« fun Flash quote | Main Index | quick Flash question »
04/08/2004: musings about Flash and Animal Man, their (near) death experiences, the Speedforce and The Red
Last night I've read the Terminal Velocity arc and the issue after, dealing with its fallout, i.e. Flash #95-101, and when I went to bed I had this thought about how Flash's experience is in a lot of ways similar to Animal Man's (first) death and rebirth through the Red in the Flesh and Blood arc in Animal Man #51-56. Since then I looked at the Animal Man issues again, to write this entry -- it's been a while since I read them -- and it wasn't quite as parallel as my half asleep brain thought, mainly because Animal Man recognized his "power field" before his first death, also Buddy is less able to hold on to his previous personality, while Wally manages to push his new insights into his subconscious. But I still think their "near death experience" stories are similar in a lot of ways, because totally different superpowers work on a similar structure, which I find neat. Also I think it's interesting how differently they and their families deal with these things.
Now, it's not exactly uncommon that superheroes die only to come back, whether through magic, some cosmic entity, timeline anomalies, or whatever plot device is en vogue then, however I think that both Buddy's and Wally's experiences stand out. Not only because they both come back changed and actually remember things (while sometimes superheroes don't remember and don't change much, it's not that unusual that the death/resurrection plot is used to tweak or change the character's powers), but also because both do it by themselves -- through discovering a deeper connection to the source of their powers, i.e. the "Speedforce" for Wally, "The Red" (a.k.a Morphogenetic Field) for Buddy. Subsequently that "rebirth" and with it their new awareness of their respective "field" changes their powers, ends up being a spiritual experience for them (though some will get more extremist about it in the long run than others, I mean it's not like Flash has founded a Speedforce church -- I hope *g*), and also leads to tension in their relationship to their "normal" spouses who remained behind and didn't share that revelation. Even though for both their wish to stay with their loved ones longer, and to protect them, was their primary reason not to surrender to the field, but to cling to life and come back.
The similarities seem really striking to me. Flash feels the Speedforce calling to him, because of his brief brush with it during Zero Hour, in Flash #99 he describes it like this "I feel the speed field calling to me... calling loud and hard. In these final days, I've come to realize that something tremendous awaits me on the other side of light. Something I long to embrace... someday." The only thing holding him back from turning into energy is his love for Linda, and his desire to keep her save. So when he has to reach that speed to save her he does, though he expects not to come back, only to find out that he can come back, because he loves her more than he longs to become part of the Speedforce. Once he's back he explains this to her in this conversation (to see this conversation about his powers and a really sweet Wally/Linda moment, don't read it here, but look at this scan of page 37 of Flash #100):
Wally: "Linda... I made it through. I sped to the other side of light. I became part of some force... some power. It was... it was glorious."
Linda: "What did you see?"
Wally: "I'm not sure. I remember less with each passing second. It was like looking at the face of god. I couldn't comprehend a billionth of it-- and yet, I know it's a part of me now... more than it's ever been for any man alive. I have a direct line to the force of speed. I don't understand it now-- but I have a feeling that in the days to come, I'll start to."
Linda: "A minute ago... when you saved me, you were doing... things. Things I never knew you could do."
Wally: "New ways to use my power. A gift of instinct. And there'll be more. I've begun a whole new evolution-- I'm sure of that."
Lind: "But I don't understand. Max... Max swore that no one can cross that threshold and return."
Wally: "Yeah, well... Max doesn't know everything."
Linda: "But if you belong there... if it called to you... then why did you come back from heaven? This place had all the answers you've been looking for! It had everything!"
Wally: "True. But you weren't there."
(quoted from Flash #100)
Wally had a teacher preparing him for the spiritual side of his powers, i.e. Max Mercury, who Wally tends to refer as "Zen Speedmaster", and though at first he doesn't accept that view, and insist it was random chance how he got his powers, not some force bestowing him with them, that there is nothing to it, in the end, after he experiences the speedforce, he agrees with most of it, except of course for Max's opinion on the impossibility of return, which he proves false and thus surpasses his teacher:
Wally: "I think everything you told me about my... our... powers was dead-bang on. There is a force beyond the speed of light. It's not sentient, it's not cognizant... but it is the source of our speed-energy. You, Jesse, Bart... Barry... we've all tapped into this field to one degree or another. But now that I've been there and back, I'm mainlining the charge... and it feels terrific."
Max: "You've become the fastest man who ever lived. Before you made your journey, you were worried about loosing your humanity. Still a concern?"
Wally: "Oh, believe me... I'm still flesh and blood. But the faster I move, the more energy I radiate... hence, by the way, the thunderbolt that flagged my sonic boom arrival. Still, I control the energy... not viceversa."
Max: "You surprise me."
Wally: "In itself, a golden moment. Surprise you how?"
Max: "I'm surprised you haven't picked up on the price you might have to pay for what you've achieved. Be careful Wally. You're no longer standing at the top rung of where you were... you're at the bottom of a whole new ladder."
(quoted from Flash #101)
Similar figures exist in Buddy's road to discovery, i.e. the Animal Masters, and the Shaman revealing to him that he is one, before his death/rebirth storyline. Though there are differences. Buddy sees the Red, a.k.a. the "Morphogenetic Field", earlier, and the evolution of his powers begins long before his first death, after he takes peyote together with the physicist James Highwater in Animal Man #18 and #19. BTW, at this point Buddy still assumes the aliens in his origin story are ultimately responsible for his powers, however the matter of his origins gets only more muddled over time, after all in the comic they aren't supposed to make sense internally, but to be a meta romp. For my point it's not all that important whether it was aliens or a spell by an animal master or something else connecting him to The Red, after all Flash doesn't really know why he's connected to the Speedforce either. Anyway, in Animal Man #18 The Red is described thus:
Buddy: "I'm here again. This is where the aliens put me. The template. They called it the template. They grafted me into the template. And these are all my totems. I don't think I can stand the stress. All these presences. These animal essences. I'm connected. Streaming out. I'm part of them."
James: "Animal Man. I understand it now! It's the morphogenetic field. You've been hooked up to the morphogenetic field! This is where your animal powers come from! From the field itself! The field is a mesh of countless smaller fields; each one a blueprint which guides the formation of atoms into molecules, molecules into cells, cells into tissues, organs, systems! Every species is represented by its own field. Its own ideal form! It's like Plato's archetypal reality, only more subtle. This is where the idea of totem spirits derives from! And you're connected to the essence of every creature that has ever existed. You don't need to be near an animal to absorb its power. The power comes from here! From the life field itself!"
Buddy: "Yes, that's it. But there is more. It means something more."
Of course by then the series starts to get really meta, like after the passage I quoted, the talking Fox shows Buddy cave paintings which Buddy recognizes as representations of the Crisis, and sees one of another Crisis coming, there's stuff about "Purification Day," rains of blood, until finally Buddy sees everything in Red, falls through it, talks to his pre-Crisis self, who leads him to get his first glimpse of the readers and his existence in a story (of course he will ultimately meet his writer and then almost completely forget about it again).
But after the meta romp is over, he still has his connection to the field, which is getting stronger and makes him feel animals more. Then he gets run over by Ellen's uncle in his truck and dies. However he refuses to let go, and briefly tries to cling to his body, which is unsuccessful except for traumatizing Ellen when she sees his mangled corpse trying to reanimate, so he has to seek a new body he can inhabit through the Lifeweb. Because humans resist to much to share, his first step happens to be a mite, then he slowly moves up (and sometimes down) the food chain, withdrawing from the animal's body shortly before it gets eaten by another, until he ends up in his daughter's pet dinosaur (don't ask), which lays an egg in which he, through DNA manipulation, conveniently can grow another body of his own, which however isn't exactly human, but a good deal closer to human (well it's biped and can talk anyway). In this process his consciousness becomes one with the Lifeweb, and I'd quote that passage from Animal Man #55 except for its purple prose (and I mean really, really purple), that I can't quite stand to repeat. Anyway he perceives a vast tree of life, which connects the different species and he can follow its branches, and has the goal to grow his human body back. Eventually he gets his own body back because he goes through a metamorphosis with the help of a DNA map acquired from leftovers from his own body, but that's more tangential.
Both Wally and Buddy have to deal with the strain this puts on their relationship, because neither Linda nor Ellen shared the experiences, and in the aftermath Wally and Buddy connect more easily with people who understand the force they feel/felt. It's far more extreme in Buddy's case, who is only really understood by his daughter who shares his abilities, but it's also true for Wally. Even though the other speedsters didn't have the same experience with the Speedforce, they at least feel it and he doesn't have to explain something he can't. This frustrates Linda, as this conversation in Flash #101 shows:
Wally: "Linda, you're not mad. You're afraid-- I think-- of me. But I'm not "Living Lightening"... not anymore. I'm every bit the human butthead you fell in love with! Sure, I was transformed... I was summoned to the speed field... but I came back."
Linda: "From where? Wally what was it like on the other side of light?"
Wally: "It was incredible!"
Linda: "That's all you've said! Tell me more! Do you think I won't understand? Is that it?"
Wally: "What...? Linda, I don't understand! Whatever I saw, whatever I learned... it was too much for me! It was driven into my subconscious! I used some new powers against Kobra, but I moved on pure instinct! I've yet to learn what I'm capable of. I... I guess I am a changed man!"
Linda: "And I'm the same Linda...meaning you're that much further beyond me."
Wally: "No...!"
Linda: "I am afraid, Wally. Not of where you are... but of where I've been left. You know my world. But now... I don't know yours at all."
Ellen has even more issues with Buddy, but then when he was first reborn, before his metamorphosis back into human, he also had some more severe, um, identity issues, to put it mildly:
"I never knew such freedom-- that I was so much a part of all of this; a part of everything. The glorious mania of creation seethes around me; through me; with me. [...] I am nature. I am all life represented in one form. I am god-- and I see every sparrow fall."
(quoted form Animal Man #56)
I mean I can see how that would lead to problems in a relationship, when he explains this feeling to Ellen she isn't thrilled:
Buddy: "It's as if I'm an embodiment of the system of life that we call nature-- a reincarnation of some ancient god, like pan, sent back to save the world."
Ellen: "You'd better get moving, then. Sounds like you're gonna be busy. Come one, flap off and start your new religion. It's o.k. by me. I'll just stay here and try to raise your crazy children."
(quoted form Animal Man #56)
This then makes him realize that he'd rather be Buddy Baker again, and gives him the incentive to try the metamorphosis. However his connection to animals doesn't go away, so in the aftermath he frequently finds himself sharing his consciousness with animals, putting a strain on his relationship even after he has his human body back. Of course eventually Buddy will in fact start a religion after all.
This also highlights a main difference between their experiences, Wally still feels the same as a person, and came back with his identity intact, whereas Buddy didn't. Buddy's new awareness is overwhelming and he doesn't manage to repress it into his subconscious so that he can handle the changes with his former identity.
Still, I think while Buddy is more radical than Wally about his newly found knowledge and the consequences it has for him, what they both go through is remarkably similar for powers so different.
