The character known as Flash is DC Comics’ fastest hero complete with various speed-based powers that he can utilize to travel across multiple realities. But when the Man of Steel himself, Superman, comes up with a way to record and use his own multiversal adventures to preemptively help his world out, Flash is left with a bit of egg on his face.
Brought to readers’ attention in 2016’s Nightwing #9, by Tim Seeley and Marcio Takara, this issue takes place just after the launch of DC’s Rebirth era, which saw their entire roster of characters refreshed in a way that married the old with the new to great acclaim. Focusing on the meeting of Nightwing and a Superman that has yet to combine with the New 52 version of the character, this issue sees Dick Grayson under attack by a villain that has infiltrated his dreams, something that Superman might have just the right thing to mitigate.
Bringing Nightwing to his Fortress of Solitude, Superman addresses the elephant in the room: he’s not the Superman this version of Nightwing — or anyone in the DC Universe — trusts just yet, a situation he’s well aware he needs to make better. Admitting he doesn’t truly understand “this alternate universe stuff,” Nightwing gets into a conversation with Superman about how Supes prepares for future threats, the resulting reveals exposing how Flash is wasting his most unique superpower of traversing realities.
Addressing the fact that he’s a version of Superman who's technically from a different Earth, Big Blue explains to Nightwing that though this Earth is different from the one he came from, there are “similarities” that are “repeated elements, reconfigured in new ways.” Prompting Superman to preemptively monitor for known threats “from my world in case they potentially show up in some variation on this Earth,” it’s here where he proves that with the relative ease Flash can travel between alternate Earths, this is a task that the Scarlet Speedster should have already been doing for ages.
Considering that Superman and Flash have had their fair share of experience with the multiverse, they are both well aware that events often happen at different times and in different ways across realties and that certain patterns do reoccur just in subtly different ways. Allowing anyone who pays attention to these similarities to be able to effectively see threats coming and prepare accordingly, the fact that Flash, who can easily and consistently use his unique powers to travel across parallel Earths, hasn’t bothered to follow in Superman’s footsteps, exposes him as a hero that could be utilizing his powers in a far more productive way. Furthermore, Flash’s wasting of his powers used to be even worse before DC’s Infinite Frontier initiative came about, as before the flood gates opened, there were only 52 different realities — a small enough number that Flash could have hit each one individually and made notes on the biggest threats and major events in a matter of days, his speedster powers helping him along even more so in this regard.
Superman keeping an eye out for future threats via his multiversal knowledge seems like a perfectly good way to preemptively prepare for any reoccurring issues that might still come to pass, with Flash undoubtedly doing far less than he should, especially considering his power set. Superman and Flash are two iconic superheroes, but one clearly still needs to take some notes from the other and fast.