Barry Allen, aka The Flash, is the Fastest Man Alive thanks to the Speed Force. Through countless writers, the paradoxical source of his power has been refined into a paradoxical universal field that is generated by kinetic energy created with every step he runs. He’s basically the Speed Force’s engine. Further, it’s an energy force that grants anyone who taps into it different kinds of abilities besides the speed of light. There is also a negative Speed Force embodied by its human engine, The Reverse-Flash.
But what happens when Barry comes up to the yang to the Speed Force’s ying?
Beginning in July’s release of Justice League #1, writer Scott Snyder will introduce the DC Universe to an unimaginable concept: The Still Force.
Snyder explains, “The Still Force is an energy in the universe that’s trying to slow everything down entropically, trying to stop everything, trying to bring characters to a standstill. [And] it has its own characters connected to it who might not even know they are. And it’s a complete enigma to Barry at this point.”
Opening up a well-known hero to a new variant on their powers is nothing new. Before Geoff Johns’s Green Lantern: Rebirth, there was no concept of the emotional spectrum influencing multiple corps. And the Speed Force was only introduced during Wally West’s stint as the only Flash when Barry was believed dead. Snyder, who blew up the DC Universe with his Dark Knight: Metal saga that completed barely a couple of months ago, believes in the need for turning things on their heads.
“The idea, really, is to show that these characters think they know their powers, think they know their mythologies, think they know even sometimes their history and their missions. And then to sort of blow things up.”
His run on Batman was the perfect example, as at the advent of The New 52, Scott introduced The Court of Owls. The symbolism of The Court is that its statement to Bruce Wayne is that he does not know Gotham City as well as he thought. Rather than be just one physical adversary, Snyder presented the city itself as a formidable opponent for the Dark Knight. And many of the concepts developed during his run led into the Dark Knights: Metal storyline.
Be on the lookout when Snyder and artist Jim Cheung deliver both The Still Force and the new Hall of Justice when Justice League #1 hits the stands.
