The first time we see Barry as a child we also see the fight between future versions of The Flash and The Reverse Flash.

We know that The Reverse Flash is unable to return to the Future after this fight but what happens to The Flash after this?

Did he (The Flash) "simply" return to the future? I can't find reference to it, even in the later episode (Fast Enough)

Just to clarify we find out later that there are 4 versions of Barry in that time frame that. Child Barry. Future Barry, who is fighting the reverse flash, but leaves to save child Barry. We then have two versions of Barry from the timeline we are viewing. 1 From episode 1x23 (Fast Enough) and 1 From episode 2x23 (The Race of His Life). I'm asking about future Barry.

  • Unless any of the tie-in comics touch on it, I think this is up in the air. – Politank-Z Nov 4 '15 at 23:34
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    I don't think this is answerable until we know more about The Flash's (i.e. the show, not the character) temporal mechanics. That other Barry came from a different timeline than the one we see in the show. – user1027 Nov 5 '15 at 2:45
  • Fair enough, well at least I know I haven't missed an explanation somewhere along the line. Thanks Keen and Politank-Z – Drifter104 Nov 5 '15 at 21:01
  • Well, obviously he went back to the future so he could become the Flash that saves the Flash who originally stopped the Flash from killing Reverse-Flash, knowing full well that allowing the Flash to kill Reverse-Flash would alter the timeline and prevent the Flash from ever becoming the Flash. – Omegacron May 11 '17 at 19:01
  • @Omegacron If you want to write that with some reference to what Flash is the Flash (timelines etc) that might make a good answer :-) – Drifter104 May 12 '17 at 8:58

We don't know

You've correctly identified all the Flashes in that scene and we know what happens next for each of them except the one you're asking about:

  • The young Barry grows up to be the Flash we follow in the series.
  • The Flash from S01E23 is prevented from saving his mother by the future Flash and returns to the present to stop Eobard Thawn.
  • The Flash from S02E23 saves his mom and travels back to the present to live in the newly altered timeline he calls "Flashpoint". This version of the Flash is erased from the scene in S03E01 when Barry and Thawne travel back to undo the Flashpoint timeline.
  • The future of the future Flash that fights Thawne, saves young Barry, and prevents S01E23 Barry from saving Nora has yet to be followed on screen past that moment in time.

The truth is we don't know what happens to him once Nora has been killed. I do, however, see 3 potential possibilities:

  1. The easiest possibility is that his timeline is erased by the death of Nora and he disappears into nonexistence.
  2. His reality and timeline are erased but he remains as a time remnant leaving the door open for his return sometime later in the series.
  3. Since killing Nora doesn't prevent Barry from becoming the Flash like Thawne predicted, it may be that the future Barry's timeline and existence are mostly unaltered. After witnessing his mother's death, he returns to his time to find things mostly the same but sort of different, similar to what our Barry witnesses when creating/reverting the Flashpoint timeline.

Feel free to take a guess and wait to see if the series circles back around to tell the story.


Simple. The flash fighting the reverse flash was from a timeline where Barry's mother wasn't killed.when the reverse flash killed nora Allen, that timeline was erased and thus so was the flash.

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    I don't think this is the case, but it is difficult to detail without spoilers tag, but suffice to say that when Eobard Thawne is captured we find out why – Drifter104 May 9 '16 at 16:17

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