The Flash (Barry Allen) VS The Fearsome Four

Battle Intelligence: The Wizard, Hydro-Man, Klaw and The Trapster have lured The Flash into the middle of Central City when it is mildly populated. The Fearsome Four has has 24 hours of prep time, while Flash has only a general knowledge of the Four's abilities. In the 1st scenario it is the Pre-Flashpoint Barry Allen, and in the 2nd scenario it is the New 52 Barry. Battle On!!!

Pre-Flashpoint Barry wins relatively easily. New 52 loses mostly due to the 24 hours of prep.

@themusicmaniac: What do you think would give Pre-Flashpoint Barry the edge in this battle?

Flash

Prep might be the X-Factor here fo the Team, however I am not sure how they are going to handle Barry...

I'll back Barry. I don't know WHAT the Fearsome Four could do to try and stop him.

majority barry i think

@ssj_god: What do you think gives Flash the advantage over the 4?

speed... as usual

R1- Aug Cog ftw

R2- Pre 52 is too fast

Barry Allen was the most successful Flash in implementing science towards his enemies.

Friction heat Hydro, move faster than sound for Klaw, Paste Pot doesn't have the reaction time to hit Flash.

Wizard on his lonesome isn't hurting Flash.

Flash due to his intellect and speed and feats and ability to use the villain powers against each other.

The new 52 barry could pause for sec and calculate all the possibilities to defeat them using the speed force

@ssj_god: Me too.

Flash wins both rounds. New52 calculated infinite ways of how to use the GL ring hal gave him in less than a sec or so, while pre52 is just too fast for them.

@gizmorino: What if Klaw has his fully soundwave body powers?

Flash is just too fast, in both accounts. I have to give the win to him.

@ace13385: Considering the environment that they are fighting in the four are going to use the bystanders around them to gain leverage in the fight. It would be far out of character for Flash to go all out with his powers if he could hurt innocent people around him.

Why would Flash going all out with his powers endanger bystanders? None of his powers really have any major collateral damage problems. I'd imagine it'd be quite the opposite, actually.

If they are in the middle of Central City when there are people all about , Flash will have to be very careful how fast and where he runs. He won't go anywhere near top speed if he could risk running into someone and killing them, and the four will take advantage of that. I'm not saying the Flash can't win, but it will be a lot more difficult for him than if he were fighting them in a more isolated environment.

He can phase through people or more generally just, you know, not run into them the same way he never runs into anything randomly -- he has ridiculously good reflexes so obstacles are rarely a problem unless they're gargantuan. Like, what's your idea here, one of the fearsome four is behind a person so Flash has to be careful to not run into them? There's a crowd that he has to maneuver around, something he has done dozens of times with out it even being the slightest issue? When you are moving at near lightspeed, running around someone or even a group to hit the guy behind them is the most negligible thing imaginable. It's not like when he goes faster he gets worse at reacting to things and more prone to run into things, it's actually the except opposite. The faster he goes, the less likely he is to accidentally hit someone because they would be stationary objects to him while he perceives the world in extremely slow motion.

As I said, Flash's powerset is one of the most bystander friendly around. His entire schtick is that he can take the situation and environment into account and calculate all the outcomes incredibly fast. This would include things like where all the people are and not to run into them. The only way the bystanders are useful is if they pull the hostage situation deal, but that just kind of gives Flash the impetous to save the person faster than any of the fearsome four could react.

If you could give me a real prep feat that can deal with someone who moves and reacts at lightspeed to trap them then I'd be more than happy to say Barry loses, I just don't think the innocent bystanders angle is even a factor, really. Barry would be able to evacuate an entire city block before the foursome could blink if you really want to press the issue.

Barry could easily speedblitz these guys even with prep

Prep > Speed

It should be banned

@dredeuced: Flash's maneuverability and velocity would be an issue for him was the point I was trying to make. Another issue is that one of the four can take civilians as hostages to leverage control over the Flash. We have to also consider that The Flash has been shot before by his Rogues who are excellent marksmen such as Captain Cold or Heat Wave, even though they only have human reflexes. The Trapster is an excellent marksman who is know for projecting adhesives that are special designed to neutralize his targets powers. He also has in his arsenal a special lubricant that negates all friction, that he could use to make it hard for Flash to remain mobile.

Hydro-Man can use his own body or any of the water around him to potentially drowned the Flash if he isn't careful. The Wizard's gravity disk allow him to manipulate the field of gravity around any object that they stick to, which could be a threat to Flash. Klaw may be the biggest challenge of the group because he is made of sound, and has such a mastery of sound that he can shape it into solid moving constructs.

Flash

And I'm saying his maneuverability and velocity would make the bystanders a complete non issue. If their plan is taking hostages then that's pretty weak for 24 hours of prep, I imagine he could rescue the hostage before they could react.

I am really kind of tired of the "well the Rogues shoot him!" argument. Yes, the Rogues have shot him before. The Rogues also have literal years of experience and even they admit that nearly every single time they've ever dealt with The Flash he disarms them faster than they can think or pull the trigger due to the massive speed gap, and this was BEFORE Flash unlocked his pseudo-precognition powers.

If you can show me the Trapster's adhesives disabling someone who gets their powers from another dimension and then show me him setting a trap that can catch someone moving at lightspeed then he might solo. Hydro-man was a pretty weak argument considering Barry can literally control and move thousands of tons of water with his speed, rather easily. It's hard to drown someone who can, with one arm, kick up a whirlwind that would disperse and move all the water around him. The Wizard's disks kind of rely on him sticking the disks to someone, incredibly difficult against an opponent who can phase. I don't see sonic attacks are particularly dangerous to someone who moves lightspeed when he knows the sonic attacks are coming and Klaw has been defeated so many ways (often times through physical force) that his construct making and sonic attacks seem rather trivial when he probably won't get a chance to use them.

These badguys are right up Flashes alley.

Flash for the win.

@dredeuced: I will refer you to this article. The case you are trying to make isn't as cut and dry as you are making it. http://www.comicvine.com/profile/saren/blog/if-flash-is-so-unbeatable-why-are-all-his-villains/78892/

Flash

I have no idea why you think this article disproves anything of what I said. First, his entire premise is that Flash isn't always fighting to the best of his ability in comics, which is the exact opposite of the rules of this forum (Where we assume that characters fight to the best of their ability within their morals, ie trying hard but not killing anyone for your typical Superhero). Second, a good number of the people he listed in that very article would solo this group handily (Grodd, Top, Mirror Master, Kadabra, Alchemy), so I'm not exactly sure what your point is there. Third, Saren specifically parrots (or maybe I parrot him, or we're just of a similar mind on the subject) my point that the Rogues have to band together to stand a chance and that, even when they do, the Flash can and has defeated them faster than they could react before. Fourth, a lot of those scans would require some context on why they worked at that time but would not work on current Flash (like Cold making the ground slippery, something that only worked on late 80s/early 90s Wally who is much weaker than Pre52 and New52 Barry). If your argument is that, sometimes, Trickster tags the Flash then it's a pretty weak argument. For every instance Flash gets tagged by someone he shouldn't, there's a dozen where he speedblitzes way faster people. It's like how I could show you Wally struggling with a tornado or outrunning the pull of a black hole.

Beyond that, trying to give me a lesson on Flash by linking a blog (that I've already read ages ago, mind you) is a bit off-putting. I'm not sure if I know as much as Saren(mostly because I don't know how much Saren knows), but I certainly know my fair share about the character and his history of losses and wins. It actually is very cut and dry. If Flash isn't jobbing he should wreck these guys pretty easily, unless they have some serious prep feats I'm unaware of.

@dredeuced: The point that I was making was that it would be out of character for either version of Barry to fight at his top speeds in most circumstances. He is likely to under use his powers most of the time based on what we have seen. According to the rules of this forum we are supposed to conduct these discussions assuming that the opponents are in character, unless specified otherwise in the OP. My argument isn't even that the Fearsome Four will necessarily win, but that the certainty of Flash winning as you described it seems overstated. If he were blood lusted or otherwise out of character then I think it would be a cut and dry victory for Flash. There is also an issue here of overlooking that Klaw's and Hydro-Man's bodies are not made of flesh and blood. Having bodies made of water and sound means that even with a speed advantage they will be more difficult to injure than many opponents.

Yes, and Barry has also used his powers to their fullest in character many times. It is not out of character for him to use his powers effectively. Barry can both job and use his powers effectively in character. But there's the other rule. It would definitely not be him fighting to the best of his ability to monumentally job, which is your only argument. He doesn't need to be bloodlusted to run loops around these guys the exact same way he can and has run loops around The Rogues. Who, by the by, are way WAY more powerful, dangerous and attuned to fighting Flash than this group, which is another reason I hate you constantly bringing them up as a point against Barry. You'd think the fact that Barry has an unbelievably good track record of beating The Rogues would make him all the more likely to beat this group.

He doesn't have to injure villains to beat them. He usually just catches and disables them. If you want to talk about The Rogues giving Barry trouble as a downside then I wonder why you think a Spider-man villain would pose a threat to The Flash. Or a dude who gets taken out by The Thing and She-Hulk and any other number of Mavel Mid-tiers.