When it comes to the Arrowverse, Barry Allen’s Flash is one of the most powerful superheroes of all time. Thanks to his unique connection to the Speed Force, Barry Allen possesses a wide array of powers and abilities as the protector of Central City. As such, he’s had more than a few incredible moments where his powers were on full display.
Premiering in 2014 and ending in 2023, The Flash on the CW ran for nine total seasons. As such, viewers spent almost a decade watching Barry Allen grow and develop in his powers as the Scarlet Speedster, protecting his city while also helping save the world and greater multiverse on more than one occasion alongside his fellow heroes in the connected Arrowverse of DC shows. To that end, here are just 10 of the Flash’s most impressive displays of power in the Arrowverse across the entirety of his recently concluded series.
11 Flash Prevented A Tsunami Using Time-Travel
Barry Allen’s powers as the Flash include far more than just running fast. To that end, the first season of The Flash saw Barry running back and forth to create a massive wall of wind to keep a tsunami from flooding Central City created by the Weather Wizard. While this impressive tactic likely would have worked, Barry ran so fast that he inadvertently traveled back in time one day, allowing him to alter events and have the Rogue arrested before the tsunami ever happened in the first place. It was one of Barry’s first experiences with the unpredictable nature of time travel.
10 Flash Can Throw Lightning While Standing Still
Like most speedsters in the Arrowverse, Barry Allen can generate enough speed to charge up and hurl lightning bolts at his foes. As such, it quickly became a frequent tactic in his repertoire against a variety of different criminals. However, Barry eventually got so fast that he became one of the few speedsters who could actually generate lightning bolts while standing still.
9 The Flash Created (And Reversed) Flashpoint
In the third season of The Flash, Barry followed the original DC Comics and tried to save his mother from being murdered by the Reverse-Flash in the past. This resulted in an altered timeline known as Flashpoint that put his friends and loved ones in danger, resulting in his eventual decision to try and restore the original timeline. While things were nearly set right, some elements permanently changed which Barry couldn’t fix resulting in a series of consequences he and his team had to deal with for the rest of the season. Nevertheless, changing the whole of reality more than once is a massive display of power.
8 Barry Allen Can Use Flashtime (Nearly Speed of Light)
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The Flash Season 4 debuted the emergence of Flashtime, a state of intense speed very close to the speed of light itself. Upon entering Flashtime, time slows down relative to Barry, making it appear as if everything and everyone else is frozen at a standstill. Although this ability depletes speedsters much faster than maintaining typical speeds and can threaten to take away their speed permanently if within it for too long, it’s obviously a very advantageous power The Flash has used on more than one occasion, albeit in brief bursts.
6 The Flash Can Share His Speed Force Connection
Thanks to Flashtime, Barry Allen soon discovered that he could temporarily share his Speed Force connection with his allies such as Cisco Ramon and Caitlin Snow. Although the danger of Flashtime is that it can kill non-speedsters who are within it for too long, Barry trained Cisco and Caitlin to use the Speed Force effectively during their battle with The Thinker. As such, The Flash’s ability to share his power even momentarily is quite the dynamic display of power in and of itself.
5 The Flash Escapes A Black Hole
Serving as one of the most impressive displays of his power, The Flash season 6 premiere saw Barry entering a black hole with the Speed Force protecting him from the crushing gravity and lack of atmosphere. Not only that, but the Flash was able to escape the pull of the black hole and close it, meaning that he must have been running close to the speed of light. Combined with the debut of a new suit and Cisco finally playing Queen’s Flash Gordon theme, it was certainly one of the most visually stunning feats in the Arrowverse show.
4 The Flash Has Impressive Speed-Thinking (But There’s A Cost)
In The Flash season 7, Barry makes use of an artificial Speed Force which grants him the power of “speed-thinking”. This allowed Barry to rapidly calculate thousands of variables and scenarios with more than enough time to pick and choose the most desirable outcomes. While this was very impressive and made Flash even more powerful than he already was, it came at the cost of his emotion where he was solely relying on logic to a very dangerous degree, even putting his allies in harm’s way.
3 The Flash Saves Passengers On Two Bullet Trains
In The Flash season 8, two bullet trains were in danger of colliding with each other. However, Barry casually leaves his coffee date to save all the passengers on both trains within 12 seconds before they crash into each other and explode. Considering the incredible lack of effort it took, this display of Barry’s power is an excellent marker of how powerful and faster he became over time in the Arrowverse.
2 The Flash Can Run On Lightning
While pursuing Deathstrom in The Flash season 8, Barry Allen decides to “Ride the Lightning“, a reference to the Metallica song of the same name which of course starts to play, rivaling the Flash Gordon homage. With Deathstorm having flown into the air, Flash begins throwing lightning bolts ahead of him before skipping across each one as he ascends and runs into the sky, closing the distance between himself and the new DC foe. It’s an absolutely wild and ridiculously fun display of the Flash’s power explained by his new boots and their ability to redirect most energy sources (like the kinetic lightning produced when he runs).
1 The Flash Is So Fast He Can Freeze Reverse-Flash In Time
Undoubtedly, one of the best displays of The Flash’s power is representative of his growth across the series seen in The Flash season 7. Facing the Reverse-Flash once more, Barry was able to enter a heightened version of Flashtime, putting Eobard Thawne himself at a standstill as Barry had become even faster than his greatest foe, despite having played a major hand in training Barry. As such, it’s unequivocally proof that The Flash had certainly become the Arrowverse’s Fastest Man Alive.
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