Ranking the 15 greatest DC Comics rivalries of all-time

5. The Flash and Eobard Thawne aka Zoom/The Reverse Flash

There’s no other nemesis on the list who traveled through time to take down a hero. Only Professor Eobard “Zoom” Thawne can claim that prize having traveled from the future to take down his rival. In all fairness, Thawne didn’t start out hating Flash, in fact, he admired him.

Before becoming Flash’s greatest villain, he worked along Wally, impersonating Barry (it is the greatest form of flattery after all). However, he’d eventually snap and take out the Flash family. In The Flash Vol. 2 No. 200, Zoom saw himself as a Flash ally who wanted Wally to embrace his greatness.

He made this happen in true bad guy from by destroying Wally’s life. Of course, it didn’t stop there. Another story saw Zoom on a mission to kill Iris. Together, Barry and Wally traveled fast enough to rewrite history as the lightning bolt to birth Barry’s Flash. In the end, they stopped the big bad Zoom. The darkest story, however, is one where Barry is travels back in time to stop Zoom from murdering his mother. Thus, Flashpoint was born.

The comic is where the Flash and Zoom’s history began. However, thanks to The CW’s The Flash, fans were gifted with a chance to this rivalry play out in live-action format. There aren’t many rivals who can claim they killed the mother of their nemesis, Zoom can.