Sunday, June 9, 2013

Reverse-Flash

The Reverse-Flashes are a collection of Flash villains that are all reversed-themed and had super speed.
The Rival
Doctor Edward Clariss was a professor for a university attended by Jay Garrick (the Golden Age Flash). He managed to recreate the formula that gave Jay his super speed and dubbed his version "Velocity 9". The scientific community rejected him leading Ed to become a criminal. Edward Clariss donned a darker version of Jay's Flash outfit. He uses a chemical on Flash to make him super slow. However, this was temporary and Jay defeated the Rival and his goons. The Rival accidentally vanished into the Speed Force (the source of the powers of super fast people). Johnny Sorrow freed Clariss (now turned insane) in the year 2000 and had him join the Injustice League. After the Rival went on a rampage, Jay absorbed the Rival's power. Later, the Rival was turned into a "speed energy" elemental. He took over Max Mercury's body and was never seen since.
Professor Zoom
These events happened before Crisis on Infinite Earths. Eobard Thawn was a 25th century criminal. He found the Flash's costume in a time capsule and altered the costume to give him the Flash's powers if he wore it. The alterations unintentionally reversed the colors. He used the powers to commit crimes. The Barry Allen Flash went to the future because there was a bomb in the capsule. He stopped the bomb and burned Zoom's suit. Zoom somehow retain his powers and got a new costume. As such, Zoom was pain in Barry's side and killed Iris (Barry's wife). Barry broke Zoom's neck thus killing him.
These events happened after Crisis on Infinite Earths. Because continuity was rebooted, the Prof.'s origin was changed and his death never happened. Eobard was a massive fan of the Flash to the point of replicating his powers and surgically altered himself to look like his hero. As such, he used the time machine Cosmic Treadmill to meet Barry. However, he discovered he was destined to become a super villain and went insane (a flaw with the time machine helped). He became convinced he was Barry Allen. However, the Wally West Flash (Barry died) figured out he wasn't due to his overly violent nature and sent him back to his own time. Despite losing his memories of his trip, Zoom had a subconscious and bitter hatred of Barry. As such, he went back in time to get revenge. Professor Zoom travelled back in time to stop Barry becoming the Flash, but didn't when he realize this would erase himself from the timeline. However, he killed Allen's mother and was responsible for the events of Flashpoint, but Flash stopped him.
Zoom
Hunter Zolomon was a police officer that worked with the Wally West Flash. Zolomon was crippled by Gorilla Grodd. He asked Flash to use the Cosmic Treadmill to go back in time and stop Grodd. Fearing damaging the timeline, Wally refused. Zolomon tried to use the machine himself, but altered his connection to timeline instead thus giving him the ability to alter his own time frame, which allowed him  him to mimic super-speed. Zolomon became the new Zoom to create tragedy in Wally's life to make him a better hero. Despite the Flash using the Spectre to erase the world's memory of his identity, Zoom was unaffected and still menaced Wally. He helped various Justice League villains (since the Flash was a JL member). Zoom and Professor Zoom wore identical costumes.
Inertia / Kid Zoom
Thaddeus Thawne was a clone of Bart Allen. After several failed attempts, Inertia (Thaddeus) killed Allen and Wally imprisoned him in the Flash Museum by removing his ability to move. During Final Crisis, he stole Zoom's powers and became Kid Zoom. The Rogues (a group of Flash villains) killed Thaddeus for making them kill Bart. Before his death, he also menaced the Teen Titans. He had super speed, but the source of his powers wasn't the Speed Force, but Velocity 9.
Unknown
In the New 52 reboot, a version of the Reverse-Flash will appear. This version will be darker in color and not be yellow.
References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse-Flash
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoom_(comics)

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