There's an Argument to Be Made That the Flash Is the Most Powerful Hero Ever

I know from personal experience that if you want to get a nerd riled up, then start up a conversation about who would hypothetically win a battle between two fictional characters. People could talk senselessly for hours about whether or not Aquaman would really be able to hold his own against Wolverine in a fight.

 And then if you want to get really nerdy, people will start citing the varying powers and abilities of each hero's "iteration." So it's no surprise people are asking if Quicksilver is faster than the Flash. 

While it's easy to judge the absolute insanity of these conversations, it's important to note that it's this kind of time-honored tradition that makes the enjoyment of superhero movies so great. One may even argue that without these figurative battles, there wouldn't be an MCU in the first place.

And there are always people who are ready to argue how Marvel characters would fare against select DC characters.

So, when Quicksilver made a return, of sorts, to the MCU in WandaVision, it got fans wondering whether or not the speed-loving mutant was faster than DC's Flash.

There's actually a definitive answer to that — it's a resounding no. While there are plenty of different geeks uber-geeking out over different mach speeds for each of the fast superheroes, there's clear evidence as to why the Flash is so much faster than Quicksilver.

While Quicksilver can run so quickly it's almost as if he can stop time, he isn't so fast that he can literally run back in time and change the future. It's because of Barry Allen's ability to become "one" with the Speed Force that he can pretty much rewind and fast forward time as he sees fit.

The Flash has also been capable of some pretty insane feats in the comics, like the ability to "vibrate" himself into other Earths.

He can control his body on a molecular level, to the point that he can just transport himself to either other parts of the planet instantly or another dimension entirely. He's also faster that Superman (nuts on its own), and is so fast that he can run for so long and so hard that he can force time to basically collapse on himself, like the events of Flash War.

If you've ever seen The Flash episode "Flashpoint," arguably one of the coolest storylines in the Arrowverse, Barry (Grant Gustin) basically created an alternate universe because he was so fast and was able to go back in time. Barry's ability to tap into the Speed Force has been proven to be so powerful that other superheroes who come into contact with it are killed simply by its energy.

That happened when Wally West (Keiynan Lonsdale) briefly lost control of the Speed Force, and it turns out a bunch of heroes ended up dying as a result. Speaking of the Speed Force, because time is cyclical and doesn't travel in a straight line, Barry's tapping into the Speed Force is the genesis of the concept of time itself.

Yes, as heady and crazy as it sounds, there's no way Quicksilver is faster than the Flash because how do you beat someone who basically invented Time?

Barry also managed to race himself back to life. After he died at the end of the Final Crisis, Barry ended up getting a race with the Black Racer from the past, and he ended up running so quickly that he headed into the future and ultimately managed to race himself back to life. The dude outran death, something Pietro (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) clearly couldn't do in Age of Ultron.

But then again, maybe that's the direction the MCU's headed in WandaVision with Quicksilver's character, which could explain his return. It all sounds a bit outrageously over-powerful to include in a film, however, and having a hero or villain with the ability to alter time in such a way would make for a bit of a boring script, don't you think? Then there's the fact that time travel already exists of sorts in the MCU.

That being said, it's hard to argue that Quicksilver's scenes in the X-Men flicks aren't absolutely fantastic, even if the majority of the movies, with the exception of Logan and the Deadpool films (which aren't really X-Men movies) range from mediocre to downright awful. With the MCU in control of Quicksilver's fate, we'll have to wait and see what this semi-new Pietro brings to the table.