Subject: Reverse-Flash / Zoom
Culture: American comics fandom
Setting: DC Comics
Context (Event Photos, Primary Sources, Secondary Sources, Field Notes)
* DC Comics 2011 p207
"ZOOM The Reverse Flash Zoom is a villain from the 25th century who travels through time causing trouble for the Flash. He has a deep-seated hatred for all other speedsters and has made it his mission to destroy the Flash's legacy. Thanks to his time-traveling abilities, no one knows where Zoom will pop up next."
"From the moment Barry Allen first put on the suit, CW's The Flash introduced a lineup of enemies that kept Central City on edge. He fought metahumans, master manipulators, monstrous minds, rogue speedsters, and threats that pushed science and time itself to the brink. Yet for all the chaos Barry faced, no villain ever got under his skin quite like Reverse-Flash. Other villains wanted to beat him. Eobard Thawne wanted to own every chapter of his life.
"What sets Reverse-Flash apart is not only his speed or power, but how deeply he is stitched into Barry Allen’s life. He is not just another threat waiting at the end of a fight. He lives in Barry’s grief, in the story of how he became the Flash, in the wounds left on his family, and in the choices Team Flash keeps making long after Season 1. Time after time, the Scarlet Speedster ends up circling back to Thawne, whether he wants to or not. That kind of hold is rare. More importantly, it's what makes Reverse-Flash feel less like a villain of the week and more like Barry Allen’s shadow.
"... Reverse-Flash, or Eobard Thawne, is the one villain in The Flash who feels personal from the start. In the Arrowverse, he is introduced as a speedster from the future who idolized the Flash before becoming obsessed with destroying him. That obsession reshapes everything about him. He doesn’t move for power or destruction alone. His focus never drifts beyond one name. Barry Allen.
"That is what makes him so unnerving. Thawne is not simply Barry’s opposite in principles and powers. He is the dark answer to everything Barry stands for. Barry runs to save people. Thawne runs to ruin one man’s life. Barry believes in hope and second chances. Thawne thrives on control, bitterness, and pettiness. He is a villain built on obsession, and that obsession sharpens every scene he is in."
"As it was originally written, the Reverse-Flash is Eobard Thawne and Eobard Thawne is from the 25th Century. After discovering a time capsule containing the suit of Barry Allen, an atomic clock, and a Tachyon device, Thawne relentlessly begins to work at becoming his time period’s Flash. He does this after successfully using the Tachyon Device to give himself super speed. Now with speed, he reversed the colors of Barry’s costume, called himself Reverse-Flash, and went on a massive crime-spree."
* Misiroglu/Eury eds. 2006 p296
"The Reverse-Flash, the Scarlet Speedster's opposite in both costume (the yellows and reds are inverted) and morality, zoomed into the DC Universe in The Flash vol. 1 #139 (1963), written by John Broome and illustrated by Carmine Infantino. A resident of the twenty-fifth century, demented genius Eobard Thawne (aka Professor Zoom) is fixated upon the twentieth-century Flash (secretly police scientist Barry Allen). Discovering one of the hero's original uniforms in a time capsule, Zoom scientifically boosts its original wearer's residual super-speed energies (defined in later texts as the 'Speed Force') and infuses the suit, which he dyes, with the ability to enable him to run at superhuman velocities. Becoming the Fastest Man Alive of the future, he zips through a crime wave until the Flash, on a time-traveling mission in Zoom's era, trips him up."
* Reaves 2024-11-12 online
"Reverse-Flash is an incredible mantle, but Eobard Thawne has always been the most dangerous and most iconic person under the mask. While characters like Zoom, Inertia, Daniel West, and Edward Clariss all have fantastic moments, they simply pale in comparison to the things Eobeard Thawne has achieved. Eobard orchistrated [SIC] Wally's massacre at Sanctuary during Heroes in Crisis. It was Eobard Thawne who created Inertia by cloning him from Bart Allen's DNA, and it was Eobard Thawne who set up the crime that resulted in Hunter Zolomon being fired from the FBI.
"Without Eobard Thawne, Inertia and Zolomon wouldn't be Reverse-Flash variants themselves. While Zolomon tried to kill Wally's wife, Eobard did kill Barry's wife and has tortured Barry throughout his entire life. Eobard erased Barry's childhood friend from existence, made him lose his baseball game, and pushed him down the stairs as a kid, as well as orchestrating the death of Barry's mother. There's simply no comparing the acts of cruelty between the Reverse-Flashes. While Hunter and Inertia may have worn the mantle for a time, it was Eobard Thawne who created the Reverse-Flash identity."
* Wallace 2014 p110
"Whether he's called the Reverse-Flash or Professor Zoom, Eobard Thawne is a light-speed killer unhindered by the laws of space and time.
"John Broome and Carmine Infantino unveiled the character in The Flash #139 (September 1963). A resident of the 25th century, Eobard Thawne traveled into the past to meet The Flash and to meddle in the life of his alter ego, police scientist Barry Allen. Though he possessed the same abilities as his target -- able to run faster than thought and phase through solids by vibrating is body's molecules -- Thawne's color-swapped costume marked him as a true 'Reverse-Flash.'"
Costume
* DC Comics 2011 p207
"The colors of Zoom's costume are the exact opposite of the colors on the Flash's costume."
"Thawne is typically depicted as a very human man who wears the classic Flash costume, albeit with the red-and-yellow color scheme inverted."
