DC Comics’ Fastest Man Alive, Flash, can’t afford to slow down when he’s fighting crime, with his Speed Force powers allowing him to quickly and efficiently save the day as needed. But in a three-issue miniseries from over two decades ago that saw The Scarlet Speedster’s powers taken away from him, Flash is forced to reinvent himself as a heroic member of the Bat-Family with absolutely no super speed to speak of.
A hero who can run faster than Superman, vibrate into parallel realities, and utilize his speed-based abilities in a variety of unique and effective ways, Flash is defined by his quick motion, as without it, he’s barely faster than an average human, to say nothing about his vastly lowered endurance.
After Wally West’s version of the Flash is stripped of his speed thanks to a mysterious “black light phenomenon” that affects the entire super community, his career seems to be over, until that is, Wally dons a new set of spandex and becomes the powerless hero named Red Devil.
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Flash Becomes Red Devil After He Loses His Speed Force Powers
JLA: Act of God (Doug Moench and Dave Ross)
Becoming the Red Devil in 2000’s JLA: Act of God, by Doug Moench and Dave Ross, this story sees Wally haunted by his inability to save a police officer from a bullet that, under any other circumstances, he would have been able to stop. Losing his powers just as the shot is fired, Flash, alongside the Phoenix Squad that consists of other de-powered characters, like Aquaman’s The Hand and Martian Manhunter’s Green Man, take it upon themselves to train with Batman, Robin, and Nightwing to become something more than the sum of their superpowered parts.
Equipped with “martial arts, fearless abandon, trident-staff, and even speed. Such as it is,” Wally at first quits the team thinking he’s useless without his powers, only to eventually come back around with a completely new design. Dressed in a half-face helmet with wing-like accents at the front of it that almost look like horns, Flash retains his red and yellow color scheme yet ends up visually coming across as nothing close to what fans have grown to recognize him as, giving Wally a costume that would fit right at home protecting the citizens of Gotham City and beyond.
Red Devil Is Flash’s Non-Powered Persona and An Honorary Bat-Family Member
Devoid of his super speed, it’s easy to see how Flash would fit in alongside the Bat-Family as they don’t have any special powers to speak of themselves (save for Duke Thomas’ The Signal), with Flash’s intense bat-training turning him into an efficient crime fighter once again. While it’s wild to see who Flash would be if he trained under The Dark Knight, Wally’s Red Devil persona was a singular exercise in being a street-level hero, making the return of this honorary member of the Bat-Family highly unlikely, especially considering this tale was a self-contained and out-of-continuity story.
JLA: Act of God is available from DC Comics.
