In society, superheroes don’t abide by the normal rules. They’re aliens, mutants, robots or just really rich dudes in suits. They all have different powers that barely make sense, ranging from enhanced flight, strength, energy projection or just about anything else you can imagine. I have, however, been able to keep up. I’ve never been a massive fan, but I’m somewhere between the level of a mom who was forced to watch all the movies and a dude whose basement is full of comics he’s never going to open.

I know who is who, what they can do, if they died and if they came back to life (this happens a lot and it is enough for five extra rants). Someone I have never been able to keep up with, though, is the Flash.

For fans of the show, I have never seen it, so there won’t be any spoilers for that. I’ll be focusing on comic stories and the ridiculous stuff that happens in them. To start off, The Flash’s power is super speed. That term by itself doesn’t mean anything because it is relative. To make matters even more confusing, there are multiple Flashes operating at the same time. They’ll appear throughout this rant to help make me even angrier.

The speedsters are all able to run so fast because of something called the “speed force.” It’s a force that keeps time and dimensions continuing forward and has existed throughout time. It grants super speed to those who can use it (the speedsters) and a wide array of other powers, including an aura that protects the speedster’s body from harm while running. However, it was created by Barry Allen, the second Flash. Although he was the Flash in the 20th century, when he hit a certain speed, he created the force that drives the universe, sending it across every time and dimension.

This is my least favorite thing to ever exist. It existed before it was created. There was also a Flash before Allen, who couldn’t access the speed force and couldn’t even run as fast as the speed of sound. However, once the speed force was created in the 19th century, he could run 20 times that speed.

The Flash can run so fast that he can outrun Death itself. This prompted DC to make another speedster, The Black Flash. He’s literally the Grim Reaper, but a speedster, and appears whenever it’s their time to pass on. In one instance of the comics, Wally West, the third Flash, races The Black Flash to the end of existence, where death doesn’t have meaning. Because of this, The Black Flash disappears and Wally just doesn’t die.

The speed force is really what bothers me about the Flash’s powers. It’s aware of universal laws and picks and chooses when to abide by them. The most dramatic use of the speed force is when Barry Allen soft reboots every universe ever.

Allen’s mother is killed in the comics, in just every iteration of the Flash, this is constant and doesn’t change. When Allen does try and change this, he creates a parallel dimension. Before the said dimension is destroyed, Allen merges it with the current timeline, which slightly changes everything. Most heroes stayed the same, but had their origins re-done. This comic was made to explain DC starting The New 52 comic line, which was a restart of the comics to provide a definitive beginning and to rewrite the characters into comprehensible figures. I respect this decision, but for them to explain their actions as “the Flash ran TOO fast,” is something that I will never forgive them for.

The speed force is also a separate dimension that speedsters can get to. They don’t really age there, so they are constantly in and out of our universe, never really aging. This is what allows there to pretty much be four Flashes at all times (not including the Black Flash or Zoom who is just the Flash, but evil). The speed force can also be completely absorbed by an individual, which usually makes them unstable with power and weakens everyone else who uses it.

Other absolutely insane examples of his powers include running 2336 times the speed of light. In this race, he beat someone who instantly teleported to the finish line. Science doesn’t have a unit that fast; I looked for an hour. That speed allows him to do ridiculous things like physically carry over half a million people, INDIVIDUALLY, 35 miles away to avoid the destruction of a nuclear bomb that had already been detonated. The timing on that one is only a measly .00001 microseconds. The Flash’s speed allows him to theoretically be omnipresent, but does he use these powers to be God? Nope! He uses a bunch of other powers that don’t make much sense.

One example is crafting physical, material objects out of the speed force’s power by making a new suit for himself. He can lend and steal speed from anything and anyone he wants. He steals so much speed from one of his villains that it turns said villain into a sentient statue for all of eternity. Then, the Flash keeps him in his personal museum forever. The Flash can also turn invisible in two separate ways: the traditional way of running so fast we can’t see him or by vibrating his molecules to a frequency we can’t see.

There are so many more awful examples of these powers, and you could go try and understand or do the research yourself, but good luck. After researching the Flash for a day to write this rant, I hate the Flash now, and you can quote me on that.