How fast is The Flash? Listen, we all know that when it comes to moving quickly, The Flash, aka Barry Allen, is pretty much at the top of the rankings, but how fast is Central City’s Scarlet Speedster?
Well, with the DCU as we know it about to end and The Flash release date finally upon us (check out our Flash review here), we thought we’d take our vast knowledge of comic books, DC characters, and superhero movies to calculate precisely how fast old Barry Allen can move when he starts running. So how fast is The Flash?
How fast is The Flash?
In the DCU, we’ve seen The Flash is capable of running faster than the speed of light (that’s how he reversed time in Justice League). That means the Scarlet Speedster can move at speeds above 670,616,629 miles per hour, which is around 186,000 miles in a single second.
To put that into perspective, the Flash could take a leisurely jog across the continental United States, which is 2,802 miles wide, in less than one second. In fact, Barry could get around the globe seven and a half times in the time it took you to read this sentence.
The Flash’s uppermost speeds are theoretically limitless in the comics as he is connected to the Speed Force, a multidimensional energy source that grants all speedsters their powers. No top speed has ever been given for The Flash in DC Comics. Still, in an issue of Supergirl, Barry claimed he was fast enough to personally evacuate the entire population of Tokyo, 13.5 million people, in 30 seconds, meaning he moves at mind-boggling velocities.
Fun fact, though, as fast as he is, Barry’s not the fastest Flash. That particular title goes to Wally West, who, according to people who’ve read more Flash comics than me, once ran 8.93 sextillion miles per hour (8,930,000,000,000,000,000,000mph), which is ludicrously fast. How fast? Well, that’s 13 trillion times the speed of light. Honestly, maths and physics start to fail me at this point, as it’s so unbelievably quick I can’t even begin to put it into context.
So how does Wally compare with other speedy things from across TV and film? Well, the USS Enterprise traveling at maximum Warp is probably one of the fastest things in all of fiction.
At its top speed, the Enterprise goes 14,400,151,000,000mph, which is about 21,473 times faster than the speed of light. I think we can all agree that’s not exactly slow. Still, it would take the Enterprise roughly one hundred and six quintillion years to travel across our observable universe, which is 94 Billion light-years wide.
Wally, meanwhile, could run that distance (according to our potentially wonky calculations) in about two hours. Yeah, he’s really that fast. How does Wally compare to other speedy boys? Well, in a foot race, he’s got Sonic beat. Sonic, at his fastest, can run at the speed of light, but he can’t sustain that for long, so even Barry’s version of The Flash could teach him a thing or two about running.
Who knows, though, maybe when we finally see Barry in The Flash, he’ll hit speeds beyond even Wally. We know that he’ll be traveling the multiverse and potentially resetting things so James Gunn can begin his new DCU.
Chapter One: Gods and Monsters is expected to reboot everything, and we’ll be getting new versions of all our favorite superheroes. If you want to know more about that, check out our guides breaking down everything you need to know about the Superman: Legacy release date, The Brave and the Bold release date, and the Swamp Thing release date.
If you’re just here to learn about The FLash, though, then you’re in luck. We’ve got a list of every actor in The Flash cast, we’ve got a full breakdown of the movie’s villain General Zod, and we’ve also worked out if The Flash is faster than Superman.
If you’ve gotten lost and need help finding your way back home, then give our article listing the best movies ever made a read, or perhaps you’re looking for a list of all the new movies coming in 2023. Don’t worry. We’ve got you covered.