SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains major spoilers for The Flash #27, by Josh Williamson, Howard Porter and Paul Pelletier and on sale now.
If you’re a fan of the Flash, you’re probably pretty familiar with the concept of the Reverse Flash, a man named Eobard Thawne who, like Barry, has super speed and wears a flashy costume. Of course, the “Reverse” might sound like he’s the literal opposite of the Flash -- maybe someone who slows things down instead of speeding himself up? Or maybe someone who runs backwards?
There are a lot of obvious and incorrect guesses pretty readily available for casual or newer fans to throw darts at. The reality of the Reverse Flash is, however, pretty complicated. Mostly because his “reverse” status is actually ideological at its core. Flash media, be it print, animated or live action, has traditionally made this apparent by painting Eobard as someone who is essentially pure evil -- a sort of manic, time traveling serial killer who is motivated solely by his endless need to destroy Barry Allen from the ground up.
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At that point, the problem then becomes finding a way to make Thawne’s homicidal drive, well… unique in the scope of the DC Universe, a place that just so happens to be populated by enough over-the-top villains to populate a decent sized Midwestern town. Why is Reverse Flash someone that’s specific to The Flash? What differentiates him from any of DC’s other iconic arch rivals, like Lex Luthor or The Joker?
Well, The Flash #27 has the answer, and it's probably not the one you expected.
Running Scared
The rebirth of the “classic” Eobard Thawne (as opposed to his New 52 revamp) began in the Flash/Batman crossover mini-event “The Button” back in April, a four-part storyline which connected the original Thawne to the events of last year’s DC Universe: Rebirth one-shot.
Since, then, Thawne’s taken up residence as a perpetual thorn in Barry’s side in the hero's own ongoing series, stepping directly into the spotlight for the three-part “Running Scared” arc which served to highlight Thawne’s Rebirth status quo. For the most part, it’s a story that fans will be pretty familiar with, borrowing heavily from elements of stories like The Flash: Rebirth and Flashpoint. Thawne’s from the future, he time traveled to kill Barry’s parents, he’s connected to a negative form of the Speed-Force, and so on -- But that’s where things start to get their Rebirth-specific legs.
It’s not that creators Josh Williamson, Howard Porter and Paul Pelletier are trying to reinvent the proverbial wheel with “Running Scared” -- just unlock a different side of it by shining a light on one of the most unique aspect of Eobard and Barry’s relationship.
Reverse Flash doesn’t hate Flash the way Lex Luthor hates Superman, or Bane hates Batman. It’s actually (appropriately) quite the opposite. It’s the reverse. Eobard Thawne loves Barry Allen, obsessively and vengefully, which is where his endless, destructive need to ruin Barry’s life comes into play.
“Running Scared” highlights the fact that a young Eobard grew up alone (though Williamson was quick to confirm that that particular story element came out of an earlier Geoff Johns Flash issue) with only his idealized and imaginary version of Barry -- a character from his history books -- to keep him company. Barry was, for all intents and purposes, Thawne’s only friend, confidant, and emotional anchor, despite the fact that the two of them wouldn’t actually meet for years and years.
It was plenty of time for a very troubled and very lonely Thawne to fall in love with a version of The Scarlet Speedster that existed only in his imagination...and, well, it’s pretty obvious how that particular emotional endeavor actually went down. Actually meeting Barry and subsequently being forced to deal with the fact that he was just a guy and not the cartoon character Thawne had built in his head for years, proved to be too hard a stress test for Thawne’s fragile psyche.
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Fatal Attraction
Meeting and being disappointed by a personal hero is a rough experience for just about anyone, but rather than allowing himself to move on -- or even allowing himself to simply decide to hate Barry instead, Thawne’s obsession only doubled down.
As issue #27 hurtles to its conclusion, Thawne’s real motivations become abundantly apparent. As Barry, infected with Thawne’s own inverted Negative Speed Force thrashes Thawne within an inch of his life, he presses him with a question - Why, if Thawne has always been so inspired by him, has he gone out of his way to ruin Barry’s life at every turn? Why has he done all of these terrible things, from killing Barry’s parents to beating Wally within an inch of his life, to kidnapping he and Iris and hauling them to the future?
Thawne’s answer is as unexpected as it is heartrendingly honest: because these horrible things are the only way Thawne understands how to make Barry spend time with him.
It’s that simple.
Thawne’s love for, and obsession with Barry Allen has permeated his life so deeply and completely that he is even willing to count his time spent being pummeled half to death by Flash as a win. He’s completely unable or unwilling to differentiate between Barry’s affection and Barry’s hatred, and he’s ready to do whatever it might take to put himself at the center of either emotion in Barry’s mind.
“A few years ago, it would have really hurt my feelings to hear you say that,” Thawne taunts after Barry threatens him, “but now to think that I caused you that anger? That I could get under your skin like this? It warms my heart.”
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It’s deeply troubling, of course, and horrifyingly uncomfortable to get a look into the head of a villain who is, essentially, the personification of a fan gone terribly, terribly awry -- a theme that only gets more difficult to swallow when you begin to think about the increasingly complicated relationship between fans and their idols in actual, genuine, non-super heroic world around us.
This subtle reworking of the Reverse Flash has made him one of comic’s most poignant ruminations of the idea of toxicity in fan communities, idolization of strangers, and self destructive obsession, and it did so in a way that boldly allowed Thawne to win at the end of the day.
The issue closes, and the arc completes, with Barry exactly in the position Thawne wanted him in: completely alone, just like Thawne was as he built Barry into a hero of mythological perfection in his head. Now, where Barry will end up, and whether he’ll be forgiven by Iris, Wally and the roster of people he’s been manipulating as he leads his vigilante double life, is still largely a mystery.
It’s clear that Thawne didn’t expect, or even really want, Barry to come running into his arms to start their life together the second he succeeded in isolating him -- he makes that abundantly clear as he warns that he’ll just return again and again and again, de-powered, killed or otherwise hindered. Iris may have added an exclamation point to the end of the story arc by “vaporizing” Thawne with a Black Hole gun, but it hardly matters.
Reverse Flash will be back, somehow, at some point, and it’s doubtful that his love and obsession for Barry will have wavered in the slightest. We know now that’s just now how his mind is capable of working. It’s unlikely that Thawne will ever feel anything for Barry beyond his own supremely twisted adoration, no matter how many times the Flash pummels him into the ground. It’s just not the way Thawne’s brain is able to process information anymore.
It’s complicated, messy, and uncomfortable, but it’s also one of the clearest articulations of exactly what makes Reverse Flash such an interesting villain in the scope of not just the Flash family of books, but the DCU as a whole.