In one of the most meta comic books ever written, fans learn that DC Comics’ Flash has the opposite of Deadpool’s comic awareness. Deadpool is consciously aware of the fact that he is a fictional character within a comic book universe, something that drove him insane in one of his most gruesome storylines where he killed the entire Marvel Universe. In Marvel’s main continuity, however, Deadpool mostly just breaks the fourth wall with a few meta jokes here and there. Well, as it turns out, the Flash experienced a similar phenomenon at one time where the walls between the comic world and the real world opened up, at which point the Flash proved to have a completely different perspective from Deadpool.
In The Flash #228 by Cary Bates, Irv Novick, and Tex Blaisdell, the writer of the issue, Cary Bates, traveled to the fictitious world of the Flash as he enters Central City. Realizing he is no longer in his reality, Bates witnesses the villain Trickster robbing a bank and decides to help the Flash take him down. Not only does Cary Bates know everything about the Flash since he was the one writing the comic book, but when he travels to the Flash’s world he realizes that he holds a godlike power over it.
In the story, Bates pierced the veil into the DC Universe by concentrating incredibly hard on a new Flash storyline involving the Trickster’s comeback. That intense level of concentration put him in the story that he was currently writing in his head, and Bates found that he could continue writing it even while being a character in the storyline. As the writer, Bates manipulated the actions of the Trickster so that the Flash had an easier time tracking him down and defeating him. Bates traveling to the Flash’s world and manipulating the story from within is the opposite of Deadpool’s comic book awareness. Deadpool intentionally breaks the fourth wall since he knows for a fact that he is a comic book character, but in this Flash story the fourth wall is broken by the writer of the issue himself, all without the knowledge of the Flash, proving that the two instances are opposites.
While the writer behind The Flash traveled to Barry Allen’s world and impacted his life, Deadpool actually achieved a similar, yet opposite feat, proving on another level how he and the Flash are on two ends of the meta spectrum. In Deadpool Kills The Marvel Universe by Cullen Bunn and Dalibor Talajic, Deadpool does as advertised and kills the entire Marvel Universe. This happened in response to learning that he was a comic book character. After every hero and villain is dead, Deadpool decides that that isn’t enough so he uses Doctor Strange’s magic to travel across the multiverse and into the real world where he finds the Marvel Comics creative team and kills them, thus ending his perpetual fictitious suffering once and for all.
The comic book writer behind the Flash, Cary Bates, crossed the threshold where reality meets fiction and is able to control the DC Universe from within. Similarly, Deadpool once traveled to the real world and killed those responsible for his continued existence, having a less godlike but just as impactful presence in the real world as Bates had in the comic world. Even beyond that one Deadpool storyline, Deadpool’s established comic awareness gives him the power to constantly break the fourth wall whenever he wants. Since the Flash doesn’t have that same ability, whenever he encounters a breach between his world and the real world, he isn’t aware of what is happening even though it directly impacts his life, proving that the Flash has the opposite of Deadpool’s comic awareness.
