Who is faster: Superman or the Flash?

It’s a question as old as comic books themselves, and the subject of intense fan speculation. Heck, it even comes up in the comics all the time, with the two characters having race after race after race. These characters are not blind to their own selfish boasts.

Place your bets

The competition has been disputed in several different TV versions of the heroes, and was also featured randomly in an episode of Lost. Clearly there is some debate on the issue. So in the interest of writing a geeky blog, I thought I would weigh in. And I’m really curious to hear your answers.

Click the jump to find out who I think is faster!

No doubt in my mind

The Flash is faster.

They don’t called him ‘The Fastest Man Alive’ for nothing.

There have been many instances both in the comics and in other media where the speed of these two heroes is debated. For the sake of having fun, we’re going to look at some of those examples. But I’m not basing my decision on a factual analysis of the evidence. No way! Where’s the fun in that? I have a few of my own theories about the characters and their speed that I’ll share with you. First though, let’s look at some of the examples.

According to the website Flash: Those Who Ride the Lightning, Superman and the Flash have raced a number of times in the comics. Keep in mind, there have been several different speedsters who call themselves ‘The Flash’, and only one Superman. But quite frankly, whether the Flash is Barry Allen or Wally West or Bart Allen, they all get their speed from the same place, and they’re all essentially the same character. So we’re just going to go with the general ‘Flash’ moniker for all of them.

Who knew super speed was hereditary?

So anyway, according to that website, most of the races ended in either a tie or some other wild event that stopped our heroes in their tracks. Because these are superhero comics, and a lot of the races took place back in the Silver Age, there was no way a comic book would just be about a foot race. There were always super-villains interfering, or aliens, or whatever the hell else might come up. And it was probably in everyone’s benefit to not have a clear winner so that they could always publish more races. Plus since the races were usually a charity event to raise money for some worthy cause, Superman and Flash were never actually riding into the Danger Zone with their speed, so to speak.

So the comic books, especially the older comic books, are not very reliable in determining who is fastest.

Except for the most recent race in Flash: Rebirth #3 in 2009. Popular Flash and Green Lantern writer Geoff Johns brought Barry Allen back from the dead and gave him a new profile as the one and only Flash. The story involves Barry being possessed by the spirit of death, with the Justice League trying to help him shake the oogie boogies in order to return to the land of the living. But Barry doesn’t want their help, he wants to just succumb and save everyone the trouble. So he flees, and Superman tries to keep up with him to help him.

Flash then lays down the speed law.

The Flash has a Masters in Speed Law

I think that’s pretty definitive when it comes to the comic books.

So how about television? There haven’t been any Flash vs. Superman movies, so we can’t turn to Hollywood. But the two characters have raced at least twice on television. Unfortunately, neither time was during the Flash’s awesome live action TV show from the 90s. Talk about a missed opportunity.

First we have the episode ‘Speed Demons’ from Superman: The Animated Series in 1997. Basically Superman and the Flash are running for charity again, and this race is interrupted by the Weather Wizard. Typical stuff. But the episode never provides a definitive answer to the question. Once they team up and stop Weather Wizard, the two heroes joke about the fact that they never finished the race. So the episode ends with them at the starting line again, leaving the outcome unknown. Chump show.

Next we have the episode ‘Run’ from Smallville in 2004. I was a huge Smallville fan at the time, and the Flash’s first guest appearance is probably my favorite episode of that show. The Flash was the first super-powered youth that Clark Kent ever met who wasn’t a super-villain and wasn’t created by the Meteor Rocks that gave most of the villains their powers. The Flash opened Clark’s eyes to the rest of the world, and their friendship in that episode was simply delightful. The two are pretty evenly matched in terms of speed throughout the episode – until the very end, when the Flash says goodbye.

So there you have it, according to Smallville the Flash is much, much faster than Superman.

But would you like a dissenting opinion? Let’s check in with the castaways on Lost, where Charlie and Hurley debate this very subject while traipsing.

Charlie raises some good points. Would Superman be faster because he can fly at super speed instead?

But all of the other evidence so far points to the Flash being faster than Superman, both in the comics and in at least his Smallville appearance. So why do I automatically think the Flash is faster? My theory all comes down to the actual origin and nature of each hero’s super-powers. Let me lay some comic book truth on you all:

Superman’s powers are finite. The Flash’s speed is infinite.

Allow me to explain. And let’s start with Superman. As we all know, Superman is the last survivor of the dying planet Krypton, who crashed to Earth and found that he had super-powers. Superman has super-speed, super-strength, flight, ice breath, heat vision, invulnerability and a dozen other powers. But the thing about Superman is that, unlike most other superheroes, his biology was never changed in any way to give him super powers. Superman is a normal, ordinary Kryptonian. His powers come from the fact that Krypton had a red sun, and Earth has a yellow sun. The difference in solar radiation has somehow super-charged Superman’s body and taken his normal, physical attributes to extreme levels.

Think about it, almost all of Superman’s powers are just normal everyday human functions.

Well, except for that one time...

We are all strong, we can all run, we all blow on things to make them cooler and our skin is, to an extent, hard to break. There are some predatory birds that have telescopic vision, so Superman’s own telescopic vision, his x-ray vision, his microscopic vision can all be explained as simply normal attributes of the eyeball raised to the extreme. The only two powers I can’t really explain with this theory are flight and heat vision. But then back in the very beginning, Superman couldn’t fly. When he was first created, he could only jump really high with his powerful legs.

Hence the phrase, “Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.”

Superman gained the ability to fly due to a later television show, which found it easier to make it look like Superman could fly instead of just jumping really high. Flight has stuck around ever since.

And who knows how to explain heat vision. Eyeballs can do that, maybe?

But my theory is that Superman is just a normal guy whose basic physical attributes have been pushed to super-human levels by the yellow sun. That’s why his powers are finite. That’s why he’ll strain when he has to catch a giant airplane, or why he can bleed when he faces an opponent stronger than himself, like Doomsday. If Superman’s powers were infinite, he would never have to strain to do anything. And he’d never get hurt.

He got better

Now let’s look at the Flash. Barry Allen, and Wally West for that matter, were both doused in chemicals that were struck by lightning. That’s how they got their super speed. And for a long time, that was it. But then in the 90s, DC introduced something called The Speed Force, basically an interdimensional zone from which almost all speedsters get their powers. The Speed Force controls motion, and allows for the Flash to run at speeds exceeding the speed of light. If he goes too fast, he’ll merge with the Speed Force, but he can always come back out of it eventually.  So using the Speed Force, this extra special speedster thingy, the Flash can run as fast as he needs to run. There’s no stopping him. There’s no limit.

The Flash can run at infinite speed.

And that’s why he’s the fastest man alive!

Relatively speaking