For over 85 years, the Flash has been one of the most powerful superheroes in DC Comics. With his connection to the source of all motion in the multiverse known as the Speed Force, the Flash can run fast enough to break the laws of time, space, and reality. Over the years, many heroes have taken up the Flash mantle, including Jay Garrick, Barry Allen, and Wally West. And every time a new Scarlet Speedster emerges, supervillains arise to oppose them. Although many adversaries of the Flash are campy and street-level crooks, some are near all-powerful villains who can rival and even surpass the hero’s abilities. From hyper-intelligent apes to rival speedsters, these are the strongest enemies of the Flash Family.
Videos by ComicBook.com
The Flash faces villains who threaten not only Central City but the entire planet and beyond.
10) Weather Wizard
The supervillain team, the Rogues, contain some of the Flash’s most persistent adversaries, and Mark Mardon, aka Weather Wizard, is easily its strongest member. Mark was a career criminal who stole from his dead brother a wand that allows the user to control the weather. With a thought, Weather Wizard can generate powerful lightning bolts, tornadoes, blizzards, heat waves, and typhoons. With these powers, Weather Wizard has pulled off some incredible and creative feats, including evaporating a city-wide flood, destroying a skyscraper with a lightning bolt, generating a tornado inside a person’s body, and nearly crushing a city with a giant glacier. If he weren’t idiotically so focused on robbing banks, Weather Wizard could potentially threaten the Earth’s entire ecosystem.
9) Gorilla Grodd
Hailing from a hidden city of intelligent apes, Gorilla Grodd uses his brains and brawn in his never-ending quest to kill the Flash and exterminate humanity. On top of possessing enough strength to level a building, Grodd is one of the most powerful telepaths on Earth, as his telepathic abilities can even match those of Martian Manhunter. Grodd is also a genius inventor and strategist who can develop deadly weapons and outsmart his opponents. Grodd has used his telepathy to make crowds of people kill each other, mentally torture the Flash, and has bent Vixen, Supergirl, and Superman to his will. Even worse, by eating the brains of his victims, Grodd can absorb their knowledge and abilities to become smarter and stronger.
8) Savitar
The self-proclaimed “God of Speed,” the cult-leader Savitar, is an expert on the Speed Force. Once a pilot during the Cold War, Savitar became a conduit for the Speed Force when he was struck by lightning. Like all Speed Force users, Savitar can run faster than light. With his immense speed, Savitar has effortlessly defeated most of the Flash Family single-handedly. His mastery over the Speed Force also grants him additional abilities like creating force fields, granting other people super speed, generating massive lightning storms, and stealing the speed from other people to make himself even faster. Savitar was a villain so dangerous that it took the entire Flash Family to stop him.
7) Godspeed
Ranked as the eighth fastest being in the DC Universe, August Heart, aka Godspeed, is a ruthless vigilante who has killed numerous speedsters. Originally a well-meaning detective, August became a speedster after being struck by lightning from a Speed Force Storm. To become Central City’s greatest protector, Godspeed began killing speedsters to absorb their power. By the end of his massacre, Godspeed became a villain so fast that he could run circles around Barry Allen and defeat other members of the Flash Family, like Avery Ho and Wallace West. Godspeed can move so fast that he can literally be in two places at once. With all this power, Godspeed became a terrifying vigilante who has slaughtered countless criminals.
6) Abra Kadabra
He may not be a real wizard, but Abra Kadabra’s reality-warping futuristic technology still makes him a significant threat to the Flash Family. Hailing from the 64th century, Abra Kadabra travelled back in time to commit crimes with the help of gadgets so advanced that they’re indistinguishable from magic. With his technology, Abra Kadabra is capable of transmutation, mind control, time manipulation, conjuration, teleportation, and force fields. Some of Abra Kadabra’s most impressive feats include turning a bunch of people into a sidewalk, transmuting Superman into a puppet, making the Flash rapidly age, and manifesting dozens of giant monsters under his control.
5) Zoom
The arch-nemesis of Wally West, Hunter Zolomon, aka Zoom, was the Reverse-Flash of a new generation. After being caught in the explosion of a time machine, Zoom developed the unique ability to accelerate his personal timeline, creating the illusion of super speed. Zoom’s ability to manipulate time allows him to move faster than light effortlessly. He can also generate city-shaking shockwaves with the snap of his fingers, create giant fissures in the Earth with a shout, and punch Wonder Woman from Boston to France. And after Wally broke the Force Barrier, Zoom became a conduit for the Speed, Sage, Strength, and Still Forces. These connections allow him to boost his speed, manipulate minds, increase his strength, and negate energy.
4) The Fraction
An interdimensional raiding empire, the Fraction weaponizes the Speed Force to plunder planets in the blink of an eye. Travelling across the multiverse, the Fraction possesses massive starships and legions of heavily armed soldiers. With their advanced technology, the Fraction freezes planets in time, leaving the inhabitants helpless while all their resources are stolen. Once the Fraction is done draining a planet of all its resources and Speed Force energy, the planet is reduced to a lifeless wasteland. Just one of their ships landing on Earth eradicated Central City. The Fraction also has ruthless warriors like Vel Anthro and Miss Murder, who can move as fast as the Flash. Only the combined might of the Flash Family could stop this speedster army.
3) Black Flash
Death comes for everyone, even the Flash. A terrifying physical embodiment of death itself, the Black Flash is a creature tasked with collecting the souls of Speed Force users. Like an unrelenting predator, the Black Flash doesn’t get tired and won’t stop until it tracks down and kills its target. This relentless speedster can kill with a single touch and can regenerate from any damage, including complete erasure from reality. And as a grim reaper tied directly to the infinite pool of energy that is the Speed Force, the Black Flash can effortlessly overpower the entire Flash Family and traverse all of time and space in an instant. The Black Flash is more than just a supervillain; it’s a near-unstoppable force of nature.
2) Paradox
During a battle between the Flash and the Turtle, a scientist named Chris was accidentally caught in the crossfire and banished to a realm outside of space and time. The realm mutated Chris into a gigantic, cosmic villain named Paradox, who swore to destroy the Flash and his legacy. By travelling through time and creating paradoxes, he can absorb residual energy to grow stronger. Paradox possesses potent abilities like super strength, cosmic awareness, a disintegrative touch, electrokinesis, time and dimensional travel, size manipulation, telepathy, and reality warping. With his immense power, Paradox has killed numerous versions of the Flash across history. And when he killed a younger version of himself, Paradox released enough energy to annihilate the entire timestream.
1) Reverse-Flash
Eobard Thawne, aka the Reverse-Flash, is the greatest and most powerful Flash villain of all time. Once an avid Flash fanboy from the 25th century, Thawne went back in time to meet his hero. Upon discovering that he was destined to become Barry’s nemesis, the shock drove him mad. As the Reverse-Flash, Thawne is an expert in both the Speed Force and time travel, which he implements to deadly effect. He can atomize people, age them decades in seconds, possess them, and even erase them from history. And after the events of Flashpoint, Reverse-Flash became a living paradox removed from causation, who can manipulate the timeline freely and who has effectively become immortal. Reverse-Flash killed Paradox and can generate enough energy to counteract the destruction of the universe.
What do you think? Leave a Comment below and join the conversation in the ComicBook Forum!
Most Viewed
-
Image Courtesy of MAPPA -
Image Courtesy of A-1 Pictures
