the flash time travel

Time travel in The Flash explained

The new movie in the DC Universe embraces some reality-bending chaos and you'll need to keep up, so here's how time travel in The Flash actually works.

Tom Beasley

Published: Jun 15, 2023

How does time travel work in The Flash?  Superhero movies love time travel. It’s a great sci-fi trick to get out of impossible narrative corners and find new storytelling responsibilities. And so, that brings us to The Flash and some seriously knotty chronology.

That’s right, the DCU has gone multiversal with The Flash release date , and so we now have to get our head around how time travel operates in these new movies . Thankfully, The Flash is a fun introduction to reality-bending – as we explained in our The Flash review – and it has a ball with some of the best DC characters .

But  how does time travel work in The Flash? Well, get out your notepads because you may need to draw a diagram. There won’t be a test on this today, but you might need to remember it for when The Flash 2 release date comes around. Spoilers ahoy!

How does time travel work in The Flash?

In The Flash, Barry Allen is able to travel back in time by running faster than the speed of light.

It’s as simple as that, really. We’ve seen Barry Allen, aka The Flash, enter the Speed Force before in DC movies, such as Justice League, in order to turn back time. It has always been something the character has in his repertoire.

In terms of the actual mechanics of time travel in this universe, there’s a delightful scene in which Michael Keaton’s Bruce Wayne says “time isn’t linear” and describes the various timelines as being entirely separate strands of spaghetti, which intersect at certain points.

He explains that any use of time travel creates a fulcrum, leading to both a new past and a near future. It’s “retro-causal”, apparently. My head hurts. Give me the joyful simplicity of Back to the Future any day.

What is the Chronobowl in The Flash?

The Chronobowl is a junction in space and time, which Barry Allen visits in order to travel backwards and forwards through his own timeline. 

It’s like a strange stadium, with the various timelines forming the rows of seats above where Barry stands. The further back in the rows he goes, the further back in time he can see.

Of course, the name Chronobowl is pure comic book nonsense, but it’s a neat way to visualize time travel for those of us in the audience who have no idea what’s going on. The best movies keep time travel simple, and the Chronobowl helps with that.

Does Barry return to his own time at the end of The Flash?

Yes, Barry does return to his own time at the end of The Flash, but things have changed and we don’t know how big those ripples might be.

During The Flash ending, Barry takes the tin of tomatoes from his mother’s supermarket basket and, therefore, allows her death to take place as it did before. But he moves the tins to the top shelf, ensuring that his father would have to look upwards when he visited the store later that day.

This allows Barry’s dad to prove his alibi for the murder when Barry returns to his own timeline. However, it also appears to have made other changes to the universe. Most importantly, Ben Affleck’s Batman has now been replaced by George Clooney. Oops.

Hopefully you’re now a little less confused about how time travel works in the world of The Flash. We’ve answered more of your big questions about the movie, including ‘ how fast is The Flash? ‘ and ‘ is Christian Bale in The Flash? ‘. You can also check out our guide to The Flash cast .

And as for the future of the DC movies in the Gods and Monsters era, we’ve explained that The Flash director is a top choice for a new Batman movie and argued that there are five things we want to see from James Gunn’s DCU .

Tom Beasley Tom has been a film critic and entertainment journalist for close to a decade, attending festivals, premieres, and even the BAFTAs (though he thinks he might have been invited by mistake). He believes Paddington 2 to be by far the best sequel ever made (sorry Empire Strikes Back) and is a devoted lover of Harry Potter , horror movies, musicals, professional wrestling and the British TV series Waterloo Road. Hopes to one day see Tom Clarkson body slam Leatherface while singing Les Mis with Gilderoy Lockhart. You'll have to pay him for that idea, Hollywood. He's always watching just in case.

Screen Rant

Dc confirms the full power of flash's time travel abilities.

Your changes have been saved

Email Is sent

Please verify your email address.

You’ve reached your account maximum for followed topics.

Power Rangers Cosplay Cover Confirms Which Ranger Is Rita Repulsa's Greatest Enemy

The far side's first 10 comics are still hilarious today, 10 funniest peanuts strips about food.

Warning: Contains spoilers for Stargirl: The Lost Children #4! DC has confirmed the full and mind-blowing power of the Flash’s time-traveling abilities. The Flash’s super speed has allowed him to travel through not only the multiverse but time as well, and in Stargirl: The Lost Children #4 , it is revealed that, thanks to the Flash's time travel powers , he is one of very few who can truly change the course of history–and it may prove crucial to saving the time-lost sidekicks.

Stargirl: The Lost Children #4 is written by Geoff Johns, illustrated by Todd Nauck, colored by Matt Herms and lettered by Rob Leigh. The issue sees Corky Baxter, the sidekick to Rip Hunter the Time Master, telling Stargirl and the teen sidekicks his story. While cruising the time stream with Rip, the Time Masters watch the Flash race by them; Hunter detects a massive tachyon surge, unlike any since Crisis on Infinite Earths . The Flash has just created the world of Flashpoint , and Corky and the other Time Masters get a glimpse at this dark reality. Corky goes on to say the Flash realized his mistake and tried to set it right– essentially the creation of the New 52 . Corky tells the sidekicks that the Flash is one of “ a handful of people out there who truly have the power to change history .” Corky is quick to point out this is different from simply creating an alternate timeline–which anyone can do. Related: DC Confirms Who's Faster: Flash or Superman?

The Flash's Time Travel is More Powerful Than Fans Realize

The Flash’s ability to travel through time (and the multiverse) has been central to his character, and some of his most noteworthy stories usually involve some sort of time travel component, such as Flashpoint . Corky witnesses the creation of both the Flashpoint timeline and the New 52, and it leads to a revelation at exactly how the Flash's speed powers work in relation to time travel. In the DC Universe, anyone can create an alternate timeline–it is, according to Corky, easy to do. However, the Flash is in a league of his own and can affect genuine change in the timeline–such as the events of Flashpoint . In creating the world of Flashpoint , and the subsequent New 52, the Flash altered the course of DC history–he did not simply create another timeline, he changed the fabric of the universe itself.

Corky does not explain why the Flash in particular can do this, or who some of the others who change history are, but it does set up some intriguing possibilities–one of which is saving Stargirl, Corky and the rest of the time-lost teens. These sidekicks, including the Jay Garrick Flash's daughter, have been seemingly erased from the timeline, some missing for over 50 years, and the Flash’s ability to change history may be their salvation.

Is the Flash the Most Important DC Character?

The Flash’s ability to reset history has been crucial to the DC Universe. Without it, the New 52 and the subsequent Rebirth initiative never would have happened–yet this ability has factored into other key stories as well, such as Crisis on Infinite Earths , Zero Hour and others. Each of these events and stories helped fundamentally shape the DC Universe of today, and it is all thanks to the Flash . In their epic Multiversity , Grant Morrison touched on this idea, and it is one that bears exploring. The Flash’s ability to travel through time is impressive on its own, but now DC has confirmed just how far this power extends.

More: The Flash Officially Confirms The Existence of Alien Speedsters

Stargirl: The Lost Children #4 is on sale February 28th from DC Comics!

• The Flash (2014)

How The Flash's Time Travel Works

This is why Superman works alone.

The Time Travel in The Flash

• How Time Travel Happens
• Can History Be Changed?
• The Consequences
• What's Next?

Warning: spoilers for The Flash are in play. If you haven’t caught this DCEU inevitable intersection just yet, you’ve been warned. 

Oh my, oh my, where do I begin? Welcome back once again to the CinemaBlend Time Travel Labs! Yes, it’s been a while since we've discussed the topic. However, thanks to the Sacred Timeline being broken not too long after we went over how The Tomorrow War’s time travel works , things kind of got weird. One could even say, they’ve gone multiversal; which means it’s time to talk about how The Flash’s time travel works! 

Yes friends, mark down one more Mike variant to keep track of, thanks to another rip in the timeline being created by Ezra Miller ’s DC hero. If only I had the power to go back and correct my own timeline, where previous cliffhanger endings didn’t exist. Maybe that opportunity will be presented in the future, but for now fuel up on those all important calories, and let’s dash into how The Flash travels through time. 

After traveling back in time during the ending of Zack Snyder’s Justice League , Barry Allen (Ezra Miller), also known as The Flash , wants to change his personal history for the better. Hijinks, and a lot of continuity breaking, ensues. 

Who's Time Traveling?

Barry Allen, Barry Allen, and… Barry Allen? Three different variants of the Scarlet Speedster are in play here: one from Present Day, one from an alternate 2013, and one that’s endured an undefined amount of time traveling back through the Speed Force. 

From When To When?

Get your notepads ready, as The Flash has quite a bit of time travel to pin down. From 2023, Barry Allen zooms back to 2004, to prevent his mom’s death. That action causes us to zoom forward to a newly rewritten 2013, and eventually back to a new variation of 2023. I’ll explain that later.

The Purpose Of Their Trip

Barry Allen just wants to save his mother Nora (Maribel Verdú), which opens a can of worms throughout time. As a result, two different Barrys try and correct the timeline through several different trips, as the new spin on Man of Steel’s Kryptonian invasion leads to the deaths of Batman ( Michael Keaton ) and Supergirl (Sasha Calle). 

CINEMABLEND NEWSLETTER

Your Daily Blend of Entertainment News

How Time Travel Happens In The Flash

If you’re a fan of The Flash in pretty much any medium, you know that the Speed Force is key to Barry Allen’s ability to travel through time. Provided that poor Barry has fueled up on enough calories to keep his status as a snack hole in check, traveling faster than the speed of light, or even time, isn’t a problem. 

By running fast enough to outpace the passage of time, Barry creates what’s called a “Chronoball.” Think of it this way: if the timeline was controlled by a mouse, The Flash is the trackball that scrolls to the point in time you want to change. The visual representation of this process actually works in that very way, as time is like a film that can be rewound through this process. 

Once Barry Allen sees the moment he wants to change, he stops and allows himself to sink into that moment through a portal. Strangely enough, this takes into account something that Back to the Future's time travel gets right, as the exact physical location of the moment in question is also taken into account when our hero travels. Of course, there are still plenty of ways he can be thrown off course, especially if a mysterious presence that couldn’t possibly be an aged and bitter version of himself tries to stop him. 

Can History Be Changed As A Result Of Time Travel In The Flash?

Oh, boy howdy, it can… but to a point! Thanks to one can of tomatoes, Nora Allen lives! Which sets off a cascade effect in The Flash’s story that wildly alters the story we thought we knew. In his world, Kal-El never made it to Earth, and his cousin Kara Zor-El/Supergirl is imprisoned by the Russian government.

So this universe has no Superman to call its own, and General Zod ( Michael Shannon ) and his Man of Steel invasion force are about to succeed. And to cap it all off, Eric Stoltz actually finished filming Back to the Future , rather than being cut from all but one frame of Robert Zemeckis’ influential sci-fi classic .

However, history is only so flexible, as the DCEU has its own version of “Fixed Points in Time,” dubbed “Inevitable Intersections.” Events titled as such cannot be changed, and in the new “Nora Lives!” timeline, Supergirl and Batman are destined to die by General Zod’s hand.  

What Are The Consequences Of Time Travel In The Flash?

The DCEU was always going to be changed after The Flash’s events. But this story actually invokes a rather interesting concept that throws everything out of whack: “Retrocausality.” As Bruce Wayne explained with some dry spaghetti, if you alter one point on a timeline, the entire thing snaps.

This causes a ripple effect that basically changes the past and the future, thanks to that action. Once Barry saved Nora from her mysterious, and still unsolved, murder, it threw events off on either side of that inflection point. Which, once again, creates the ultimate no-win scenario for Barry Allen, in which he has to choose the life of his mother or the fate of planet Earth. 

Also, if you’re a fan of how Star Trek: First Contact’s time travel works , you’ll notice that Barry Allen is protected by a temporal wake. As his mind doesn’t adjust to the new timeline, he’s as clueless as we are when Bruce Wayne all of a sudden looks like George Clooney in The Flash’s surprise ending . 

In DC’s world, if you’re a time traveler, you apparently can never go home, as apparently each change breaks that spaghetti anew. So maybe in the sequel, we can see Val Kilmer 's Batman reappear to give Barry Allen a thumb up for whatever his next adventure may be. 

More Time Travel To Come

You know something? It actually felt good to be back at it in the CinemaBlend Time Travel Labs. Which means that, conditions permitting, I think this might be the start of keeping this little corner of the universe back on the rails. 

Though since we’re in a multiverse, there’s still those versions of myself that are waiting to teach everyone how time works in Timecop and Loki Season 1. Come to think of it, I think I need to take a long, hard look at cataloging my multiversal selves and the assignments they’re awaiting.

But not before diving into another upcoming time travel assignment! Next time, prepare to dust off your fedoras and crack out your bullwhips, as we’ll hopefully be looking at how Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny’s time travel works. In the meantime, I’m about to try and answer yet another outstanding question about this strange new world: can we blame the awkward Max rebranding on Barry Allen? 

Mike Reyes is the Senior Movie Contributor at CinemaBlend, though that title’s more of a guideline really. Passionate about entertainment since grade school, the movies have always held a special place in his life, which explains his current occupation. Mike graduated from Drew University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science, but swore off of running for public office a long time ago. Mike's expertise ranges from James Bond to everything Alita, making for a brilliantly eclectic resume. He fights for the user.

The Flash: It’s The 10th Anniversary Of The Original Crisis Date, And There’s One Big Reason Why I Wish The DC Show Had Reached This Milestone

The Flash's Tom Cavanagh Knows Fans Want Grant Gustin In The DCU, But He Has A Better Idea

'He Didn't Take Himself Seriously': The Sweet 8 Simple Rules Memory Kaley Cuoco Shared With John Ritter Before His Death

Most Popular

• 2 The 15 Best Nicktoons From The '90s And 2000s, Ranked
• 3 'We Had Something Special:' The Full Story Behind How Bridgerton Season 3 Adapted Penelope And Colin’s Love Story
• 4 Apparently, Jerry Seinfeld Wanted Chris Rock For An Oscars Slap Redemption Scene In Unfrosted. Even He Isn’t Sure It Would’ve Worked
• 5 Along With Posting About 'Save NCIS: Hawaiʻi' Campaigns, Vanessa Lachey And The Cast Reunited And Shared Sweet Sunset Pics

The Flash's 'Spaghetti' Time Travel and Multiverse Rules, Explained

The Flash movie features a new take on time-travel and how it relates to the multiverse, but is the film's spaghetti metaphor enough to explain it?

CBR supports the hard work of creators and industry professionals to create movies fans all know and love, but it's important to remember the ongoing controversy with Ezra Miller. You can find CBR's continuing coverage of Miller here .

The following contains spoilers for The Flash , now playing in theaters.

After years of Marvel and the Arrowverse telling multiverse stories , The Flash was meant to bring the DC Studios' version to the big screen. Still, how these varied timelines and realities fit together is a very high-concept idea, which may have left general audiences confused. Michael Keaton's Bruce Wayne tries to explain it with a metaphor using spaghetti, but there are no time travel or multiverse rules by design.

In both the comics and The Flash TV series , Barry rescuing his mother from death changes the future in unexpected ways. However, it's never changed the past as well as the future, a new concept introduced in The Flash movie. It's not just that Ben Affleck is no longer Batman. Eric Stoltz was never fired from Back to the Future . Somehow Zod caught up with Kal-El's ship. And Gotham City is the safest place in the country. Naturally, Barry is confused, and so is the audience. The real answer for this new take on time-travel consequences is to fit Keaton's Batman and Sasha Calle's Supergirl into the narrative. The other barrier to comprehension is that while Bruce Wayne uses a spaghetti metaphor, the film visualizes the different DC universes as spheres.

RELATED: The Flash Star Sasha Calle Thanks Batgirl's Leslie Grace For Her Guidance

How The Flash Movie's Time-Travel and Multiverse Rules Work, Probably

A subtle character detail about Bruce is that he immediately understands the time travel situation, despite never meeting Metahumans. It's meant to show just how smart this Batman is. Affleck's Bruce had an inkling that mucking with time was bad, but Keaton's Bruce knows it. He even mentions "a movie" where traveling in time creates "branch realities," which may or may not be an Avengers: Endgame reference . Typically, time travel works one of two ways: changing something in the past changes the future with it, or changing the past creates an alternate timeline or reality. The spaghetti metaphor Bruce uses to explain it to the two Barry Allens is a new multiverse twist.

Bruce tells Barry that time isn't linear. Barry Allen is living his life along one strand of uncooked spaghetti. By changing the past to save his mother, he creates a "fulcrum," which spins him onto a timeline perpendicular to his own. There weren't just changes in the future, but the past as well. The third act shows the multiverse as a ballet of spheres, crashing and colliding with each other the more Barry changes his own past. This is what Bruce Wayne means when he says that "if you do it enough," you end up with "a hot mess" -- as represented by a mishmash of cooked spaghetti noodles.

It's possible that by changing the past, Barry altered the orbit of his sphere, and it collided or merged with one with no Metahumans and Keaton's Batman . The film, rather bleakly, suggests that the universe Barry spends most of the movie in is one where Zod wins. It's also possible that Zod is a remnant from Barry's original universe, and when things were set right that Earth goes back to having no Kryptonians.

RELATED: The Flash's Jaw-Dropping Cameos, Explained

In The Flash Movie, the Nonsense Still Needs to Make Sense

The Flash's time-travel stories on The CW could result in alternate timelines, but Barry's mother's father was mostly a bootstrap paradox. In the film, Barry talks about an "ontological paradox," which means the time traveler ends up causing the thing that makes them travel back in time. It's also called a "predestination paradox," meaning the past cannot be changed. The TV series' Barry could change the past; it just broke the future in ways that were problematic. It appears that the movie's Barry doesn't just change one event in the past, but he changes his timeline's entire past.

The film doesn't do a good enough job explaining how those past changes happen. The storytellers admit it when Keaton's Bruce calls it "a crap shoot." There aren't rules Bruce understands, and whatever changes occur are randomized like rolls of the dice. Perhaps this is why George Clooney appears at the end of the film, to underscore that random element. (And, also, to score another cameo.) The intention of this randomization may have been to underscore the futility of Barry's mission to ensure "nobody dies." As another character said in a more cohesive multiverse scenario, "The hardest thing about this job is you can't always save everybody."

Comic book stories are inherently silly, like billionaire Batmen and kids who can run faster than the speed of time. Yet, these stories work best when beholden to their own logic and laws of sci-fi physics. The Flash tries to make it easier on audiences by showing that anything can happen. Unfortunately, the emotional, human story gets lost in a multiverse theme park where nothing makes sense. The Flash movie used spaghetti to introduce a new angle on a familiar storytelling device. Unfortunately, audiences may have gotten lost in the sauce.

The Flash movie is currently in theaters.

The Flash: How Is Barry Allen Able To Travel Back In Time?

Your changes have been saved

Email Is sent

Please verify your email address.

You’ve reached your account maximum for followed topics.

LOTR: Why Did Sauron Gift Rings Of Power To The Dwarves?

Kingdom of the planet of the apes ending, explained, actors that would make a great james bond.

The Flash is one of the only superheroes whose powers are rather singular. Better known as his real name, Barry Allen, The Flash doesn’t have super-human strength or telekinesis. All of Barry’s powers lie within his unmatched speed. Across comics, television series, and films, The Flash has outrun danger and even stopped a tornado from spinning with his quick nature. But there’s one aspect of The Flash’s speed some fans hold near and dear to his character — his ability to use his powers to literally run throughout time.

Time travel is crucial to The Flash. It’s used as an important plot device for one of his greatest enemies, Reverse-Flash , and is included countless times in his adventures and arcs — like the acclaimed Flashpoint series. But how exactly does Barry Allen travel back and forth through time? Well, it depends on what version of the Speedster fans are asking about.

RELATED: DC Projects To Watch Before The Flash

The Flash was first exposed to time travel in the original DC comics. In a 1961 issue, Barry is introduced to the Cosmic Treadmill, a treadmill that can be used to travel through time. The catch? Only those who can run the treadmill up to super-speed can use it. The Cosmic Treadmill requires an immense amount of power and the process is often damaging to its user. The Flash , the long-running television series on the CW, also includes the Cosmic Treadmill, but only the most recent seventh season. Before that, Barry Allen (played by Grant Gustin in the series) was exposed to time travel through the use of time vehicles like the Time-Sphere or Time-Ship. These vessels are used mostly by members of the Time Masters, who are in charge of overseeing the correct timelines (think TVA agents in the MCU’s Loki series .)

The DCEU, separate from the CW’s Arrowverse, also recognizes the Cosmic Treadmill as a time-travel device. But the DCEU is where time-travel devices become more difficult to pin down. 2017’s Justice League has the Cosmic Treadmill, ordered to be built by Cyborg and Batman. Barry Allen (now played by Ezra Miller in the DCEU) uses the device to warn Bruce Wayne in Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice about the dark events to follow in Justice League.

The highly debated Snyder Cut of Justice League premiered in early 2021 and added another dimension to time travel in the DCEU. In an effort to help the other members of the Justice League defeat Steppenwolf, Barry uses his powers to enter the Speed Force. The Speed Force is how all Speedsters (Barry included) get their powers. In multiple comic stories and The Flash television show, the Speed Force is dark particle energy that can connect to Speedsters like Allen. In some iterations of The Flash, The Speed Force has also turned itself into people using physical manifestation and even has its own personality. But Synder’s Justice League uses it as a pocket of the universe that contains all the energy Speedsters need. In the film, Barry Allen has to run so fast that he turns back time enough to give Cyborg enough power to separate the Mother Boxes, objects that have the potential of reshaping the entire Earth.

So how will the DCEU’s upcoming solo Flash film deal with time travel? The answer isn’t as concrete as fans would think. While Synder’s version of Justice League had Barry Allen using the Speed Force, those events aren’t recognized as canon in the DCEU — Joss Whedon’s Justice League is. Going into The Flash , all Allen will have is the Cosmic Treadmill. But with a plot focused on changing the events of the past, time travel is guaranteed. The real question is how far director Andy Muschietti will take the time travel lore. Officially introducing the Speed Force into the DCEU would make explaining the appearances of other Batmans — like Michael Keaton, who will be reprising his Bruce Wayne from Tim Burton’s Batman films — much easier.

The Flash’s plot is also rumored to be heavily inspired by Flashpoint , a 2011 comic book storyline that relies on its use of alternate realities and time travel. If Muschietti and screenwriter Christina Hodson wanted, the Speed Force could be used as the perfect catchall for explaining how other characters are traveling between their respective worlds. Still, fans can’t be sure until that lucrative first teaser appears. Until then, it’s always good to get a refresher on Barry Allen and his story by revisiting his important role in Justice League or diving into the respective CW series . If only we could speed up time to get us to November 2022 so we could see exactly how Barry Allen will travel through time in the DCEU’s future.

MORE: Behind-The-Scenes Photos Reveal Affleck's Batsuit (And New Ride) In The Flash

• Movies & TV
• Justice League