Powers and Abilities
Bart's primary power is speed, along with abilities that are common to comics speedsters, such as creating whirlwinds, running on water and vibrating through matter. The latter ability results in "molecular taffy" if Bart does not concentrate; he also possesses an aura that prevents air friction while running. Bart does possess some abilities that other speedsters do not have. He has the ability to produce "scouts", Speed Force avatars that he can send through the timestream, but has used it infrequently since the death of one avatar put him in a coma during the "Our Worlds at War" storyline that crossed over among the Impulse, Superboy, and Young Justice titles. After being forced to use it during the "World Without Young Justice" crossover event, he was able and willing to use them with ease, up until he became Kid Flash.
Bart is resistant to the alterations in the time stream. His parents met only in post-Zero Hour continuity, but he arrived before the event. Bart has the ability to recall everything he has ever read, heard or watched (which includes speed-reading every book in the San Francisco Public Library), allowing him to spout encyclopedic information concerning the situation at hand as well as quotations from Mark Twain, of whose work he is fond. He has also displayed the ability to create powerful radio waves by rotating his arms at high speeds and using the resulting vibrations in conjunction with his teammate Static's electromagnetic abilities.
After Infinite Crisis, Bart's connection to the Speed Force is more difficult to control because he now contains the Speed Force and, in essence, is the Speed Force. When he taps into the Speed Force, Bart appears to have electricity crackling around him, and the Speed Force inside him becomes so lethal that he initially wears the Flash suit while running in order to prevent it from killing him. After remembering his experiences on an alternate Earth during a fight with Griffin, he began to gain a measure of control over the Speed Force before it was released from his body just prior to his death.
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