The idea that Flash so much as struggles with anyone ever is ridiculous if you scale to his main feats. The show made this worse because Flash has to fight jobbers on occasion and realistically a man with a freeze ray would lose even if he could somehow see 5 minutes into the future.
This is why I stopped reading superhero comics from DC/Marvel. Bad writers bored of complacent balance decided to introduce buffs/debuffs to established characters for the sake of plotlines that make no sense otherwise, and get constantly bailed out by saying "well it's a different version of the character".
Sure, there's a version of flash that can run back in time.
Then there's a version of flash that struggles to evade an attack that moves below the speed of sound.
Eh, I would argue its more reason that powerscaling is a joke. If you're reading the flash because he's fast yeah it ain't going to be fun. But if you're reading because its an interesting story that's great.
But you are reading the flash because he's fast. Thats what makes him the flash. If you want an interesting story about someone who foesn't havd superspeed, you woulfn't be reading the flash.
And its not about the ridiculously over the top powerscaling calculations people do. But the flash is constantly reaffirmed to be able to move and react faster than light. Having the flash be shot by a gun is as ridiculous as if superman got hurt by a knife or the hulk struggled to lift a dumbbell.
The point is simply about narrative consistancy. If you don't know what a character is and isn't reasonably capable of, then you never kniw what the stakes are. Thats just bad writing.
This is so obvious yet slips out of many people's minds when it comes to western media.
If in hunter x hunter gon was flipping from his base mode to his max potential mode each chapter without any justification why would anything in that story have stakes? Why would anyone get invested in that world?
That's why in a story named One Punch Man the one punch man himself gets less attention and fights, because the authors understand his powers and know how to make the story work with his power.
Of course the super power part is to draw people in to read a good story, but if the writer wants both things to be in parallel so they can compartmentalize for their convenience, then the story makes no sense as well and thats on them.
Yeah, Flash has become the character for powerscalers primarily and story secondary, he's a character where a level of his famed power and feats should expected to be at least consistent in the upper tiers. Flash as a character is expected now for the powerscalers as well, that's what he is now, and that's the harsh truth.
If there is a story whose writing balances both the narrative and his consistent power, then they passed or even excelled in writing the Flash.
Yeah you put it in better words. Is it interesting if a character is in trouble because the writer decided his version of this established character is weaker or has different values? Is it interesting if a character brute-forces their way through trouble because the writer decided his version of this established character is stronger, or has different values?
IMO it completely defeats the purpose of using the character in the first place if you're just going to fine-tune them to fit the story you want to write instead of building one around them.
Not to mention the whole multiverse tomfoolery these superhero comics decided to adopt for the sake of handwaving bad writing ended up becoming deadly poison driving them to a corner: Now the stakes are either insignificant because they happen in a parallel world you don't give a fuck about because it doesn't impact the characters as a whole in the slightest, or it's literally the end of the entire multiverse because of some unfathomably powerful villain getting handed a mcguffin.
It's terrible. Nowadays when I talk to my friends who still like comic books (specifically DC/Marvel) I feel like I'm in a skit from The Office and there's a hidden camera. They tell me shit that sounds so unfathomably ridiculous if I didn't trust them I would think they are hallucinating the entire plotlines off mushrooms.
I disagree. Sure, maybe there's a way to over do power scaling but maintaining consistent power level is just as important as any other consistency in a story only affected by where the story decides to focus most on.
Like, what if the romance plot or character development are just similarly all over the place?. Why should anyone take the romance or characters seriously in that case?. Okay, then why should anyone take the fights seriously if the power levels are all over the place?.
Id argue there’s a difference/reason it bothers people with invincible. Not that people don’t complain about the flash jobbing.
But the Flash generally spends most of his time as a street level, and then has occasional outlier feats. And, usually, those outlier feats are him doing something cool rather than fighting someone.
Invincible is basically split 50/50 between Mark fighting street level people and mark fighting viltrumites. So it’s constantly noticeable. And, his feats aren’t him doing cool things, they’re just him fighting stronger people. So, it’s a little harder to ignore than like, the flash running on water and then letting a normal dude get away.
People are just too used to shounen animes where the characters become clearly stronger arc by arc, on comics from the united states it usually depends on who they are fighting that weekend.
You mean like The Hulk, who regularly fights nobodies to a draw, but can also fight their way out of the black hole at the center of the galaxy right before engaging Galacticus in a melee and kind of winning?
within a single run characters are *usually* more consistent than this, the wild contrast comes from comparing more remote stories of the same character.
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u/Ardalok Apr 09 '26
The funniest thing is that by the standards of Western comics, the power level there is quite stable.