His name is Barry Allen and he is the fastest man alive. At least, that is how the opening of The CW's The Flash introduces the hero. But Barry is not a static character. In fact, he is not even the fastest person in DC Comics, and for more than thirty years, Barry Allen was the fastest Justice Leaguer to have died.
Then he returned to life in the 2009 comic The Flash: Rebirth. After three decades, the DC Universe had changed, and Barry was changed to fit into this new world. Here are ten ways Barry Allen has changed since his return in The Flash: Rebirth:
10 His Parents
During the Flash stories of the Silver and Bronze Age, Barry Allen's parents were alive and well. In fact, during the 90s, it was revealed that Barry's relatively stable home life was a stark contrast to the household that his young protege Wally West grew up in.
Fans of the TV show may be shocked to learn this since the murder of Barry's mother and the false prosecution of his father are key plot points introduced in the first season. The villain Reverse-Flash traveled back in time and killed Barry's mother as part of a retcon introduced in the pages of Rebirth, adding a layer of pathos and tragedy to the otherwise milquetoast speedster.
9 His Age
Barry was always a bit of an older hero. He had a teen sidekick, Wally West, who grew to adulthood and took up the mantle of the Flash after Barry died. In fact, Wally even had children who grew to become superheroes. This timeline would put Barry in roughly his 40s at the very youngest.
But mid-life crises are apparently not marketable for superheroes, so a handful of story MacGuffins involving time travel and the Speed Force were used to justify aging Barry back down to his late 20s, giving him the youthful charm that has since become a core part of the character's modern identity.
8 Witness Protection
Superheroes die and come back all the time. The Death of Superman story ironically put the final nail in the coffin of superhero deaths ever being taken seriously by fans. Despite this, Barry stayed dead for decades.
While superheroes can come back, their civilian counterparts cannot do so as easily. As such, a cover story was created to explain where Barry had been during the years he was missing. To achieve this, the Justice League forged documents to make it look like he was returning from having been in the Witness Protection Program. This fake backstory had a lot of potentials to be explored but sadly was abandoned shortly after his return.
7 Speed Force
Everyone knows that Barry gets his powers from the Speed Force. However, this powerful cosmic force that empowers the speedsters of the DC Universe was only introduced in 1994's The Flash issue 91--long after Barry had died.
Much of Wally West's story involved learning the power behind the Speed Force. It turned out that when Barry died, he had become one with the Speed Force. Later, it would be revealed that he personally was connected to it in a way no other speedster could be.
6 Dislike for Green Arrow
Writer Geoff Johns scripted The Flash: Rebirth a few years after bringing back another dead hero, Hal Jordan when he wrote a similar story, Green Lantern: Rebirth. Hal's two best friends were Barry and the vigilante Green Arrow, also known as Oliver Queen.
Rebirth introduced a rivalry between Barry and Oliver Queen. Shortly after returning to life, Barry asked Hal how many children sidekicks Green Arrow had endangered while he was dead. Hal urged Barry to consider starting over with Ollie, to which Barry responded "I'm not back to start over." As Barry is a cop and Green Arrow is a leftist who opposes authority figures, this change actually makes a lot of sense, but it might also have something to do with the personal politics of the comic's penciller, Ethan van Sciver (who has since parted ways from DC in the wake of the controversy surrounding his beliefs).
5 Blue Lantern
During the event Blackest Night, a handful of dead characters returned as zombie-like Black Lanterns, besieging the world of the living. Additionally, those who had previously returned from the gravy were dragged back to death, putting both Barry Allen and Hal Jordan in serious trouble.
Barry ran so fast he jumped through time, escaping the threat of the Black Lantern rings. Shortly thereafter, he was made a member of the Blue Lantern Corps, who wield the blue light of hope.
4 Relationship Status
Barry's relationship with Iris has undergone multiple changes in recent years. In Flash: Rebirth, Barry was married to Iris, who had changed her surname to West-Allen. Then Barry got blackout drunk and messed with time travel, which resulted in the DC Universe needing a whole new continuity after the dystopian Flashpoint story.
In the new reality, Barry was interested in Iris, but not only were they not married, but she didn't even know he was the Flash.
3 Two Wally Wests
Wally West was Iris's nephew and worked as Kid Flash before assuming the identity of the next Flash as an adult. He quickly surpassed his former teacher, becoming the fastest man alive. Then he was written out of existence.
In The New 52, a new version of Wally West was introduced who was quite different from the one fans knew. Then the original returned in 2016's DC: Rebirth (appropriately named for the previous Flash and Green Lantern: Rebirth stories). This meant that there were two different Wally Wests from two different timelines coexisting alongside one another.
2 New Forces
The Speed Force is the power that every speedster in the DC Universe taps into, but it is not the only such Force. In recent stories, several additional Forces have been explored as fundamental underpinnings to the fabric of the multiverse.
The opposite of the Speed Force is the Still Force, which governs the absence of motion (though there is also a Negative Speed Force revealed in the fourth issue of The Flash: Rebirth). Additionally, there are the Strength Force and Sage Force, which augment the body and mind of those who tap into their power.
1 Connection to Grodd
Grodd is just one of the many sentient gorillas populating the pages of DC Comics. As a psychic, Grodd is more dangerous (and more interesting) than many, but he is still just a big angry ape.
Since Barry's return, Grodd has been connected to the Speed Force, repeatedly trying to wrest control of it from Barry. This has given the two characters a supernatural connection to one another in addition to their interpersonal rivalry.