The Arrowverse is all about the heroes. Every season, the good guys from the different corners of the universe come together to face off against some world-ending threat. While the crossover villains usually aren’t much to write home about, the Big Bads that run shows like Arrow are no joke. Deathstroke kills Oliver Queen’s mom right in front of him, and Prometheus blows up an entire island to get back at the bow-wielding hero. Outside of Damien Darhk, though, the Green Arrow doesn’t deal with many villains that have superpowers. He leaves that to Barry Allen, aka The Flash, who always seems to tick off the strongest bad guys the Arrowverse has to offer.
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Throughout the nine seasons of his solo show, the Scarlet Speedster fights all kinds of villains. Some have a personal vendetta, and others just want to watch the world burn. In any case, The Flash‘s Big Bads push the titular hero to his limits and don’t ever feel bad about it.
9) Cicada
The main villain of The Flash Season 5 is interesting because it’s really two villains. Orlin Dwyer gains powers after The Thinker’s satellite crashes at the end of Season 4 and vows to get revenge on metahumans. However, after he’s out of the picture, his evil ways rub off on his niece, Grace Gibbons, who travels from the future to take out The Flash and XS. Cicada and Cicada II’s stories are tragic, but they’re not all that menacing, which earns them the bottom spot on this list.
8) Mirror Monarch
The particle accelerator explosion is responsible for a lot in the Arrowverse, including the creation of Mirror Monarch. Eva McCulloch spends years inside the Mirrorverse and doesn’t pull any punches when she gets out. Taking Iris West-Allen captive and causing all sorts of other problems for Team Flash, she’s actually a halfway-decent villain. Unfortunately, her timing couldn’t be worse, as all the pomp and circumstance around the “Crisis on Infinite Earths” event steals her thunder.
7) Red Death
The new multiverse that Oliver Queen creates during “Crisis on Infinite Earths” isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. Earth-4125 is home to Red Death, a variant of Batwoman that arrives on Earth-Prime and will stop at nothing to achieve her goals. Having an evil version of an Arrowverse hero be a Big Bad on The Flash isn’t a bad idea on paper, but Ryan Wilder doesn’t have enough chemistry with the other characters to make the move work.
6) Godspeed
Godspeed pops up in several seasons of The Flash, but he doesn’t really hit his stride until he becomes the arch-enemy of Bart Allen, aka Impulse. He travels from the future to make life difficult for Team Flash and does a good job of it for the most part. All the changes Godspeed goes through don’t do him any favors, though, ensuring that he isn’t in the same league as some of the other evil speedsters.
5) The Thinker
Season 4 of The Flash marks the first time the Scarlet Speedster’s main villain is not a speedster. Clifford DeVoe aims to reduce the world’s reliance on technology, so he devises a plan that involves stealing powers from 12 metahumans. While his scheme blows up in his face, the damage The Thinker does before he kicks the bucket is hard to ignore. He appears to kill Ralph Dibny and frames The Flash for murder. That’s a lot more than most Arrowverse villains have on their resumes.
4) Savitar
All of The Flash Season 3 is about Team Flash trying to discover the identity of a mysterious speedster known as Savitar. His origins date back centuries, and even heavyweights like Jay Garrick know not to mess with him. Well, he turns out to be a time copy of Barry Allen, who got betrayed by Team Flash. The rage Savitar feels turns him into a menace, leading him to kill H.R. Wells and change Barry forever.
3) Bloodwork
Like DeVoe, Ramsey Rosso thinks he’s helping the world when he tries to use his newly discovered powers to turn all of Central City into blood monsters. However, Rosso doesn’t start, wanting to cure a disease that killed his mother and is coming for him. There is certainly a reality where Bloodwork is more of a hero than a villain, but the one Earth-Prime’s Barry faces off against has to be apprehended.
2) Zoom
The Flash doesn’t get much of a break after defeating the Reverse-Flash because another speedster, Zoom, starts causing problems around Central City. It comes to light that Zoom is Hunter Zolomon, who had been posing as Jay Garrick in front of Team Flash. Once Zoom takes the gloves off, he torments The Flash, killing the hero’s father, and makes an enemy for life.
1) Reverse-Flash
It just doesn’t get better than Eobard Thawne. The Reverse-Flash blames Barry for everything wrong with his life and travels back in time to kill his enemy’s mother. Thawne returns so many times throughout The Flash‘s run because he’s impossible to replace. There’s no better rivalry in the Arrowverse than The Flash and his reverse.
The Flash is streaming on Netflix.
Do you think this ranking of The Flash Big Bads is accurate? How would you change the list? Let us know in the comments below!
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