There are a plethora of speedster characters in The Flash comics and almost all of them with a connection to Barry Allen. Some of them have been brought onto The CW's The Flash, with Jay Garrick, Wally West and Eobard Thawne being a few of the notable ones.

Season 5 of The Flash focused on Nora West-Allen, who goes by the superhero name “XS”, a moniker given to her by her mother because she does everything to excess. But what’s her connection to Barry Allen? Given her name, she’s probably related to him, but how, exactly?

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XS IN THE ARROWVERSE

In the Arrowverse, XS is Nora West-Allen, Barry and Iris’s daughter. We first see her (though we don’t know her name at the time) in the “Crisis on Earth-X” crossover, when she sneaks into Barry and Iris' wedding posing as one of the caterers. She then appears sporadically throughout the rest of Season 4 of The Flash before the season finale revealed her identity.

Nora traveled back from 2049, 30 years in the future after Eobard Thawne told her that she could go back in time to save her father. Barry had disappeared during Crisis On Infinite Earths in 2024, so she grew up never knowing him. She idolized Barry for being a hero while hating Iris for keeping her in the dark about the fact that she’s a speedster.

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This version of Nora is eventually erased from existence after destroying Cicada’s dagger changes the timeline so that she never existed. She was offered the chance to save herself by Thawne, but she turned it down, knowing what he was capable of and not wanting to be further corrupted by his influence or the Negative Speed Force.

XS IN THE COMICS

XS 1

The comic version of XS is still related to Barry Allen, she's just not his daughter. Instead, Jenni Ognats is Barry’s granddaughter, through his daughter Dawn Allen (who is the more direct inspiration for Nora). She’s mostly been connected to the Legion of Super-Heroes, having been a member of that team rather than a hero on her own.

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Jenni isn’t a heavily used character in DC Comics, having only appeared in a single issue post-Flashpoint (The Flash Volume 5, #75). This is presumably why they changed her so much between the comics and the TV series, as she was a lesser-known character who could be changed without too many dedicated fans having issues with the changes.

COMPARING THE TWO

Despite sharing the name XS, Nora and Jenni aren’t very similar. As a reference to their shared superhero name, Nora did use the alias “Jenni Ognats” when she went dark for a time and formed the Young Rogues. They do have a similar background in not knowing they were speedsters until later in life, but for different reasons. Jenni simply didn’t show her powers until she had to save her father, Jeven Ognats, from being tortured, while Iris deliberately suppressed Nora’s powers to keep her from trying to be too much like Barry.

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Nora is more based on Dawn Allen, Barry’s daughter and one-half of the Tornado Twins from the comics. She and her brother Don were born after Barry’s disappearance in Crisis, just like Nora was. Repressing their powers was also a plot point for them, though done voluntarily; Nora had her powers forcibly repressed by Iris.

Rather than Barry Allen’s granddaughter and future Legionnaire Jenni Ognats, the TV version of XS is Barry’s time-traveling daughter. She was erased from existence at the end of Season 5 of The Flash, but that’s never stopped a comic character from making another appearance.

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