5 Flash Costumes From The Comics We Love (& 5 We Hate)
The sixth season of The Flash saw Barry Allen get yet another new costume, thankfully, after the poor reception of the season five costume. Some fans are wondering why the costume needed to change at all, but as we've seen many times in the comics, a character's costume can change for a number of reasons.
In Flash's case, the most common reason for a costume change is because someone new has taken over the role of the Flash or the timeline has changed. Today we are going to take a look at the comics at some of our favorite Flash costumes, and just for fun, we'll include some of his worst changes as well.
10 LOVE: PRE-FLASHPOINT WALLY
After Barry's death in 1985 during the Crisis on Infinite Earths, his partner Wally West/Kid Flash was forced to grow up quickly in order to fill the boots of his mentor. And while he wore a version of Barry's costume for a bit, Wally soon realized he would never be able to fill Barry's boots, but instead had to make his own.
Wally's new Flash costume featured a darker shade of red, an angled lightning bolt belt, and solid white eyepieces, and it worked wonders for the costume. When Barry returned Wally updated his costume even more by adding gold metallic highlights on the separated belt and slightly adjusting the mask to further differentiate the characters.
9 HATE: PRE-FLASHPOINT BARRY
We might love Wally's version of Barry's classic Flash costume so much because it fixes the few small details that always bothered us about the first Silver Age Flash costume, which was created by Carmine Infantino for Showcase #4. Don't get us wrong, this is an iconic costume that has inspired generations of the Flash Family, but it has a couple of problems.
The straight lightning belt across the waist was always a nightmare and broke the costume up poorly, especially when shown running. We always much prefer Wally's white eyepieces to Barry's exposed eyes, though that look has become standard for all Flash characters.
8 LOVE: DARK FLASH
We've seen quite a few future versions of our favorite Flash characters appear in the comics, which makes sense considering their abilities allow them to travel through time. During a time when Wally West had vanished into the Speed Force, a new Flash arrived to take his place in Keystone City, a Dark Flash.
This Dark Flash was revealed to be an older alternate reality version of Wally known as Walter West, who had grown cold after losing his wife Linda in his timeline. His costume featured a very dark red with off-centered silver lightning effects that really made this costume look slick while running and posing, which is important for any speedster.
7 HATE: JAY GARRICK
While we love the character of Jay Garrick and the legacy he created as the very first Flash, we have never been a big fan of his costume, even with the more modernized versions of it we've seen. The blue pant and shirt combo works fine when it's kept simple, but the earliest versions of Jay features an odd lightning bolt down the pant leg with an awkward lightning bolt attached to the cuffed boots.
And while the helmet of the first Flash is instantly recognizable both due to its connection to Jay and the Greek God Hermes, it still feels impractical for a speedster. Many writers have tried to explain Jay's helmet with various gimmicks, and it has even been shown as a useful weapon, but we still can't get behind this costume.
6 LOVE: THE RED DEATH
The Red Death hails from the Dark Multiverse and first appeared during Dark Knights: Metal as one of the Batman Who Laugh's dark versions of Batman. On this Bruce Wayne's dark Earth, he is driven to increase his own abilities after losing too many partners in his war on crime. When that universe's Barry Allen refused to grant him access to the Speed Force, Batman strapped Flash to the hood of his Cosmic Treadmill-enhanced Batmobile and drove into the Speed Force.
This resulted in the merging of the two beings, with Batman gaining Flash's abilities and Barry Allen's consciousness forced to watch The Red Death's evil actions. While we aren't usually on-board with an armored Flash, this blend of the Batman and the Flash works very well for the character.
5 HATE: BLUE LANTERN
Batman isn't the only character Barry has crossed over with in the comics, as seen in the Blackest Night event. During a war with the Black Lanterns that involved all of the powerful emotional spectrums and their champions like the Green Lanterns, new ringwielders were chosen from among Earth's metahuman community.
The recently returned Barry was selected as a Blue Lantern to wield the power of Hope. We aren't saying that Barry doesn't represent the Blue Lantern Corps well, but that costume does not do him any favors. Especially with the combined Blue Lantern symbol and hovering lightning bolt, along with the return of the straight lightning bolt belt across his midsection.
4 LOVE: NEW 52 BARRY
Admittedly, we weren't initially sold on Barry's New 52 costume when it first appeared in Justice League, but then we saw it in action in Francis Manapul and Brian Buccellato's solo The Flash series. Manapul managed to bring the costume's new design to life.
What makes it work so well is the costume's reactive nature to Barry's powers, which powers up the speed lines of his suit and even energizes his lightning emblem when his powers are activated. The New 52 costume turns Barry into more than just a superhero, he becomes an evergetic force of nature.
3 HATE: OLD BARRY ALLEN
The most recent future version of Barry Allen that we've seen in the comics recently appeared during Joshua Williamson and Howard Porter's "Year One" storyline that saw Barry accidentally travel for the very first time. Luckily he arrived at a time when his future self was around to give him a few pointers and get him back to his own timeline.
To be fair, we love aspects of this costume, as it shows a Barry at his highest levels of confidence and in control mastery of the Speed Force. However, the sleeveless look is just incredibly impractical for a speedster, as everyone can see by his scarred up and exposed arms. Flash Fact: Old Barry should know better.
2 LOVE: REBIRTH WALLY
We discussed Wally's earlier best-dressed entry that he wore during his time as The Flash prior to the Flashpoint event that rebooted the DC Universe. In the New 52 timeline, this version of Wally West was erased from the timeline, along with his awesome but short-lived new costume.
When Wally finally returned in DC Rebirth, he was wearing his old Kid Flash costume, but soon altered it into a new version that blended his teen costume with his Pre-Flashpoint costume while also switching up the yellow lightning effect for a blue hue, which both separates him from Barry and the new Kid Flash, but also reflects the previous aged version of Wally we discussed, Dark Flash.
1 HATE: FUTURE FLASH
As much as we loved the blue lightning effect that Wally has adopted in his new Rebirth-era costume, it doesn't work for everybody. When a future version of Barry Allen from 20 years into the New 52's future first appeared, he was running back through time and murdering members of his Rogue's Gallery at points in the timeline that he failed against them.
Barry's future suit is just a case of too much happening everywhere. While the suit appears to be highly advanced due to the new chest piece, it's hard to discern much about the suit as it appears to be overtaken by the lightning. The subtlety of Barry's present-day New 52 lightning effects are amped up and overdone in the future, and the Flash gets lost in the process.