How Batman Stole Flash's Speed Powers to Become the Red Death
The Batman is one of the greatest heroes on Earth, but in one dark timeline he stole the Flash's Speed Force powers and became a monster.
Batman has accomplished amazing feats despite not having any powers, but in one dark universe where he lost everything, the Dark Knight swore he'd save everyone on Earth by stealing the powers of the Flash. This dark event turned the man known as Bruce Wayne into the monster called the Red Death. With Flash's speed, Batman was able to slaughter all of his villains with ease, but not every fan of comics might know exactly why or how this happened.
As crime fighters, both Batman and the Flash are defined by early losses that shaped their lives. When Bruce Wayne lost his parents in Crime Alley, he swore to fight crime for the rest of his life. Meanwhile, Barry Allen was a young boy whose father was falsely imprisoned for the murder of his mother, wanting to save his father, Barry grew up to be a forensic scientist, hoping that one day he'd prove his father innocent. On paper, these two characters should get along great, and oftentimes they do, but in the Dark Multiverse things took a much different turn. In Batman: The Red Death by Joshua Williamson, Carmine Di Giandomenico, Ivan Plascencia and Tom Napolitano, readers get to see exactly how a twisted conflict between the Flash and Batman plays out.
Batman Goes After The Flash
After Batman loses the entire Bat-Family due to his war on crime (the exact details of how they died aren't specified) he goes insane and believes if he'd only been faster he could've saved them. Batman argues that he wants to save the world, but as he's just a man, he constantly feels his body slowing down day by day as he gets older. Because of this Batman decides the only solution is to use the weapons of Flash's greatest enemies and take the Flash's powers by force. This results in the two heroes battling each other across the city while Batman tries to capture the Flash and Flash desperately tries to plead with Batman to stop this madness. In the end, Batman is able to knock the Flash unconscious and strap him to the hood of the Batmobile, using Barry to force himself into the Speed Force. This ends up fusing the two heroes together, creating the monster known as the Red Death.
The Speed Force is essentially the realm of time. It is the force that moves everything forward in life, both in a physical and metaphysical sense. The passage of time and the movement of someone running down the street, the energy that makes that movement is the Speed Force. All people who move at super speed, like the Flash, draw their power from the Speed Force. It is one of the Seven Forces of the Universe, along with Life Force, Emotional Spectrum, Faithfulness, and several others. It's possible to enter the Speed Force if one is fast enough, which is much like entering a constantly moving stream of water. Usually when the Flash needs to get somewhere as soon as possible he goes through the Speed Force. One could also enter the time stream through the Speed Force, which is how the Flash tends to travel through time when necessary. It's simply one of the many fantastical parts of the DC Universe that allows things to happen.
Flash Can Drain The Velocity From Objects
Stealing Speed Force powers from someone actually isn't that new. It turns out that just about everyone who can use the Speed Force is capable of either gifting it to, or draining it from, other people. One of the Flash's iconic abilities is to bring non-super speed people into the Speed Force, where, for a moment at least, they're able to see and interact with things at the same speed the Flash does. For example, this is used in DCeased #5 by Tom Taylor and Trevor Hairsine, so Superman can say goodbye to his family as quickly as possible. Flash has also shown the ability to not just drain speed from whomever he chooses, but he can apparently drain the energy from inanimate objects as well. The Flash can drain the velocity out of bullets that are in mid-flight, so that instead of redirecting their momentum and possibly having to deal with ricochet, the bullets simply fall to the floor. In the recent Knight Terrors: The Flash #2 by Alex Paknadel, Daniel Bayliss and Tom Derenick, the Flash steals the speed of Eobard Thawne. So while it's not his most well-known power, it's certainly something he's capable of. And with all of Batman's planning and the fact that he captures Flash, there's no reason to believe Batman couldn't find a similar way to steal powers. But what exactly does Batman do once he steals Flash's speed?
After Batman succeeds in stealing the Flash's speed, he goes on an absolute rampage, killing every single villain in Gotham City in a matter of seconds. Red Death thinks he has saved his world, but like all worlds in the Dark Multiverse, Red Death's planet was doomed to death the second it was created. Since Red Death succeeds in taking Flash's powers, the nightmare is fulfilled and the planet begins to fall apart. Normally, the Red Death would simply fade into the darkness, like a nightmare slowly being forgotten. But because of the machinations of Barbatos and the Batman Who Laughs, Red Death is saved from his dying world and brought over to Earth. It is here that the Red Death fights against the Justice League along with several other corrupted versions of Batman. During one such battle with the Flash, Red Death is hit with pure positive energy; this reverses polarity and instead of the insane Bruce Wayne being in control of their fused body, Barry Allen is able to re-assert control. He then dies fighting against the remaining twisted versions of Batman.
Barry Allen Reassumes Control Over Red Death
Batman and the Flash are two of DC Comics' greatest heroes who have saved the world countless times over, with Barry Allen literally sacrificing himself to save the Multiverse at one point. But in the Dark Multiverse, when these two heroes fuse together, it creates one of the most horrific villains that the DC Universe has ever seen. The Red Deathias a Batman driven mad by the death of his adopted family, who steals the powers of one of his friends, just to slaughter everyone he comes across. That's the nightmare that happens when Batman takes the powers of the Flash for himself.
