How did The Flash get his powers? All of the best superheroes need a dramatic and explosive origin story. Barry Allen, aka The Flash, is no different. And though we didn’t get to see his backstory in Justice League, we learned all about it in his solo movie.
The DC Universe is on the verge of a complete rethink courtesy of James Gunn, but before that, we had The Flash release date. It’s one of the best new movies in the DC canon for a while, as we explained in our The Flash review, even if it is a flawed and messy proposition. There’s only so much time travel in The Flash we can take.
But we also got some Barry back-story as we found out how one of the best DC characters got his array of speedy special abilities. So how did The Flash get his powers?
How did the Flash get his powers in the DC movies?
The Flash gets his powers when lightning strikes a cabinet of unspecified chemicals in his forensic laboratory, drenching him in electrically-charged liquids.
In the first act of The Flash, Barry Allen travels back in time to save his mother and ends up deposited by the house of his younger self on the night of the storm that gave him his powers. It’s then we learn that Barry was working in a forensics laboratory during a storm when lightning struck a cabinet of chemicals, covering him in them.
When he woke up, he had the ability to run very fast indeed. In fact, we’ve worked out exactly how speedy he is. So check out our guides to ‘How fast is The Flash?‘ and ‘Is the Flash faster than Superman?‘.
Unfortunately for Barry, it all goes a bit wrong in the alternative timeline. His goofy younger self ends up getting Flash powers, while Barry’s are taken away from him. Oops! To find out how it all plays out, we’ve got a guide to The Flash ending explained.
If you can’t get enough of the DC movies, find out where The Flash takes place in the DC timeline and find out what happened when we ate The The Flash’s sandwich and went for a run. Did we end up with super-speed? OK, no we didn’t.
As for the future, we’ve got a complete guide to the best movies coming as part of Chapter 1 Gods and Monsters, as well as detailed information on the Superman Legacy release date, the Swamp Thing release date, and The Brave and the Bold release date.