DC Finally Calls Out The Flash’s Biggest Flaw (& Every Hero Is Guilty of It)

The Flash #16 by Simon Spurrier, Vasco Georgiev, Matt Herms, and Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou begins with Wally's wife, Linda Park-West comparing each of their family members to Dungeons & Dragons characters. When it's Wally's turn to be assigned a role in their hypothetical party, she calls him a "knuckle-dragging barbarian who rushes in, waving his club".

Linda describing the Flash as a barbarian highlights his tendency to charge into battle without reading the situation, which has had dire consequences for him in the past. This weakness keeps him from reaching his full potential, and the same can be said for most superheroes in DC lore.

The Flash Faces Much-Needed Criticism For His Recklessness in Battle

Wally West's Most Frequent Mistake Gets Exposed By His Own Wife

The Flash's barbaric ways are on full display throughout this issue, proving Linda's point. Weather Wizard - one of the Flash's strongest villains - disrupts Wally's family vacation and proposes a battle, and Linda tries to settle the dispute in an amicable fashion. She believes that the Flash and Weather Wizard would benefit from sharing information with each other about Skartaris' magical properties. However, Wally runs past his wife to fight Weather Wizard, ignoring her plea for peace. His reckless attitude costs him the chance to understand where his opponent is coming from and thus validates Linda's scathing critique.

The battle between the hero and villain progresses, and soon a mysterious force causes the Flash to be overcome with anger in the same way as Weather Wizard. Before the mind control can escalate further, Linda knocks some sense into the two of them - literally, in Weather Wizard's case, as she strikes him with a broken piece of his wand. Then, she declares, "The dreaded hour is come when you must face the one thing all heroes and villains truly fear: constructive dialogue." Linda's words point out a flaw that's inhibited the Flash's heroism: more often than not, he solves problems via combat instead of conversation.

The Flash's Tendency to Fight First and Talk Later Has Major Drawbacks

Wally West Would Be a Better Hero If He Communicated Before Fighting

While Linda acknowledging the Flash's habit of rushing into battle is a new development, this fault has already made itself known numerous times in the past. A recent example can be found in The Flash 2024 Annual by Spurrier, Amancay Nahuelpan, and more. Here, the Scarlet Speedster traverses dimensional planes with his sidestepping power and uncovers the secret of the "blobsphere" dimension he has crossed into. Robots cleaning up the area explain that the peculiar blob entities are manifestations of feelings, and the Flash is shocked to learn their true nature after impulsively destroying many of them on sight.

If Wally had taken the time to study the blobs and learn more about them, he could have avoided killing innocent people's emotions. His desire for a fight clouds his judgment, though, and this egregious oversight impacts innocents and criminals alike. In The Flash #5, when interrogating Gorilla Grodd, Wally refuses to see his perspective. Jai, the Flash's son, has to step in and help him realize that communication is vital to resolving conflicts civilly. Wally is failing villains like Grodd by neglecting to hear their side of the story, and his Justice League peers are no different in that regard.

Linda Park-West Criticizes Superheroes As a Whole, Not Just the Flash

Linda's reality check may be specifically targeted towards her husband, but the Flash is not the only hero guilty of settling disputes with his fists instead of his words. A common critique of heroes is that they tend to operate with a black-and-white sense of justice. In their minds, people can either be good or evil, and those who are deemed evil need to be defeated. To accomplish that end, they fight these evildoers using the powers at their disposal. Superheroes' childish morality is a detriment to their effectiveness, as it prevents them from making a genuine difference.

Like the Flash, the Justice League's heroes need to follow Linda's advice and make an effort to communicate with villains. Everyone deserves the chance to explain themselves - even those who aren't strictly good - and fostering an understanding on both sides might promote actual change more than initiating petty battles would. After all, the primary mission of superheroes is to help people, not to hurt them; therefore, fighting should be a last resort rather than the default option. Now that Linda has shown him the error of his ways, the Flash must leave his barbaric impulses behind him, otherwise he's no better than a villain.

The Flash #16 is available now from DC Comics.