Warning: contains spoilers for The Flash #767!
With DC’s Multiverse-threatening juggernaut Dark Nights: Death Metal still to decide the fate of everything that is, fans could be forgiven for thinking of DC’s winter crossover Endless Winter as the lesser conflict – after all, the Frost King’s wrath is only threatening to destroy one world. But in the global conflict that has every DC hero scrambling to help, it looks like the Flash has reason to take things even more seriously than most.
Endless Winter is starting to get the best of DC’s heroes, a problem that is even more concerning for the Fastest Man Alive, as the unique problem the almighty Frost King poses for the Flash is one that might not be so easily conquered. In fact, this newest clash of giants may be the event that finally beats the Flash for good.
Taking place in The Flash #767 by Andy Lanning & Ron Marz and Clayton Henry, this second chapter of the Endless Winter crossover immediately gives Barry Allen, aka The Flash, a reason to worry as a raging winter storm unleashed by the Frost King has swept the globe, blanketing the world in dozens of feet of snow and thrusting the populace into sub-zero temperatures. To make matters worse, the Frost King has given rise to a form of animated ice monster that makes a casual stroll through the polar vortex an even more dangerous notion, since these beasties’ only drive seems to be attacking people on sight. But all that is on top of the Flash’s documented weakness to the extreme cold.
Rattling off a laundry list of reasons as to why this never-ending whiteout is an unprecedented problem for the Earth and its people as he crisscrosses the globe, Flash mentions that animal extinctions, global crop failure, photosynthesis stoppage and even full-blown nuclear winter could happen at any moment if the League can’t pinpoint where the Frost King is and put an end to his wicked deeds, let alone what the frozen conditions are doing to individual people.
And while the burden of this conflict weighs heavy on the shoulders of the Justice League and its heroes, the Flash hints he might have met his match in a foe whose cold-based powers far exceed those of his own frosty villain, Captain Cold. Flash suffers more than most from the molecular mechanics of freezing powers – so much so that a single villain with a cold gun has posed a real problem to him time after time. Now, he’s facing a godlike force of the cold. Stating that “Even I’m feeling the cold. And on top of that, it’s like I’m slowing down, like the Speed Force is pushing back,” along with declaring that he has to “…keep vibrating, or it’s like I’m in quicksand,” Barry admits that this is something he’s never encountered before, giving fans pause as to whether or not this could be the event that renders the Flash useless, having already beaten Superman’s particular power set.
The Flash may be able to run faster than anyone on the face of the planet, but the icy fury the Frost King has unleashed upon the world might just be too much for the Scarlet Speedster to handle, let alone overcome. With the story still raging across the DC universe, Endless Winter is shaping up to be an event that might not only defeat the Flash, but one that could very well take down the entirety of the Justice League as well.
