The Flash season 7’s New Forces story takes an unexpected turn as it creates a new speedster villain for the Arrowverse, a person who differs from Barry Allen’s past threats. Ever since it began its run in 2014, the show has utilized multiple speedster villains from The Flash. By Reverse-Flash, Zoom, and Savitar to Godspeed, Team Flash has had its hands full with fighting speedsters who used their powers for evil. Season 7 may even comprise Godspeed later on as the real iteration hasn’t been revealed yet. However, before they could get to Godspeed, Barry has a different speedster villain to bargain with; a danger he did not see coming.
Ever since Iris West revived the original Speed Force, that has the form of Nora Allen, they have been suspicious when it comes to the New Forces. After several episodes, The Flash season 7 has shown the Speed Force’s true intentions in episode 8, “The People v. Killer Frost.” Barry and Rate Force Nora track down the Power Force’s conduit Fuerza, whose actual name is Alexa Rivera when she isn’t in her other type. While they conduct tests on Alexa to find out what triggers her Strength Force transformation, the Speed Force takes things into their own hands by attacking Alexa. Even though the episode doesn’t explain if Alexa died from the lightning blast or not, the Speed Force takes its function as a rival to The Flash, even as they want to take the New Forces, but with lethal methods.
One of the things that earlier seasons of The Flash were criticized for was it’s over use of Barry moving up against another speedster. While Reverse-Flash will likely always stay as the show’s best villain, Zoom and Savitar were just a little too like Eobard Thawne. Though Godspeed’s identity and motives have not been fully explored yet, they are still wicked. Regardless of the Flash vs the Speed Force revisiting that ancient formulation, the Arrowverse is performing it in a refreshing way. The Speed Force in itself isn’t pure evil as they don’t possess the motives that Thawne, Zoom, and Savitar had.
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Instead, it is a conflict of different ideologies: whereas Barry would like to assist the people affected from the New Forces, the Speed Force wants them dead. Even though The Flash is unquestionably depicting the Speed Force as an antagonist, they aren’t a one-dimensional villain who wants to cause harm for the sake of it. In certain ways, it may be debated whether or not the Rate Force falls more in the anti-hero class as opposed to being a villain. While they and Barry wish to discontinue the New Forces as a frequent goal, Team Flash’s methods differ from theirs.
What is also helping The Flash season 7 is that Barry must go up against a rival who resembles his dead mother, providing this battle a psychological component. Will it be easy for the fastest man living to resist somebody who resembles the parent who Reverse-Flash murdered when Barry was a kid? It will probably be easier said than done, since it makes Barry Allen’s new big bad a more personal one. That helps this speedster vs. speedster arc stand out a bit from the prior ones The Flash has done in the earlier seasons.
