The Flash has become one of the hottest superhero shows on the CW. Ending Season 2 with the beginning of the “Flashpoint” storyline, fans of the show are eagerly awaiting the beginning of Season 3 on October 4.
The Flash has already introduced two of the most popular speedsters in DC Comics. The Reverse Flash and Zoom kept Barry Allen and the rest of the team extremely busy during the first two seasons. Now Savitar will be the speedster that Team Flash will have to deal with during Season 3.
According to DC Wikia, the name of the alter ego of Savitar is not known. What is known is that he was a test pilot during the cold war where he was testing out supersonic jets. During one of his testing runs, lightning struck his plane while it was traveling at supersonic speeds. His plane crashed and he needed to defend himself against hostiles. It was then that he discovered that he now had the ability of super speed. The unknown test pilot gave himself the name Savitar based on the Hindu god Savitr, the god of motion.
During a recent interview with IGN, the executive producer of The Flash , Todd Helbing, explained why Flash needs to have a speedster enemy and how Savitar will be different than the Reverse Flash and Zoom.
“Yeah, I think in general if you have some of these other meta humans, it gets hard to show how Barry can’t get them. If you have another speedster, especially someone like Zoom, or Reverse Flash, you need somebody on an equal level to provide that threat that a lot of these other metas can’t do. Savitar is more of a psychological villain in a weird way. I think the Hindu word for Savitar means God of Speed; he’s all about speed. Everything about this guy is different. I can’t go into super detail, but he’s not like Zoom or Reverse Flash.”
Savitar dedicated his life to learning all he could about speed and how he could manipulate speed to give him abilities that no other speedster had. Savitar quickly developed a cult-like following. His followers named themselves the Thunderbolt Agents.
Since Season 3 of The Flash will begin with a version of the “Flashpoint” storyline, it is unclear as to how and when Barry will encounter Savitar. What we do know is that Wally West, as Kid Flash, will encounter him on the show based on pictures taken from the set.
Along with other speedsters in the DC Universe, Savitar’s superpowers are vast.
- Speed Healing – Broken bones and other injuries can completely heal themselves in minutes to hours depending on the severity of the injury.
- Increased Perception – All the senses of speedsters is dramatically increased to superhuman levels due to the speed force.
- Phase Through Objects – By vibrating their body to the same frequency of other objects, speedsters can pass through any object they come across.
- Protective Speed Aura – Due to the fact that speedsters are moving at speeds that could exceed the speed of light, a shield must be established to protect their bodies from the forces that super speed put on them.
- Increased Stamina – The energy needed to move at high speed requires speedsters to have the ability to run for long periods of time without getting tired.
- Super Speed (obviously) – Does this one really need an explanation?
- Ability To Create Vortexes – By rotating their arms at high speed, speedsters can create tornados. We have seen Flash use this ability multiple times on The Flash .
- Speed Distribution – This power allows the speedster to give a non-speedster the power of super speed.
How will the team deal with Savitar, and other villains, during season three of The Flash ?
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