Like countless other comic book heroes, the Flash has died multiple times in various ways. While many of these instances are pretty standard and not too visually unsettling, there are a couple that send a shiver down the spine. A more recent example stems from the 2014 “Future’s End” storyline, where the world is overtaken by the tyrannical artificial intelligence Brother Eye. Flash is one of the few surviving heroes, though he meets his end at the hands of Frankenstein. He offers the Scarlet Speedster a chance to join Brother Eye, which he refuses. Frankenstein opens his shirt, revealing the severed head of Black Canary stitched to his chest. Her Canary Call obliterates Flash in an instant.
To say the image of Black Canary’s somehow still-living head attached to Frankenstein’s chest is creepy would be an understatement. Still, it doesn’t come close to the level of recognition that another eerie Flash death has attained over the years. During the iconic “Crisis on Infinite Earths” storyline from the mid-’80s, Flash sacrifices himself to prevent the Anti-Monitor from destroying the Multiverse. He runs so fast that he travels through time, swiftly decaying and withering away. Watching this occur through the series of panels above is harrowing as he goes from a gaunt, older human, to a collapsing skeleton, to nothing. Though Ben Affleck’s Batman almost set up an adaptation of “Crisis” in “The Flash,” and potentially this Barry’s (Ezra Miller) death, with the end of the DC Extended Universe, don’t expect this iconic moment to reach theaters anytime soon.
Evidently, Flash has been through the wringer in the pages of DC Comics. Thankfully, for those squeamish, it’s unlikely his most gruesome deaths will ever make it to live-action.
