The Need for Speed Force

Season 2, Ep. 21:The Runaway DinosaurIt surrounds us, penetrates us. It binds the universe together. And sometimes, it steals a page from Deep Space Nine and talks to you as your memories. No, not THE Force, but rather…The Speed Force. The fundamental force that empowers all the Speedsters in the DCU. And like many things in the canon of comic-bookdom, its history is COMPLICATED. But being the Flash-fan that I am, I thought I’d give you all a smidge of this wacky power of the universe.

As explained by DCU’s Max Mercury (still waiting for him to appear on the show!), “When [Allen runs, he generates] the kinetic wall between the present and the time barrier. It’s an electrical energy that exists in every dimension, every universe, and every era. It touches every part of reality. It contains the knowledge of every place and time.” What’s all the more interesting is the fact that when Barry created the Speed-Force (when he first became the Flash), it reached out from him to all points in time…past, present, and future. So wrap your brains around this! Even tho’ the Jay Garrick Flash was born decades before Barry, he was empowered by Barry’s creation in the future!Several Speedsters have spent time in the Speed Force. It’s much less defined what it’s like in there, in the comics. But traveling through it is how Speedsters are able to move through time…because it’s connected to all points in time! In fact, when Zoom and Reverse-Flash teamed up to utterly destroy Wally West’s life, the long-thought-deceased Barry Allen jumped out of the Speed Force to help him!

I’m sure entire scientific dissertations could be written on the whys and wherefores of this bizarre energy. How it works, what it can do…don’t let my glasses and white-streaked hair fool you. I’m no scientist. But consider this the briefest of explanations of the Speed Force. I anticipate I’ll elaborate on it further down the road…

-Joe