into a dilemma where he cannot do two things at once. There's also simple personal drama. Comics are more than just "how do you beat the bad guy in the most scientifically airtight way possible".

Flash: *Beats someone instant teleporting across light years with time to spare*
Also Flash: *Slips on marbles left by bad guy on sidewalk*

How do you beat a guy who can just instantly zip around the room and stab everyone in the eyes

Being able to predict what your opponent is going to do, before they even realize it, definitely gives you time to prepare a counter before the opponent even starts to move their muscles.

So the last panel of the comic seems on par.

I mean, the Flash isn't thinking in super speed all the time. That would be hell on earth.

Just watch to see why:

https://youtu.be/xQ9C-pao0lw

Disguised traps, ice, and mazes of mirrors could all effect flash. Or if the enemy was wearing something that would effect the flash when he punches them, like a bomb or poison

Tom_Joad posted...

I mean, the Flash isn't thinking in super speed all the time. That would be hell on earth.

Isn't that part of why Pietro is such a shitty person in the X-titles? He's not a speedster, per se, but someone whose whole existence is faster than everyone else, and hearing them talk or think is like watching people move through water to him.

I don't follow a lot of lore, and I don't know which Pietro in which Earth or media incarnation, but I read that once about how his powers worked.

DnDer posted...

Isn't that part of why Pietro is such a shitty person in the X-titles? He's not a speedster, per se, but someone whose whole existence is faster than everyone else, and hearing them talk or think is like watching people move through water to him.

I don't follow a lot of lore, and I don't know which Pietro in which Earth or media incarnation, but I read that once about how his powers worked.

Yeah, that's from X-Factor 87 when Doc Samson has therapy sessions with the team during Peter David's run. Great issue.

Coming up with fantastical excuses for prior shitty behavior is something that should only be done sparingly, but this is one that works. It's an interesting downside to his power and doesn't just take away Quicksilver's culpability in the nasty backstaby stuff he's pulled. Not like saying "it wasn't grief it was a yellow fear monster!!"

For the Flash, they gave him this superpower called the Speed Force, which is basically the ability to "nuh duh" any logical or physical problems with his speed.

Blueshifting light out of the visible spectrum? Nuh uh, speed force.

Impossibility of FTL? Nuh uh, speed force.

Kicking up massive chunks of the ground in order to accelerate to insane speeds over like a millimeter of space? Nuh uh, speed force.

Breaking every bone in the subject's body when he picks them up on a runby? Nuh uh, speed force.

ReturnOfDevsman posted...

For the Flash, they gave him this superpower called the Speed Force, which is basically the ability to "nuh duh" any logical or physical problems with his speed.

Blueshifting light out of the visible spectrum? Nuh uh, speed force.

Impossibility of FTL? Nuh uh, speed force.

Kicking up massive chunks of the ground in order to accelerate to insane speeds over like a millimeter of space? Nuh uh, speed force.

Breaking every bone in the subject's body when he picks them up on a runby? Nuh uh, speed force.

So he is always thinking at super speed, then. That's horrifying.

Woman Woman talks to him and he's like, "Dude, it feels like it's been years... and your still saying "Fffffffffff" for the first part of 'Flash, how's it been?'"

I mean, how does he manage to stay sane, when in his perspective, he needs to spend 13.8 years just to say hello?

Tom_Joad posted...

So he is always thinking at super speed, then. That's horrifying.

Woman Woman talks to him and he's like, "Dude, it feels like it's been years... and your still saying "Fffffffffff" for the first part of 'Flash, how's it been?'"

I mean, how does he manage to stay sane, when in his perspective, he needs to spend 13.8 years just to say hello?

No, he can swap between thinking speeds.

Tom_Joad posted...

So he is always thinking at super speed, then. That's horrifying.

Woman Woman talks to him and he's like, "Dude, it feels like it's been years... and your still saying "Fffffffffff" for the first part of 'Flash, how's it been?'"

I mean, how does he manage to stay sane, when in his perspective, he needs to spend 13.8 years just to say hello?

Flash can "turn off" his speed powers when he wants IIRC

Theres a speedster in Agents of Shield that lost both arms and had to had them replaced by robot arms. When she tries to use super speed, she just starts screaming in pain as the prosthetics can't really keep up with the super speed and injure her. That's rough.

I forget which speedster it was, but someone asked him why he was so angry all the time. His response was basically Imagine youre standing in line at the bank behind the slowest customers and the slowest tellers and you really have to make a deposit or cash a check within a very short time frame. Thats what my entire life is like.

https://i.imgur.com/N2YWVEt.jpeg
https://i.imgur.com/72s57VR.jpeg
https://i.imgur.com/T9HMf4W.jpeg

The Flash is so over powered no one but another speedter should be able to come close to touching him.

Splatterhouse5 posted...

Peter David's

Explains a lot. Loved his Trek novels because he'd throw red meat like this at you there, too.

MC_BatCommander posted...

Flash can "turn off" his speed powers when he wants IIRC

Well, if his speed powers can be turned off, then he can be thwarted or shot like the comic above.

Tom_Joad posted...

Well, if his speed powers can be turned off, then he can be thwarted or shot like the comic above.

"Oh no! My one weakness!"
"Fire?"
"Yellow?"
"Wood?"
"No! Impatience!"

Yes, Flash almost never uses anywhere near his full strength oftentime. And usually his villains hard counter his speed in some fashion like captains colds absolute zero field, heat wave coating his body in flames or Golden Gliders ability to turn herself or others intangible.

Others like the Trickster usually rely on elaborate schemes also to be one step ahead of the flash at every turn.

The Flash's main weakness should be people who talk too damn slow

https://youtu.be/fRIHLq7OrFg?si=SFuFpSScgHDnCODm

AceMos posted...

sonic is faster than the speed of light even with out the chaos emeralds

I was under the impression he runs faster than the speed of sound, but his super form lets him move closer to the speed of light.

Regular Sonic can run at speeds of approximately 767 miles per hour, which is faster than the speed of sound. In some games, his speed is depicted as being even greater, reaching up to 186,000 miles per second with special abilities.

BakonBitz posted...

I was under the impression he runs faster than the speed of sound, but his super form lets him move closer to the speed of light.

Comic book writers have no concept of what they are doing. It is possible that they attempted to do that, but quickly broke the distinction due to wanting to make some random set piece work.

ellis123 posted...

Comic book writers have no concept of what they are doing. It is possible that they attempted to do that, but quickly broke the distinction due to wanting to make some random set piece work.

i was talking about in the GAMES he has the light speed dash that lets him go faster than light

BakonBitz posted...

I was under the impression he runs faster than the speed of sound, but his super form lets him move closer to the speed of light.

In the comic his Super and Hyper forms are faster than light but they also just make him absurdly powerful. Super Sonic and Hyper Knuckles made a universe collapse by just having their fists collide.

Ms y Menos, s podemos!

That's why most of Flash's villains are either speedsters themselves, or characters with the ability to disorient/confuse Flash or cripple his ability to run.

pinky0926 posted...

In pretty much every iteration of the Flash, he's able to move and see and punch at such a speed that everything and everyone else is basically standing still. This completely trivialises every encounter, or it should do. How could someone swing a punch at you when you can run 500 laps around a speeding bullet before its moved an inch? It's absurd.

So in general to create some tension the writing has to deal with this in two ways:

* The Flash somehow forgets that he is absurdly fast and manages to get punched or grabbed
* The bad guy is also a speedster

I don't really understand why people such a issue with Flash being fast...but have no problems reading fighting Shonen Anime/Manga where literally EVERY CHARACTER has super speed and get faster then the previous arc. It's bizzare to mean that people want Comic Characters to be grounded, but have zero problems reading stories about Wukong, Goku, Simon, Asura Wrath breaking reality.

It's non-issue when people remember..

1. Vast majority of DC heroes have super speed.
2. Flash insansely overpowered villans like the Turtle, Captian Cold, Abra Kabara, Mirror Master.
3. Speed Force is dynamic source of power. The Writer can limit Flash speed to be as fast as the plot demand to be.

I think the problem is more from the time slow depiction of speedsters. It's fine if you got someone like Dash from The Incredibles or Makkari from Eternals. It shows that they can move fast, but it doesn't show time slowing to a crawl in their perspective. So there's like a point where their speed can be too fast for even them to handle. It's like if a normal person is running too fast, they are more likely to trip or make mistakes.

And of course, a speedster needs some ability to to perceive things faster, but they can nerf it a bit. It doesn't have to be everyone around them is practically stopped.

Apply realistic physics. Like yeah, move that fast. But you create a nuclear explosion from impact with air particles.

Holy_Cloud105 posted...

In the comic his Super and Hyper forms are faster than light but they also just make him absurdly powerful. Super Sonic and Hyper Knuckles made a universe collapse by just having their fists collide.

Lol, this stuff is probably why Sega moved away from the "speed of sound/light" moniker for Sonic and instead just made him "really really fast." And also to remove any ascended form other than Super Sonic, because they didn't want absurd power-leveling like this.

BakonBitz posted...

Lol, this stuff is probably why Sega moved away from the "speed of sound/light" moniker for Sonic and instead just made him "really really fast." And also to remove any ascended form other than Super Sonic, because they didn't want absurd power-leveling like this.

the games have stupid feats as well