Name: Flash
Universe: Post-Crisis
Alter Ego: Barry Henry Allen
Occupation: Police Scientist
Marital Status: Married
Group Affiliation: Justice League of America
Base of Operations: Central City
Known Relatives: Iris (wife), Henry and Nora (parents), Eric and Fran Russell (parents-in-law), Professor Ira West (stepfather-in-law), Wallace West (nephew)
Height: 5 ft. 11 in.
Weight: 179 lbs.
Hair Color: Blond
Eye Color: Blue
First Appearance: Secret Origins Annual #2

History:
Police scientist Barry Allen — constantly humiliated by his friends, who knew him as the "slowest man alive" — was working late in his laboratory one night. During a ferocious thunderstorm, a lightning bolt came through the window and struck a nearby cabinet of chemicals. The resulting explosion bestowed upon him the power to move at superhuman speed. Before that moment, Allen had lived an uninspired life; suddenly, one twist of fate had allowed all of his dreams to come true. Allen, who idolized Jay Garrick, the original Flash, decided to use his abilities to fight crime as the new Flash.

The Flash quickly became a celebrated hero. He accumulated a number of colorful adversaries who became known as the Flash's "Rogues Gallery," and was a founding member of the Justice League of America. He gained an occasional partner — Kid Flash — when his girlfriend Iris West's nephew Wally fell victim to the same type of accident that gave Allen his own powers. The Flash also played a key role in the first adventure of the Elongated Man and brought Jay Garrick out of retirement, which in turn led to a brief regrouping of the Justice Society of America.

Allen eventually wed Iris, and the two were happily married for many years until Men's arch enemy Professor Zoom struck vengefully by slaying Iris. After a time, Allen fell in love once more, with a young woman named Fiona Webb, but on their wedding day, Zoom returned to kill her, as well. This time, Flash stopped Zoom. In the ensuing struggle, he broke Zoom's neck. Though it was the only way Allen could have stopped Zoom, he was arrested and put on trial for second-degree murder.

This chapter of the Flash's life had a happy ending: he was acquitted and reunited with his "late" wife, whose life had been saved by her parents. As natives of the 30th Century, they were able to use advanced technology to perform a "psychic transplant" and implant Iris's spirit into the body of a deceased 30th-century woman, thereby giving their daughter a new lease on life. Flash, at last at peace, elected to stay with Iris in the far future.

Unfortunately, Flash was able to spend only one month with his wife before being kidnapped by the Anti-Monitor during the war known as the Crisis. The Anti-Monitor. who knew that the Flash's particular dimension-crossing powers might interfere with his own schemes, imprisoned the Scarlet Speedster while constructing an anti-matter cannon. The cannon, powered by a single tachyon (a faster-than-light particle that travels backward through time), was set to destroy Earth. Just before the cannon was fired, the Flash managed to free himself and pushed his speed to previously unreached levels by breaking the light barrier and racing back through time after the tachyon. As he neared the particle, he watched his own life replay itself—in reverse When he caught the particle arid stopped it, the resultant mixture of energies transformed him into a human thunderbolt. At that instant, the Flash found himself present at the moment of his own origin. He himself became the lightning bolt that bestowed upon Barry Allen not just his super-speed... but the gift of being able to die not in pain and despair, but by forever reliving the greatest years of his life.

Powers:
The Flash possessed the power to move at superhuman speed and could attain velocities equal to the speed of light (186,000 miles per second). His superhuman endurance enabled him to run great distances without tiring.

The Flash had an aura of unknown energy that protected him from friction heat. He also had control over his body's atoms and molecules, often using this power to vibrate at such speeds as to slip past the atoms of solid objects without damaging them. He could also travel to other dimensions by varying the vibratory rates of his atoms.

The Flash constructed a device called the "cosmic treadmill" which helped him set up special internal vibrations that projected him into other time periods. To return to his own time, the Flash needed only to will those internal vibrations to stop.

The Flash wore a collapsible costume of his own invention that he stored in a specially crafted finger ring.