There’s No Way Barry Allen Is Really Dead In The Absolute Universe

DC’s growing Absolute Universe has focused upon a teenage Wally West as its version of The Flash, but contrary to the book’s seemingly tragic turn of events, there’s simply no way that Absolute DC has truly killed off Barry Allen. In the alternate, Darkseid-influenced reality of DC’s Absolute Universe, Wally West is the 15-year old son of a high-ranking military officer, Colonel West, with Wally finding a mentor in one of the base’s brilliant scientists, Dr. Barry Allen. When Wally gets a little too close to an experimental energy machine in Barry’s lab, he suddenly gains the power of super-speed, but his lack of control over it unfortunately results in Barry’s untimely demise.

That’s a horrifying end to Absolute DC’s version of Barry Allen right as he’s been introduced and before he’s even had the chance to become The Flash. Or, rather, it would have been if there were the slightest chance that Barry was truly dead. Fortunately, with the nature of both The Flash’s powers and comic book deaths themselves, it is clearly not a matter of “if” Barry Allen will be seen again in DC’s Absolute Universe, but most certainly of “when”.

Superheroes Never Stay Dead (Did Everyone Just Forget That?)

Barry Allen meets what would seem to be, on the surface, a pretty grim demise in Absolute Flash. After Wally wanders into the secret government lab Barry works in and is pulled into the energy machine hidden within, the efforts of Barry and Colonel West to pull Wally out only exacerbate the situation, with Wally gaining super-speed he doesn’t know how to control and managing to bolt of his captivity to a distant desert. Unfortunately, Barry gets pulled along with Wally, with Barry’s body terribly burned from the speed friction and Wally blaming himself for the death of the scientist he once looked up to.

There’s just two problems with Barry Allen’s apparent “death” in Absolute Flash, those being 1) it’s a comic book, and 2) both Barry Allen and Wally West are superheroes. Ever since The Death of Superman in the early ’90s, it’s become all but a rite of passage for every major superhero to die heroically and return to life triumphantly. There’s absolutely no reason to think that Barry’s death in Absolute Flash is any more permanent than any other superhero death before it — or, for that matter, the first death of Barry Allen.

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Barry Allen Has Returned From Death Before

Newer or younger comic book readers might experience a bit more shock at seeing Barry’s fried corpse with a Flash-like tech suit fused to it in Absolute Flash, but the Scarlet Speedster famously died before during one of DC’s most pivotal comic book stories, Crisis On Infinite Earths. In that story, Barry is one of many DC superheroes throughout the multiverse who must stop the Anti-Monitor’s multiverse-spanning rampage. Barry ultimately stops the Anti-Monitor’s attempt to wipe out Earth with an anti-matter weapon, but this comes at the cost of Barry overloading his body with energy, causing his death.

However, the connection Barry and all Speedsters have with the Speed Force proved to be his saving grace, with Barry’s spirit kept alive within the Speed Force after his apparent death. Though Wally West became DC’s mainline Flash for two decades after his uncle’s demise, Barry’s return was teased in DC Universe #0 before he made his proper return to life in Final Crisis #2 in 2008, just in time for Barry to headline DC’s Flashpoint storyline which subsequently led to the company wide New 52 reboot. All of that shows that not only is Barry Allen just as capable of returning from death as any other superhero, but his return often portends major DC universe changes or events coming with him.

How Barry Allen Could Be Introduced in Absolute DC

The fact that DC’s Absolute Universe is a newly created reality coupled with The Flash’s super-speed and powers of interdimensional travel opens an infinite number of ways in which Barry could return to life. However, Absolute DC could start his return off relatively simply with the fact that Barry’s “death” was directly linked to Wally gaining his super-speed. This event could easily be explained as granting Wally and Barry the very same powers in the same instance, with Barry’s apparently desiccated body instead being placed in a state of suspended animation with Barry’s cells gradually vibrating his body back to life and regenerating his burned flesh back to normal. In that scenario, it could easily be two Scarlet Speedsters for the price of one in Absolute Flash‘s origin tale.

Another possibility could be involve Barry experiencing a similar “death” as Batman did in Final Crisis, the Dark Knight seemingly dying after being hit with a Radion bullet by Darkseid, only for Batman to instead be projected into different eras of the past and having to slowly work his way back to the present. With the very sudden nature of Barry being taken for such a wild Speedster ride by Wally, he might have similarly been projected into a different location or time period, or even into the Speed Force itself, leaving behind a charred corpse with Barry having to his way back to his main timeline and location. In these and any other innumerable scenarios, it’s entirely plausible that Barry Allen has gained his super-speed and other powers with DC simply holding off his proper Absolute DC debut as The Flash until the right time. However, one scenario that can certainly be ruled out is the absurd idea that Barry Allen is any way, shape, or form truly dead in DC’s Absolute Universe.