10 Comic Book Heroes Who Died Horrible Deaths
3. The Flash Runs To Death
By issue # 8 of the already legendary Crisis on Infinite Earths, only five Earths remained in the entire Multiverse and the Anti-Monitor wanted that number to be changed to zero. Flash was trapped on a space pod on its way to the antimatter world of Qward. With the aid of thousands of enslaved Thunderers of Qward, the Anti-Monitor was nearing the completion of his antimatter cannon. The Psycho-Pirate had been torturing Barry for hours and the Scarlet Speedster had enough.
The Flash made Psycho Pirate create the expression for hate and ran him among the enslaved Thunderers. This caused the group to rebel and attack the Anti-Monitor. Caring nothing for their lives, the villain dispatched the rioters easily but he was distracted from his machine. Barry threw Hayden aside and ran to said machine.
Using his smarts, the Sultan of Speed ran in an opposite direction of the antimatter flow, causing it to feed back on itself. Feeling it resisting him, Allen ran faster and faster, reaching speeds he’d never reached before - and that speed began to kill him.
Barry saw images of things from the past and things to come. Just as the machine began to destroy itself, he started to disintegrate into a skeleton and finally dust. Only his ring and costume remained on the ground, but the Flash had saved billions of lives, and the explosion had another unforeseen benefit: it woke the Spectre.