The Biggest Unresolved Mystery In The Flash Has A Comic Book Answer

This post contains spoilers for "The Flash."

So, the Flash (Ezra Miller) can travel back in time. I understand it's because he can run faster than the speed of light. I would assume that air resistance doesn't affect the Flash because of something to do with his powers; he seems to surround himself with an inertial dampening system similar to the one used on the starship Enterprise. It's also established that he can pass through solid matter, so the Flash can run at the speed of light without having to worry about crashing into anything. That's a good thing, because at the speed of light, one would be able to traverse the circumference of Earth in 0.13 seconds. 

When the Flash, aka Barry Allen, discovers he can travel back in time, his first thought is to go back to his childhood and save his mother's life. His mother Nora (Maribel Verdú) was killed by a mysterious home invader when he was about 10, and his father Henry (Ron Livingston) was arrested for the crime. In the present, Barry's father has been languishing in prison ever since, locked up for a crime he didn't commit. 

Barry's scheme for saving his mother is a little odd, though. It seems that Barry's mother was home alone at the time of the attack because his father was at the store picking up a can of tomato sauce. Barry goes back in time and slips the tomato sauce into his mother's shopping cart. Now Henry would be home at the time of the killing, and not at the store. Presumably, this also meant the unknown assailant wouldn't break in and stab Nora. 

The real question: If Barry can go back in time, why didn't he investigate the identity of his mom's killer?

It's a strange element of "The Flash" that is never addressed. Audiences are only given a few scant facts. Nora was stabbed, and Henry was discovered over her crying. Because of the circumstances, Dad was the prime suspect. There was no evidence to exonerate him, and he was locked up. Barry — and the audience — are meant to immediately assume that Barry's dad didn't actually commit the murder. "The Flash," then, is about a tortured child with a deceased mother and an imprisoned father, and those injustices led the title character into superherodom.

But if Henry didn't actually kill Nora, then who did? And why? Barry's mom was at home in a placid suburb making dinner. Did she have enemies? Was there merely a psychopath passing through? Usually, when a man with a knife is stalking through suburban homes, carving up innocents, the killer is Michael Myers. 

As it so happens, the deep-cut DC Comics fans might have a clue. On Reddit, several of them gathered to find precedent in the pages of the original "The Flash" comic books, as well as posit other script-derived explanations as to the identity of Nora's killer. 

The first theory: The tomato sauce gambit was a way to alter Barry's childhood in a way that would require the least interaction with the past as possible. Having a fight with a knife-wielding attacker is conspicuous. Slipping a can of sauce into a shopping cart is unobtrusive. 

Another theory posited, however, that something far more sinister was at work. Perhaps the killer was Eobard Thawne, also known as the Flash's arch-enemy, Reverse-Flash. 

The Reverse-Flash first appeared in DC comics in 1963. He was originally a scientist from the distant future who dug up a centuries-old time capsule that contained the Flash's costume and began to idolize the hero. He was able to recreate the lightning-related accident that gave the Flash his superpowers. In one iteration, the Reverse-Flash went insane when he (for comic book reasons) discovered he was destined to become a supervillain. Sporting a yellow outfit with red lightning bolts, the Reverse-Flash devoted his existence to making Barry Allen's life miserable. Thawne can also travel through time with much more ease than Barry, monkeying with causality all willy-nilly. 

As with all comic book characters, of course, the Reverse-Flash has had several different origin stories. For all intents and purposes, he's the Flash's evil twin. 

If Eobard Thawne wanted to torture the Flash, then killing Nora and framing Henry seems like a good place to begin. It would also explain why the Flash's dad never saw anything on the day of the crime. The Reverse-Flash could have sped in and out without being noticed.

Of course, the Redditors are quick to point out that Barry's time travel sauce can gambit would have merely assured Henry was at home at the time of the killing. Henry's being home wouldn't have stopped the Reverse-Flash from speeding in and killing Nora anyway. Run in, stab, run out. Unless the Reverse-Flash wanted to savor his wicked act, there would be no reason for him to stick around. 

It's unlikely there with be a "The Flash 2," but if there is, then the actual identity of Nora's killer, be it Reverse-Flash or not, would likely be discussed.

"The Flash" is now in theaters.