SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for The Flash #50 by Joshua Williamson, Howard Porter, Hi-Fi and Steve Wands, on sale now.


A whole heck of a lot happened in The Flash #50, the conclusion to the epic “Flash War” storyline pitting Wally West vs Barry Allen vs Hunter Zolomon. There were massive changed to the nature of the Speed Force and the DC Universe, there were big returns and hints at even more to come and there was a tease of a massive new threat known only as Crisis who has broke free from a futuristic prison with one thing on their mind: Revenge on the Flash Family.

There are some notable candidates for who Crisis could be; The Anti-Monitor is certainly possible, considering the name and his pledge that worlds will live and worlds will die. It could also be Monarch, the evil incarnation of Hank Hall who also went by the name Extant. However, there’s one character who not only has such a dedicated hatred for The Flash family as well as a link to previous Crisis stories, someone we haven’t seen in a long time: Superboy Prime.

Who is Superboy Prime?

Superboy Prime debuted in 1985’s DC Comics Presents #87 by Elliot S! Maggin and Curt Swan, which takes place in the immediate wake of Supergirl’s death during Crisis On Infinite Earths. Still mourning his cousin, Superman takes refuge from the Superman Revenge Squad on Earth-Prime, a facsimile for our own world first introduced in 1968. There, he met a teenage Clark Kent dressed like Superboy but without powers, until coming into contact with a Kryptonian activates his own heritage and he discovers he is Earth-Prime’s counterpart to Superman.

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Superboy Prime was one of the few survivors of the Anti-Monitor’s attack on all creation that wasn’t folded into the new world created as an amalgamation of Earth-One, Two, Four, S and X. Superboy Prime entered a paradise dimension with Alexander Luthor Jr of Earth-Three as well as the Superman and Lois Lane of Earth-Two. However, years later Superboy Prime and Luthor Jr grew to see paradise as a prison and were able to manipulate Kal-L into breaking them free and helping them return the infinite multiverse under the impression returning the dying Lois Lane to Earth-Two would save her life.

Superboy Prime had spent his time in the paradise dimension watching the growth of the new DC Universe and as someone who grew up reading the adventures of the DC heroes in the pages of comic books, he grew dissatisfied with the new direction they were taking; Superman died, Batman had his back broken, Green Lantern went evil, things weren’t like they were when he was a kid. He was obsessed with creating a new perfect Earth and his entitlement drove him insane, in a not too subtle satire of a certain breed of fan who feels ownership over the content and media they love.

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He killed many beloved DC characters that debuted after his own creation, including Kon-El, the Superboy of this era, before he was eventually stopped and imprisoned by the Green Lantern Corps. He reappeared multiple times in the noughties, including during Sinestro Corps War, Countdown, Final Crisis and Blackest Night, proving to be one of the deadliest threats in an era of DC that was marked by excessive violence, dismembering and explicit bloodshed. Superboy Prime exemplified a lot of the worst traits of this era, but also served as a rather pointed commentary of the era at the same time.

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Why Superboy Prime?

There isn’t much evidence to go on in the one page of Crisis’ debut, but deciphering what clues we are presented with does give us some indication that, yes, it's Superboy Prime. The biggest one is the name “Crisis,” which is tied to the character more than almost any other. He played a big part in both Crisis on Infinite Earths and Infinite Crisis, plus a significant and character altering appearance in Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds.

While the phrase “Worlds will live. Worlds will die.” is mostly associated with the Anti-Monitor, it’s just as likely to be a red herring as Superboy Prime was shown to have become more like the Anti-Monitor in his approach to how he saw the Multiverse and it would be fitting for him to quote his most hated enemy and the being who destroyed his universe to signify how far he’s fallen.

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There’s also the hatred of the Flash Family, which Superboy Prime has great reason for. During his first attack on the heroes of the DC Universe, it was the Flash Family who grabbed him and ran him into the Speed Force; Wally West and Bart Allen sacrificed their tether to the real world to imprison the rogue Superboy, but he eventually broke free. However, when he broke free, he had developed a severe phobia of speedsters which maintained throughout his appearances. When he led the Legion of Super-Villains against the Legion of Three Worlds, it was only the return of Bart Allen as Kid Flash which scared him and if he was imprisoned in the twenty-fifth century Iron Heights by Eobard Thawne, he certainly has a reason to hate all speedsters.

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Judging by the shape of the character only known as Crisis, you might think it can’t be Superboy Prime who has a more lithe, less bulky figure. However, his appearance in the year-long weekly series Countdown saw him reappear as Superman Prime, with the appearance of an adult. Prime hadn’t actually aged to maturity, but he was able to use the cosmic energy of a dying Guardian of the Universe to artificially enhance his physical appearance. As for the cosmic powers which aren’t usually associated with the character, let’s not forget he was one incarnation of the Time Trapper in the 30th century, hinting at a much more cosmic future for the Superboy from a dead Earth.

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Where is Superboy Prime?

The last time Superboy Prime showed up was in the pages of Teen Titans #100, right before the Flashpoint. Having found contentment in a recreation of his world known as Earth-33, he was inadvertently ripped from his world and brought back to New Earth by the Titans and sought revenge against the team.

Amassing a new team of like-minded teenage villains, he attacked the Teen Titans who called upon past members of the team to fight against the villains and ultimately Superboy Prime was defeated and imprisoned within the Source Wall by Superboy and Supergirl, alongside the Old Gods of the Third World.

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If you’ve been keeping up with the Justice League comics, the Source Wall was destroyed at the end of Dark Nights: Metal and all sorts of new and forgotten forces have found their way into the DC Universe. The exploration of these new worlds and sectors will be told in the pages of Justice League Odyssey which will be written by Joshua Williamson, who also writes The Flash.

If the Source Wall is down, it’s likely that Superboy Prime has been freed and more powerful than ever. If and how he found his way to the twenty-fifth century to be imprisoned in Iron Heights is a story waiting to be told, but it certainly looks like the biggest threat of the 2000s is working his way back to the DC Universe one way or another.