If The Various Iterations of The Flash Are That Strong ...

[Mordar]

Well, aside from the Martian Manhunter the Green Lanterns, and Plastic Man- once telepathy gets into the game, things start getting very strange, the Green Lantern rings have some interesting passive defenses that could (probably?) neuter that sort of attack, and Plastic Man is pretty much unkillable. Not 'unkillable by conventional methods' or anything like that, just... unkillable. After the Age of Obsidian storyline, dear old Eel O'Brien is more than 10,000 years old, and spent most of that time in bits on the seafloor. Once someone gathered up those bits, he was basically fine (albeit a bit traumatized).

Thinking about it, there are a surprising number of Leaguers for whom not even Speed Force hax would be a guaranteed win. Captain Marvel can tank basically anything Superman can and more, since he lacks both the magic and kryptonite vulnerability, a lot of the versions of Firestorm can just turn the air in Flash's lungs into chlorine after turning the ground he's running on into superglue (and the incoming ionizing plasma from the lightspeed ball bearing into a rain of flower petals), the various New Gods can (mostly) both tank the damage and do interesting and unpleasant things to the Flash, the various Lanterns can tank the damage (they do lightspeed-plus spaceflight, if their inbuilt ring-defenses can't handle a near-lightspeed impact, that wouldn't work out so well), the various magic Leaguers can do things from instantly encasing him in iron to ripping his soul out...

Holy crap is the JLA OP

I had a longer point, but then realized Lvl 2 Expert took care of most of it for me. On more specific points...

I'd never seen the power rings act on their own as you are describing, but my GL time (in books) ended decades ago, and I was a spotty JLU viewer. Can you describe/explain more, please? Good point on the light speed flight thing...but does that just rely on a "deflector screen" being active while encased in the green glow, or is it something more intricate? Because if it is just the glow...GL never has a chance to activate it before he's down.

Telepathy/mind reading just wouldn't matter, except perhaps in cases where there is big magic for contingency and Flash thought about whacking the mind reader and then decided to wait and do it much later (in Flash perspective). I say this because the processing and reaction time necessary on the part of the mind reader is more than long enough for Flash to have already done the ball bearing trick (or a number of other options) before the reader got past understanding the first word in the Flash train of thought. Think of it like downloading War and Peace on a full-speed internet connection. The whole book is in place before we get a couple words in to the reading, and it is at least a few chapters before we get to really understand what's going on.

Poor Billy Batson doesn't have those advantages, but Shazam might be a bigger problem than expected. Firestorm again suffers from the "great powers that could totally counter Flash if he ever saw it coming" issue that limits most everyone else. I think Deadman might stand a chance against Flash...but that's a different story. Dr. Fate might as well, but I'm not sure on that one.

As a counterpoint: Even in a completely empty plain while standing on the ground you will never see someone coming from more than 10km away. The speed of light is about 300 million m/s, which makes light travel 10 km in 1/30,000th of a second. A very fast yet sub-light Flash could probably do it zigzagging in 1/10,000th of a second. To attack the Flash these other folks need to spot him, turn to engage, pinpoint his location and launch their attack in less time than that. And even if they can do that, they'll have to come within a hundred meters of a building or a tree at some point, giving them a hundred times less time to react. So for the ones with magic active defenses: sure. For those with merely impressive active powers...

And that's the problem with writing powerful speedsters.

QFT.

- M

[TeChameleon]

I'd never seen the power rings act on their own as you are describing, but my GL time (in books) ended decades ago, and I was a spotty JLU viewer. Can you describe/explain more, please? Good point on the light speed flight thing...but does that just rely on a "deflector screen" being active while encased in the green glow, or is it something more intricate? Because if it is just the glow...GL never has a chance to activate it before he's down.

Hmm... can't find any references for the bit I'm thinking of, so I may be mis-remembering, but I could swear I remember seeing a few times in older GL stories (silver age, Hal Jordan, maybe?) where the ring would have automatic defenses, not dependent on its bearer's control. If those are still canon, then the Flash's sneak attack wouldn't work, as the ring's space-magic doesn't have lightspeed limitations for its sensory capabilities.

Telepathy/mind reading just wouldn't matter, except perhaps in cases where there is big magic for contingency and Flash thought about whacking the mind reader and then decided to wait and do it much later (in Flash perspective). I say this because the processing and reaction time necessary on the part of the mind reader is more than long enough for Flash to have already done the ball bearing trick (or a number of other options) before the reader got past understanding the first word in the Flash train of thought. Think of it like downloading War and Peace on a full-speed internet connection. The whole book is in place before we get a couple words in to the reading, and it is at least a few chapters before we get to really understand what's going on.

Maybe, maybe not- both the Flash's perception of time and how, exactly, telepathy interacts with the Speed Force tend to veer off in extremely strange directions on those rare occasions they're addressed at all.

Poor Billy Batson doesn't have those advantages, but Shazam might be a bigger problem than expected. Firestorm again suffers from the "great powers that could totally counter Flash if he ever saw it coming" issue that limits most everyone else. I think Deadman might stand a chance against Flash...but that's a different story. Dr. Fate might as well, but I'm not sure on that one.

Unless the Flash went perma-hyperspeed (which has some rather funky effects on his physiology and psyche, as seen in Kingdom Come), then all Deadman would have to do would be to hang around in the general area that the Flash slows down in and jump him- Flash can't even perceive him, much less affect him, so... yeah.

Dr Fate is so utterly broken that he completely trivializes The Flash's feats- various Fates have shrugged off all-out attacks from (mind-controlled) Superman without so much as a scorch mark, been *****slapped by gods without even a bruise to show for it, tanked blasts from Lords of Chaos (theoretically their equal and opposite numbers) with little more than brief complaints... and those are just the durability feats.

Don't forget that at various times, the Spectre, the Phantom Stranger, Captain Atom, Power Girl, Etrigan, Orion, Big Barda, Lightray, Jesse Quick, Jay Garrick, Zauriel, Mon-El, Zatanna, Resurrection Man, Swamp Thing, OMAC, Lobo and Jaime Reyes Blue Beetle have all been members of the League. All of them have either the ability to tank most, if not all the damage the Flash could dish out, close to equivalent speed (or both), or abilities that mean that the Flash had bloody well better be certain he got them with his first shot, because they could squish him like a bug. Or, in Resurrection Man's case, while the Flash could kill him, he'd just come back until he turned up with an ability that could counter Flash entirely.

Also, if the Flash decided to kill the League, it's... well, the League. He'd probably get one or two at most before the rest of the League bunkered up, and even the Flash is in for a rough fight if he runs afoul of, say, Wonder Woman, Orion, and the Blue Beetle all at the same time.

Finally, with the ball-bearing trick... I'm just going to leave this here. While it would probably obliterate whoever the Flash was chucking it at (barring Kryptonians etc.), it... wouldn't exactly be terribly healthy for the Flash, either.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Finally, with the ball-bearing trick... I'm just going to leave this here. While it would probably obliterate whoever the Flash was chucking it at (barring Kryptonians etc.), it... wouldn't exactly be terribly healthy for the Flash, either.

Exactly. Yet we know he can move that fast (in some versions, his maximum speed probably radically differs between pages of the same book) with no ill effect, so he must have near indestructibility as a secondary power. So he can not just dish out those hits, he can take them. Which is just another flavor of the problem with powerful speedsters. It's impossible to keep them straight as people who's only power is speed.

(Although I'm sure a lot of the other super powerful heroes have similar issues and it's all just a big mess. The point is speed is one of the seemingly simplest powers, yet one of the hardest to keep straight.)

[Traab]

Exactly. Yet we know he can move that fast (in some versions, his maximum speed probably radically differs between pages of the same book) with no ill effect, so he must have near indestructibility as a secondary power. So he can not just dish out those hits, he can take them. Which is just another flavor of the problem with powerful speedsters. It's impossible to keep them straight as people who's only power is speed.

(Although I'm sure a lot of the other super powerful heroes have similar issues and it's all just a big mess. The point is speed is one of the seemingly simplest powers, yet one of the hardest to keep straight.)

In his case he would just go back into the speed force an attosecond after letting go of the ball and be two cities away when everything goes up in nuclear fire. Flash is fine, everything in the city? Not so much. That said, you mentioned kryptonians, considering superman has held black holes in his hand, he might be capable of reacting fast enough to grab the ball bearing before it can set off the fusion based nuke blast and contain it. His reaction times may not match the flash, but he is also post light speed. If he knew it was coming, yeah, he could possibly do something. Though being in atmo without "speed force" to hand wave away physics might mean he cant help much.

[khadgar567]

between all the spectrum of forces in universe flash at most unserstanded stage strong enough to act as any each league member. thanks to strengh force he can punch on supes caliber. while the other forces makes him on variable league member caliber.