All 11 Versions Of The Flash To Appear In The Arrowverse - Screen Rant

Over the past decade, The Arrowverse has featured 11 different people who called themselves The Flash. That's a lot of competition for the title of "The Fastest Man Alive," even ignoring the fact that one of the people to call themselves The Flash is a woman.

The Flash has a long history with alternate realities and alternate selves in the comics. The concept of the DC Comics multiverse was first introduced in The Flash #123 in a story titled "Flash of Two Worlds." The story found Barry Allen running into the reality of Jay Garrick; another superhero called The Flash, who was a fictional character in Barry Allen's world and served as the inspiration for his superhero codename.

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The two speedster scientists dubbed their respective worlds Earth-1 and Earth-2, starting a regular tradition of the Flashes and their allies teaming-up to face various threats to both their realities. This culminated in the mother of all crossovers, Crisis On Infinite Earths, and a single universe where the survivors of the great Crisis came to settle together. The Arrowverse has paid tribute to this history, reenacting these events over the course of six seasons of The Flash, even as they introduced even more alternate versions of The Flash.

Barry Allen - The Flash of Earth-1/Earth-Prime

The Flash Barry Allen Season 1 Poster Cropped

The main protagonist of the Arrowverse's The Flash series, Barry Allen has proven himself time and again to be one of the greatest heroes in the multiverse. While he has occasionally caused as much damage as the villains he combats, he has a good heart and was rightly named as the Paragon of Love when joining six other heroes of legend in defending all reality during the Crisis On Infinite Earths. Despite being separated from the love of his life and slowly losing his powers following the death of the Speed Force heading into The Flash Season 7, Barry Allen will never stop working to lend a helping hand where he can.

Hunter Zolomon - The Phony Flash of Earth-2

Hunter Zolmon as Fake Jay Garrick in The Flash Season 2

Season 2 of The Flash introduced a man who called himself Jay Garrick and claimed to be The Flash of an alternate reality dubbed Earth-2. "Garrick" acted as a mentor to the Barry Allen of Earth-1, teaching him new applications of his powers, like throwing lightning bolts. This was ultimately revealed to be part of a sick ruse and Garrick was unveiled as Hunter "Zoom" Zolomon; a serial killer turned speedster who played at being his own arch-enemy, so as to take away any sense of hope the people of Earth-2 had by seeing their greatest hero humiliated by a superior villain. Zoom was ultimately defeated when Barry Allen copied another one of Zoom's tricks and used the death of his time remnant to attract the Time Wraiths that preyed on speedsters who violated the laws of causality with their actions. Zoom was ultimately transformed into the Black Flash; an avatar of Death in the service of the Speed Force, who hunted down rogue time remnants like the many alternate versions of the Reverse Flash.

Jay Garrick - The Flash of Earth-3

The Season 2 finale of The Flash revealed that while Hunter Zolomon was a fraud, there was a Flash called Jay Garrick and he was ever bit as noble as Zoom was depraved. Garrick was The Flash of Earth-3 and, curiously, a doppelganger of Barry Allen's father, Dr. Henry Allen. Jay would continue to mentor the Barry Allen of Earth-1 before retiring from heroism to focus on his work as a scientist. He later married a neurologist named Joan Williams, who was a doppelgänger of Barry's mother, Nora Allen. Jay and Joan were confirmed to still be alive somewhere on Earth-Prime following the events of Crisis On Infinite Earths by showrunner Eric Wallace, but it remains to be seen if they will appear in The Flash Season 7.

Wally West - The Flash of Flashpoint Earth

Wally West felt a need for speed long before he developed a connection to the Speed Force, racing cars in the Keystone City underground before going to college to study engineering. When the Barry Allen of Earth-1 went back in time and stopped Eobard Thawne from murdering his mother, the resulting timeline (later dubbed Flashpoint) saw Wally West become The Flash instead of Barry. Wally would later regain his speed in the reset timeline and become known as Kid Flash, ultimately leaving Central City to find his own path outside of Barry's shadow. After traveling with the Legends of Tomorrow for a time, Wally joined the Peace Corps and began studying Zen philosophy; a practice which led him hone his fine control of the Speed Force to new heights and to commune with the intelligence behind the Speed Force directly while meditating.

The Unnamed Flash of Earth-19

Tom Cavanagh as HR Wells The Flash Season 3

Season 3 of The Flash saw the scientists of STAR Labs assisted by H.R. Wells; the Harrison Wells of Earth-19. Unlike most of Wells' doppelgangers, H.R. was a self-described "idea man" who acted as the face of Earth-19's STAR Labs while his business partner made his ideas a reality. Despite his confession of being a poor scientist, H.R. claimed (in the episode "Monster") to have played a major part in helping his Earth's version of The Flash with a plan to capture every metahuman criminal on their world in one fell swoop. Nothing else was said about Earth-19's Flash, his secret identity or if he was a doppelganger of one of the other Flashes, but it's possible that he may have gone by the codename The Accelerated Man rather than The Flash. The Accelerated Man later appeared in a brief cameo in the episode "Attack On Central City."

Iris West-Allen - The Substitute Flash of Earth-1

The Flash Iris West In Costume Candice Patton Run Iris Run

Iris West-Allen briefly replaced her husband as The Flash, following an accidental encounter with a metahuman named Matthew Kim in The Flash Season 4 episode "Run, Iris, Run." Kim was a heroic medic who mistakenly thought he had the power to take away the abilities of other metahumans, when he truly had the power to rewrite the DNA of those he touched. This caused him to accidentally take away Barry's speed and give it to Iris after the two confronted him following his attempt to stop a pyrokinetic bank robber. Kim later corrected his mistake and Iris was restored to normal, though the legend of a speedster with purple lightning still survived to merit a mention in The Flash Museum decades later.

Oliver Queen - The Flash of Elseworlds' Earth

The Arrowverse crossover event Elseworlds found the reality of Earth-1 turned topsy-turvy, thanks to a madman named Dr. John Deegan and an artifact called the Book of Destiny. Deegan's efforts to rewrite reality resulted in Barry Allen and Oliver Queen trading places, so that Oliver Queen was now The Flash and Barry Allen was Green Arrow. Things were eventually restored to normal with the help of their Super friends from Earth-38, but for a brief time Oliver Queen was the Fastest Man Alive.

Barry Allen - The Flash of Earth-90

Elseworlds John Wesley Shipp The Flash Earth-90 A Crisis Is Coming

Elseworlds also revealed the existence of another version of Barry Allen; one from a world designated as Earth-90. This version of The Flash, played by John Wesley Shipp, was later confirmed to be the same Flash who starred in his own show on CBS in 1990. He disappeared in the second chapter of Elseworlds after appearing to deliver a warning regarding the Book of Destiny, but returned at the height of Crisis On Infinite Earths to sacrifice himself in place of Earth-1's Barry Allen and destroy the Anti-Monitor's antimatter cannon; a feat he accomplished after displaying the unique ability to temporarily steal the Speed Force energy of another speedster to empower himself.

Tanaka Rei - The Flash of Earth-D

The Crisis On Infinite Earths event inspired two comic book tie-ins, both co-written by Marv Wolfman, who wrote the original Crisis On Infinite Earths series for DC Comics. Wolfman couldn't help but throw in a nod to one of his original creations, as he showcased the battle to save reality on several worlds that couldn't be fit into the television event. One of these worlds was Earth-D; a world based around Wolfman's suggestion that the post-Crisis DC Universe be made more ethnically diverse, with a black Superman and a Latinx Green Lantern. The comic featured an appearance by Tanaka Rei, the Japanese-American Flash of Earth-D, along with the other members of that world's Justice Alliance.

The Flash of Earth-N52

Another version of The Flash made a brief appearance in the Crisis On Infinite Earths comic tie-ins. This one was part of the Justice League of a world designated as Earth-N52, which Pariah briefly traveled to just before it was destroyed by the Anti-Monitor. Presumably this Earth was a take on the New 52 Prime Earth of DC Comics' comic book multiverse, but it didn't last long enough for much information about it or its version of The Flash to be revealed.

Barry Allen - The Flash of the DCEU Earth

Flash-Arrowverse-DCEU-Crisis-On-Infinite-Earths

As The Flash of Earth-1 searched time and space for the rest of the Paragons in "Crisis On Infinite Earths: Part 4," he had a strange encounter while inside the Speed Force. He met another version of Barry Allen in a slightly different version of his costume; one who had no idea where he was and hadn't started using the name of The Flash. The brief scene where The Flash of the Arrowverse and The Flash of the DCEU officially met was one of Crisis On Infinite Earths' most well-received Easter eggs and has been hinted at having a tie-in to the upcoming Flashpoint movie. starring Ezra Miller as the Scarlet Speedster.

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Matt Morrison (1314 Articles Published)

Matt Morrison has been writing about comics since before the word "blogging" was coined. He got his start writing for the legendary DC Comics digital fanzine Fanzing, before receiving his own column, The Mount. Since then he has gone on to write for over a dozen websites, including 411 Mania, Comics Nexus and The Cult of Nobody. He holds both an MS in Information Science from the University of North Texas and a BFA from the University of Texas at Arlington. Known as a font of comic book history trivia, he has delivered lectures on the history of American Comic Books, Japanese Manga and Cosplay at over a dozen conventions and served as an Expert In-Residence for a course on Graphic Novels for Librarians at the University of North Texas. In addition to his work for Screen Rant, Matt is currently the Managing Editor of Kabooooom.com, the house critic of Explore The Multiverse and writes reviews for No Flying, No Tights – a graphic literature and anime review site aimed at teachers and librarians. He also maintains a personal blog – My Geeky Geeky Ways – which hosts his extensive episode guide for the television series making up The Arrowverse as well as his comedic Let’s Play videos. What little spare time he has is devoted towards acting, role-playing, movie-riffing and sarcasm. You can follow his adventures on Twitter, @GeekyGeekyWays.