"Keystone City has become a utopia — a protectorate relentlessly patrolled by a gale force once human. No one sees him... no one hears him. He runs a lonely race... but all who live here have felt his presence. He is everywhere at once... a guardian angel who rights even the most harmless of wrongs with lightning speed. He lives between the ticks of a second. He is the Flash."
When it's not incorporated with Flight, it's at least the next best thing. Super speed means super speed. Those with super speed are not just faster than your average human (Otherwise, they might as well be cheetahs). They're faster than a speeding bullet. The term "speedster" is used to refer to characters that have super speed as their specialization.
Whether it's permanent or only for a single TV episode or comic book issue, whether it's from being struck by a lightning bolt, defying forces like gravity and air resistance, or using Super Serum, "speed" usually only manifests through running. However, several teen and kid heroes have used it to quickly clean up after a wild house party or to finish in five minutes all that homework that had to be put off to defeat the Monster of the Week.
Speculative Fiction writers love to apply this trope to the Theory of Relativity, The Theme Park Version of which says, "If you go fast enough, you'll alter the flow of time, and you can Time Travel to the future or the past." Characters who can't travel through time get the opposite effect: They can speed up so fast, it's as if time stops for the rest of the world. (Unfortunately, the speed factor is usually forgotten, and time is treated as if it really did just stop.) A (slightly) less egregious option is simply to have the speedster move so quickly that he appears to duplicate himself — appearing in two places with so little real time passing in between that the brains/sensory equipment of any observers see him in two places at once. Extremely skillful speeders are capable of creating multiple "light clones" in this fashion. A typical trick speedsters can do is run up the side of a building and even across a body of water. Speedsters can even generate vacuums or vortices from the speed they produce, allowing them to knock out enemies with a twister punch, put out fires, keep themselves in midair, and be quite useful at taking out annoying tornadoes.
No matter the character, there's only one Super Speed: Really Fast. Any race between such heroes will probably end evasively. It's less common than flight, which makes it neater, but still ends up being tacked on to a few Flying Bricks.
Curiously, characters with Super Speed tend to also have super acceleration and deceleration: they usually reach their regular running speed instantly and are able to stop on a dime without harm. You only see them "speeding up" if they're trying to reach some extreme level of speed they usually aren't accustomed to. They also probably need some sort of Handwave as to why they (and anyone/anything on their person) don't catch on fire from the atmospheric friction.note Finally, a lot of speedsters have incredible levels of stamina as well, even if only when they're in speed mode — the amount of ground they cover is more than any human being should cover without a good rest and perhaps a protein bar.
Characters with Super Speed almost always have Super-Reflexes as a Required Secondary Power. The two are not the same; although someone with Super-Reflexes may have the same perception of slowness as Super Speed, the user does not actually move any more quickly than normal, just reacts more quickly. Speedsters are also likely to have electricity motifs and will often leave Speed Echoes.
May show up as a Handwave or Justification for Artistic License – Martial Arts: after all, a "highly telegraphed" roundhouse is a lot harder to counter when your opponent's foot meets your face in the time it takes for you to blink. Speed Blitz covers Super Speed's combat applications when your strikes and dodges are faster than the opponent can move, or even react.
Also see (and may overlap with) Fast as Lightning. See also, Super Speed's younger sibling, the Flash Step, and related tropes Bullet Time and Klatchian Coffee. A Sub-Trope of Art Major Physics.
Contrast Slower Than a Snail.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Koro-sensei of Assassination Classroom can fly at Mach 20. Among his many other abilities (Nigh-Invulnerability, Rubber Man, Healing Factor etc.), it's his most common for avoiding his students' daily attempts on his life, and he just as often uses it to get shaved ice from the North Pole or Chinese food from China during his lunch break.
- In Attack on Titan, all Titans (except the Colossal Titan) can move at break neck speed regardless of their size.
- The vertical maneuvering equipment aka Jet Pack/grappling hook the Survey corps use against the Titans has immense mobility, enough to match and surpass the Titans in speed.
- This trope is the reason why Levi is considered "Humanity Greatest Soldier" as with his equipment and blades he's just a badass blur of motion.
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- Berserk:
- Guts from the get go in the series has been described as having "lighting-fast" movements and attacks. When facing Zondark's crazy tentacle arms, he parried all blows despite the attacks being faster than eye could follow according to Puck. His speed is best showcased in his Dynamic Entry while saving Casca in the Conviction Arc, appearing as a whirlwind of death.◊ Though Guts is very fast in his own right e.g out-maneuvering elite knights, Kushan assassins and Apostles with sheer human tenacity it's actually the Berserker Armor that pushes Gut's mobility far beyond human limits, making his speed formidable even for the monsters he's facing, though at the cost of damaging his body.
- Guts's lover Casca is incredibly speedy as well, in Golden Age she could out-pace multiple knight and keep up super assassin Silat though she trades durability for mobility. Even after the Eclipse, despite her degraded mental state Casca still retains some of her skills, as she butchers three rapists in mere seconds before Guts finds her.
- Griffith and his swordplay was not only fast enough to beat Guts's twice but he has almost surgical precision with his cutting to the extent where his sword is just a blur and Gut has cuts all over. However after three years Guts managed best Griffith's speed in their last duel.
- Nosferatu Zodd can best be described as the living blender, he is fast enough to reduce armies to ribbons and fly fast with his Minotaur beast form.
- Silat is one of the more pronounced examples, his moment speed is so blindingly fast that Casca a quick fighter herself can't read his movements and he only falters against the raw power of Guts. Despite losing to the strongest human alive, Silat can nevertheless still out-maneuver even the Apostles in the later chapters making him superhuman.
- Skull Knight is so skilled and fast on his horse normal humans mistake him for the wind. In the Conviction Arc he literally charged down the side of the tower, caught a falling prostitute and landed harmlessly.
- Rosine is perhaps the fastest of the Apostles, in her full insect form she can go◊ super sonic◊.
- Rosine's Praying mantis minion, deserves a mention being simply too fast for Guts to fight normally.
- Serpico is a truly extraordinary example, like Griffith he is an adept fencer and even surpasses the unarmored Guts in raw speed and able to ninja his way around a cliff ledge. Later he gets the Sylph Cloak which contains wind elementals who double his speed by a huge margin. Serpico is one of the few humans who can dodge Gut's Dragonslayer sword and generally outmaneuver him using pragmatism.
- Guts from the get go in the series has been described as having "lighting-fast" movements and attacks. When facing Zondark's crazy tentacle arms, he parried all blows despite the attacks being faster than eye could follow according to Puck. His speed is best showcased in his Dynamic Entry while saving Casca in the Conviction Arc, appearing as a whirlwind of death.
- Sebastian from Black Butler is so fast, catching bullets and tossing them back at opponents is a normal battle tactic for him. In one episode of the anime, he breaks out of a dungeon, travels an unknown number of miles across town, and takes out around a dozen men in roughly five seconds — while somehow fixing his bloodied clothing so he reappears immaculate. He can even catch bullets fired at point-blank range. When he's not fighting, he uses this ability to keep the mansion spotless.
- Bleach: Ichigo's Bankai allows him to perform hyper-speed combat against Byakuya, who is noted for his extreme Flash Step talent. Ichigo moves at such great speeds that he leaves after-images of himself as a side effect and can counter multi-directional, high-speed attacks from millions of tiny blades without injury. His movements become so fast and intense that his bones begin breaking under the pressure of his ability. After this battle, he never again performs combat at such an extreme level of speed.
- Blood+ shows the chiropterans, who are only very strong, but also able to move very fast. Diva, Amshel, Solomon and Hagi have shown impressive speeds several times.
- In Brave10, Hanzo is the fastest character in the series, and of the five key ninja skills the Iga Grotesque Five embody, he's "swiftness."
- One of the stock powers for Heretic Gods in Campione!. At his top speed Sun Wukong was effectively invisible due to his speed, but also lacked the fine control to do anything more than strike once while passing his opponent. Functionally, godspeed is not actually them moving faster but warping space to reduce the distance they travel between two points.
- Godou also possesses super speed from his Raptor authority. At full speed he lacks any form of fine control and so any attack is likely to miss. If used sparingly, it can act as a type of Flash Step and increase his ability to dodge.
- In A Certain Magical Index, several characters can move at incredible speeds, especially Saints. Mark Space was once talking to a little girl named Patricia Birdway. He noticed an assassination attempt, darted out and stopped it, then returned to his original position without Patricia seeing him move.
- In Charlotte, Joujirou is capable of accelerating to ludicrous speed, though for some reason he calls it "teleportation". He's a somewhat comedic example of what happens when you lack the Required Secondary Powers. He can't stop or change direction once he gets going—all he can do is aim where he wants to go and shoot himself at the target—so every use of it ends with him violently crashing into something. He uses it rather recklessly in attempts at Mundane Utility such as cutting in line at the cafeteria, and often gives himself Amusing Injuries, though he compensated by buffing up his body for extra toughness and wearing armor concealed under his school uniform.
- In Claymore, Clare first develops this power during the fight against Rigardo by applying her demonic transformation to just her legs instead of her whole body; before then, any sort of controlled "awakening", as it is referred to in the series, was unheard of.
- In Concrete Revolutio: Choujin Gensou, Hyouma Yoshimura is this. This may have contributed to a nickname (and possibly superhero alias) "Jaguar" - it doesn't explain his other ability (stopping time) though.
- Joe Shimamura a.k.a. Cyborg 009 of, well, Cyborg 009 has the power to accelerate to freeze time (or greatly slow it down, from his subjective view), therefore allowing him to move at the blink of an eye. One episode actually had his power malfunction for the whole episode, during which he spent a subjective week in the time it took 003 to blink.
- He's not the only one, either. Jet aka 002 also had it (though it's not his main skill), and several enemies had that same skill too (Magnificent Bastard Vog Bogoot and Blood Knight Cain among them)
- Lampshaded, by showing what happens to things when they face sudden acceleration. Paper burns, for example...
- J Soldat, the cyborg in GaoGaiGar that's a shout out to Cyborg 002, also possesses the super speed and flight present.
- In Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, David's Sandevistan spinal implant allows him to massively magnify the impulses his brain sends to the rest of his body, effectively enabling this and Super-Reflexes. From David's perspective, when using the Sandy, it seems time grinds to a halt. He has an Oh, Crap! moment when he realizes Adam Smasher has a Sandevistan, too.
- Played with in the second season of Darker than Black. A Contractor who briefly appears has Super Speed, yes, but he lacks nearly all the Required Secondary Powers. He complains that his muscles will be sore the next day when he has to Flash Step twice, he can't change direction fast enough to avoid crashing face-first into a tree, and it turns out that when you're moving fast enough to dodge bullets, everything else is moving towards you just as fast. So when April makes it rain...
- In Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, the most capable Demon Slayers must have super human speed by default, that’s how they can keep up with the naturally more powerful demons, Breath of Thunder adepts are on a tier of their own, at the peak of their abilities even demons cannot keep up with their speed; Zenitsu’s peak, so far, are his Thunder Clap Flash: Godspeed and Flaming Thunder God, both techniques are so incredibly fast that even two Upper Ranks were not able to follow him at all.
- This is a standard power of higher leveled Digimon, who generally showcase it by performing a Flash Step. Notable examples include the Royal Knights in Digimon Frontier, who fly to the moon in minutes, MagnaGarurumon, who is stated to be able to move and attack and faster than light speeds, and UlforceVeedramon who is the fastest Royal Knight, a group filled with super speeding flying bricks.
- Doraemon
- Doraemon: Nobita's Little Space War: Doraemon has a gadget that makes a person capable of Super Speed fast enough to become invisible as long you have the stamina.
- Nobita and the Birth of Japan movie has a tether like rope that he makes the gang hold on to, which makes them capable of running like a train.
- Dragon Ball:
- Superhuman speed has been apparent since the start of the franchise, in one particular scene where Krillin and Master Roshi aka Jackie Chun move "too fast" at the first Tournament Arc and audience become confused and annoyed. Leading to them being forced to recreate the high speed clash in fake slow motion. Krillin and Roshi had a whole conversation, argument and rock-paper-scissors match in apparently nano-seconds.
- Much of the fight scenes in Dragon Ball Z feature sequences of "colliding blurs◊" where the characters fight at Super Speed. Sometimes, it is taken to the level where all we can see are random shockwaves in midair, as the camera jerks around to track them.
- Burter is hailed as "the fastest in the universe" by others in the Frieza Force, but his actual fighting speed is fairly average for his power level (be it still far above the universal average). His travel speed, however, is genuinely fast for a being of his power, and he is implied to be a genuinely faster flier than Captain Ginyu, at least.
- Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi and other games have Burter truly live up to his title.
- Gohan at the start of the Buu saga has a moment where he realizes he'll be late for his first day of High School at the rate he's going so Gohan makes sure nobody looking and then runs at "Turbo Speed" to point where the environment bends around him. Not subtle enough however as some Muggles driving by notice and are amazed.
- Special mention to Gogeta, in Dragon Ball Z: Fusion Reborn: he moves, there's a few blurs of motion, punch marks suddenly imprint on Janemba's body and then Gogeta appears behind him. A Speed Blitz at it's finest.
- Whis, introduced in Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods, can cross a galaxy in under half an hour, which makes light speed look like an utter joke.
- Dragon Ball Super: Dyspo from Universe 11 moves so fast that even the other superpowered characters call it "superhuman". He can move so quickly he can attack in the instant before an opponent activates their skill, so quickly that Hit can't activate his Time Skip ability and Goku can't use Instant Transmission before he hits them. Only Goku and Hit are (barely) able to keep up with him at their full power, by anticipating where he will be once he drops back to their level of speed.
- Speaking of Hit, his speed may get less focus but he's definitely blindingly fast even by Dragon Ball standards. This is what makes his particular technique deadly: Even if his time stops only last a fraction of a second, that's practically an eternity at his level and more than enough to execute any target.
- Superhuman speed has been apparent
- Eyeshield 21:
- Sena to a "human degree" from time to time. While never running at "super speed," he's able to run 40 yards in 4.2 seconds (exceptional even for an NFL player, and this kid's still in high school), when the average players runs at 5 seconds or so (which is a huge difference). He's still shown in the manga zipping around people, and the Devil Bat Ghost allows him to run through people by changing the pace of his footsteps but keeping the same speed, leaving the foe unable to predict where he will turn.
- Sena also parodies this in non-football situation. During a football (soccer) kick-off match, due to his inability to kick, he instead ran around the ball at high speeds to confuse the goalie... but he got tired, had to catch his breath, and the goal didn't make it in. In another chapter, during a sumo match against Monta, he rushed around the ring, but lost when his foot just barely stepped out of the ring.
- Panther is even better. While he's no Flash he was one of the few people on Earth who could run 40-yard dash in 4.1 seconds. That wasn't really impossible - Deion Sanders did a 4.1 without stretching, though to this day it's the fastest 40 ever recorded at the NFL Combine.
- Sena to a "human degree" from time to time. While never running at "super speed," he's able to run 40 yards in 4.2 seconds (exceptional even for an NFL player, and this kid's still in high school), when the average players runs at 5 seconds or so (which is a huge difference). He's still shown in the manga zipping around people, and the Devil Bat Ghost allows him to run through people by changing the pace of his footsteps but keeping the same speed, leaving the foe unable to predict where he will turn.
- Fullmetal Alchemist (manga):
- This is the secondary power of Wrath/Bradley. The combination of bullet-dodging speed with his primary power of the Ultimate Eye, which lets him always see the best move to make in combat makes him a terror to behold. Most fights he enters end up being horribly one-sided.
- It's also the primary power of Sloth. Somewhat subverted, however, because he does not have Super-Reflexes as well.
- In Gate, the demigoddess Rory Mercury can easily run faster than a car and dodge or deflect bullets.
- Yuki Nagato of Haruhi Suzumiya. How fast is she? Well, remember the Mikuru Beam? Turns out, thanks to a certain Reality Warper, she really was firing laser beams. And these were not the usual slow laser beams of fiction. These were actual, fast-as-light laser beams. Still, in a blink of an eye (Mikuru's, specifically), Yuki moved from her position two meters away to block the laser headed for Kyon with her palm, then continued blocking every other laser heading for him until she was able to nullify the Mikuru Beam.
- Vampires in Hellsing are all faster than humans.
- The fastest thus far was minor antagonist Luke Valentine, who was complimented on it by none else than super-vampire and series Sociopathic Hero Alucard.
- Seras Victoria was already had vampire enhanced movment, by after drinking Pip's blood and becoming a true "Draculina". Seras becomes a tornado of death and she grinds Zorin Blitz's head on arcoss wall so fast, it ends up as just a scrap of skin in her hand.
- In Heroman, Joey has this, to compliment Heroman's huge strength but lack of speed.
- This is not unusual for youkai and hanyou in Inuyasha.
- The two wolf youkai Koga and Ayame are running so fast they are seen as hurricanes.
- The horse youkai Entei was one of the fastest youkai in the whole anime. So fast that no one else could catch up with him.
- Inuyasha is fast enough to catch bandits riding on horses. Once in Kagome's time, he shows he can even catch a train.
- Goshinki and Gyu-oh were not as fast as the others, examples listed. But considering their body mass, they were still faster than one would expect.
- Hetalia: Axis Powers has a couple instances where this is Played for Laughs: Catching North Italy when he's running away, terrified, from someone is pretty much impossible, alluding to a Truth in Television fact that the in World War II the Italian army was known to be much faster retreating than they were advancing. France has something of this as well, when he's fleeing retribution for his antics.
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
- In Part 3, Stardust Crusaders, Jotaro's Stand, Star Platinum, is incredibly fast, enough to catch a bullet fired at his head at point blank range. DIO's Stand, The World, is even faster and catches Star Platinum off guard on multiple occasions during their fight. This is actually the basis for DIO's ability to freeze time. The World is so fast that time can't keep up. However, Star Platinum gains the same ability and uses it in future Parts.
- Polnareff's Stand, Silver Chariot, is the only one close to Jotaro and DIO's stands. It's much faster when it's armor is off, to the point that it can appear as if there are six to seven of them at once. Too bad he never does that past his first fight. Also, while The World and Star Platinum are Lightning Bruisers, Silver Chariot is very much a Fragile Speedster.
- In Part 5, Golden Wind, Notorious B.I.G, a Stand which isn't limited by the constraints of most ordinary Stands, officially has infinite stats for speed and range. Its method of attack is to go after the fastest moving thing in its general vicinity, which it always manages to catch.
- In Part 6, Stone Ocean, Enrico Pucci's third Stand, Made in Heaven, also has an infinite speed stat. Its ability lets it speed up time exponentially without affecting other living beings, making it and its user the only ones moving in time with the rest of the world, even as it goes so far into the future that the universe reboots itself.
- In Part 3, Stardust Crusaders, Jotaro's Stand, Star Platinum, is incredibly fast, enough to catch a bullet fired at his head at point blank range. DIO's Stand, The World, is even faster and catches Star Platinum off guard on multiple occasions during their fight. This is actually the basis for DIO's ability to freeze time. The World is so fast that time can't keep up. However, Star Platinum gains the same ability and uses it in future Parts.
- In Kiddy Grade, main character Éclair has this ability, as does minor character Foxy Fox.
- In Kill la Kill, Uzu Sanageyama's Blade Regalia looks massive and hulking, but doesn't stop him from being deceptively fast. The "leaves afterimages in the air" and "so fast he's for all intents and purposes teleporting" kind of fast. Oh, and he also has Hyper-Awareness.
- Lyrical Nanoha:
- Co-protagonist Fate has this when she's using her (Shin) Sonic Form. By Magical Record Lyrical Nanoha Force, Fate can move so fast that a baddie with the ability to Teleport Spam has trouble keeping up with her. And she wasn't even using her Super Mode.
- Her adopted son Erio is also incredibly fast. He's the only person to ever get a direct hit on her while she was in Sonic Form.
- Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS has the Combat Cyborg Tre, who can move at Super Speed at all times thanks to her Ride Impulse Inherent Skill. She was able to match the speed of Fate's Shin Sonic Form, though not its power.
- Chantez Arpinion from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha ViVid has Super Speed as her skill. A fan translation group translated her skill even by that name.
- There are some spells that allow the user to move with Super Speed. Flash Move, Blitz Action, Blitz Rush, Sonic Move, etc.
- Morgiana from Magi: Labyrinth of Magic is the classic example of a Lightning Bruiser.
- Dragons in Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid are capable of moving at superhuman speeds with ease (presumably a result of the same magic that they use to enhance their muscles), and even a child like Kanna can move fast enough that it looks like she's teleporting. The second season of the anime even had a subtle bit of animation showing this off whenever Kanna is running alongside other children since her body language never changes beyond walking quickly while keeping up with other kids who are running at top speed.
- My Hero Academia:
- Both Tenya Ida and his older brother Tensei have this, thanks to Quirks that give them literal engines; Tenya's are on his legs, while Tensei's are on his elbows.
- Gran Torino's "Jet" Quirk makes him able to propel himself at high speeds. In enclosed spaces, he can dart all across the room and overwhelm enemies with quick and powerful attacks.
- All Might and his protégé Izuku Midoriya both display Super Speed as well; while their Quirk One for All mainly bestows Super-Strength, it increases power in more ways than one, as it also gives the user super speed and the ability to leap huge distances In a Single Bound.
- Midoriya later gains access to previous One for All users’ quirks, one of these is Gearshift which lets him propel himself at rapid speeds. It basically lets the user change how quickly objects move through space, and he uses it as the move “Overdrive” to move body at rapid speeds.
- Super Speed is a staple in Naruto, having been used by several characters.
- Taijutsu practitioners are beyond worthy of a mention, they make up for their lack of ninjutsu power with the sheer speed and power of their bodies. Some (Rock Lee and Might Guy) are able to move so fast even the Uchiha Sharingan has trouble tracking their movements, and even if the Sharingan can read their movements that doesn't guarantee that they can dodge in time... as Sasuke learned the hard way◊.
- Rock Lee is naturally super fast even at his slowest and wearing weights all time, but when he's serious Lee can easily move faster than sound. With the fourth gate opened in Chuin Exams Lee was just◊ a moving blur◊ against Gaara◊, whose protective sand was just too slow to react.
- But this enhanced speed comes a dear price, the more he opens the gates the more damage happens to his body.
- In Part II, Kakashi makes hand-signs that are now too fast to see (which leaves you wondering what his bones are doing in the meantime).
- The main character has speed that resembles the speed of a series teleporter. This is a recent development, as for most of the series he had merely average speed (for a ninja). The first time he used this new ability, literal Lightning Bruiser Killer Bee mistook it for the Flying Thunder God Jutsu, the teleportation technique used by Naruto's late father. At his highest speed, a long trail of chakra forms behind him, and he is able to deflect attacks with the resulting shockwave alone.
- Credit where due, although high speed movement isn't anything necessarily special in the world of Naruto; The Fourth Hokage is cited as the fastest shinobi the world had ever seen - his title being the Yellow Flash says it all. He gets to live up to his reputation in various flashbacks, and during the final battles when he gets resurrected. Even The Second Hokage, the one who invented the technique The Fourth made extensive use of conceded that he was faster. Not even including the jutsu that allowed for his distinct style of Teleport Spam combat, his natural speed was just that fast.
- The only one who may surpass Minato and Naruto in terms of speed is Might Guy who opens the 8th Gate and utterly decimates Big Bad Madara who is absolutely delighted at the display especially when Guy moves so ridiculously fast◊ he literally warps space around him. Guy would've won too if his bones and organs didn't disintegrate after using the power, luckily Naruto saves Guy though at the cost of his legs.
- Taijutsu practitioners are beyond worthy of a mention, they make up for their lack of ninjutsu power with the sheer speed and power of their bodies. Some (Rock Lee and Might Guy) are able to move so fast even the Uchiha Sharingan has trouble tracking their movements, and even if the Sharingan can read their movements that doesn't guarantee that they can dodge in time... as Sasuke learned the hard way
- Negima! Magister Negi Magi:
- Misora's artifact are a pair of shoes that grant her super speed. She uses them to bravely, bravely run away whenever danger rears its ugly head.
- Later Negi learned how to use his Black Magic to fuse with his own lighting magic to become a being of lightning speed. He pin-balled his enemy through the air with it.
- Interestingly, there are two variants of Negi's Super Speed above, with the lesser version not having Super-Reflexes as a Required Secondary Power. It even shows why that would suck in the middle of Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs.
- Essentially all of the top-tier fighters in Negima can use this at least since they entered Mundus Magicus, to the point of some battles resembling the fights in Dragon Ball in its prime.
- As far as normal humans are considered, Ookochi Akira is able to use this with no apparent training whatsoever. She was able to catch the above mentioned Misora, while using said artefact, with next to no effort and did it so fast and completely unprecedented that even her three strongest classmates were greatly surprised.
- In One Piece, many characters are so fast that they can literally vanish from sight in combat. According to Eiichiro Oda, the three fastest crew members are Brook, Sanji and Luffy who would best the other crewmates in a 50 meter race.
- Brook's attacks even go right by opponents without them noticing his presence or even the very pain they received in the first place; not even the audience sees much of him actually swinging his sword. It's only until his sword sheathes that the enemies "know they've been cut", this is fitting considering Brook is a "speed type" swordsmen in contrast to Zoro and Ryuma who are seen as "power types". The main reason for Brook's great speed is because as a skeleton Brook has no organs or skin weighing him down, he can even bypasses his Devil Fruit weakness by running so fast he can travel across water. Oda cements Brook's status as the fastest Strawhat in Chapter 890 as Brook pulls off the unbelievable by flash stepping Big Mom a Yonko of the sea, the only drawback is Brook has none of durability that the Monster Trio and others possess to adequate his speed.
- Sanji, the very first thing we see him do in a fight is a Flash Step against the Krieg Pirates and he's only been going faster since then. Sanji can out-run and dodge bullets at point blank range (that's 2,500 feet per second) as well as machine gun fire, even against the "Soru" users who flash step all over the place Sanji could keep up as well as surpass in the case of Kalifa & Jabra. After two years of training (two straight years of running), Sanji can go so fast he is able to sudo-fly (Sky Walk) and can create sonic booms behind him and swim◊ at sonic speeds (Blue Walk). In Whole Cake Island Sanji was also fast enough to dodge Charlotte Katakuri who has future sight, then Speed Blitz Charlotte Oven to point where the latter didn't even know what hit him.
- Luffy is normally fast in his own right but after activating Second Gear he can flash step everywhere he wants and his attacks become super sonic◊. Though this comes at cost of wearing out his body, unlike other speed characters who can use their power indefinitely. Luffy's Gear 4: Bounce Man and Snake Man boost Luffy's speed even further, with Bounce Man it grants him a Double Jump like Sanji and jet propelled movement◊ as well as jet propelled attacks despite his massive bulk; while Snake Man on the other hand makes better use of Luffy's rubber powers to change the direction of his attack and continuously accelerate the longer it lasts. Add Observation Haki to the pot and Luffy is definitely the truest Lightning Bruiser of the crew.
- To be fair to the swordsmen, Zoro is no slouch at short distances, he traveled in 4.5 milliseconds in Whiskey Peak and successfully avoided Kuma high speed pressure bubbles◊. After the timeskip he could cut Pica's gigantic blocks of stone in the blink of a eye. The reason why Zoro is not considered overly speedy is because as Oda explained, his complete lack of orientation, which guaranties he won't be winning races any time soon. Zoro can also Speed Blitz as well as Luffy and Sanji can which was exhibited in Wano where he blitzed some Beast Pirates alongside Luffy.
- By the time of Onigashima, Zoro and Sanji are casually dodging goddamn lasers beams◊ fired by Queen while having Casual Danger Dialogue. Particularly impressive given dodging lasers was something only their captain Luffy had done before in Sabaody.
- By the time of Onigashima, Zoro and Sanji are casually dodging goddamn lasers beams
- Chopper is directly behind Luffy in speed and with "walk point" he can go extremely fast. This is fitting since Real Life Reindeers can run at 60 to 80 kilometers per hour.
- The Marines have their own technique known as "Soru" that involves kicking the ground AT LEAST TEN TIMES IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE to move vast distances in short periods, easily surpassing sonic speeds.
- Cavendish's split personality Hakuba is insanely fast, even by One Piece standards. In the Coliseum battle he took out (almost) all the remaining fighters in the blink of an eye; the only fighter who wasn't knocked out was Rebecca, who managed to avoid the brunt of the attack thanks to her own super speed and reflexes.
- Enel thanks to the Rumble Rumble Devil Fruit can easily travel at 220,000,000 miles per hour, as well use other lightning-based powers. Enel was also one of the first characters to Flash Step in the series, though his overconfidence in his Nigh-Invulnerability led to his downfall.
- Admiral Kizaru is the fastest character in the franchise, no ifs ands or buts. After he ate the Glimmer Glimmer Devil Fruit Kizaru can turn his body in light and go at the speeds reaching 299,792,458 meters per second... and that's just plain unfair when it comes to fighting.
- In One Piece Film: Z Kizaru even dodges a island busting explosion from point blank range, though it's the only time we see him have a Oh, Crap! expression on his face so that's something.
- Carrot is a more recent example as her Establishing Character Moment had her dodge Zoro's sword slash effortlessly◊, in Whole Cake she instantly catches up with Diesel who is an extremely fast runner, despite him having a running start. But it's Carrot's Sulong Form which may rival Brook, Sanji and Luffy when it comes to speed as the transformation allows her to glide over the ocean◊ and demolish army of mooks in seconds; the only drawback is the Sulong transformation is potentially deadly for her. Also like Brook, Carrot can be considered a Fragile Speedster
- There's also Vinsmoke Niji◊ whose Super Serum-DNA allows him generate electricity and travel at lighting speed, in the anime Niji even catches bullets◊.
- In general, super speed is a requirement to make good use of Observation Haki. Being able to predict attacks is good and all, but it won't do crap if you're not fast enough to actually dodge them... as the Boa Sisters found out the hard way.
- The strength of both is demonstrated by Charlotte Katakuri who despite being three times Luffy's size, thanks to utilizing his advanced Observation Haki in conjunction to Super Speed he can dodge, Luffy's own Second Gear (see above) with absolute ease and kick Luffy across the room when the latter tried to blitz past Katakuri’s attack.
- The strength of both is demonstrated by Charlotte Katakuri who despite being three times Luffy's size, thanks to utilizing his advanced Observation Haki in conjunction to Super Speed he can dodge, Luffy's own Second Gear
- Brook's attacks even go right by opponents without them noticing his presence or even the very pain they received in the first place; not even the audience sees much of him actually swinging his sword. It's only until his sword sheathes that the enemies "know they've been cut", this is fitting considering Brook is a "speed type" swordsmen in contrast to Zoro and Ryuma who are seen as "power types". The main reason for Brook's great speed is because as a skeleton Brook has no organs or skin weighing him down, he can even bypasses his Devil Fruit weakness by running so fast he can travel across water. Oda cements Brook's status as the fastest Strawhat in Chapter 890 as Brook pulls off the unbelievable by flash stepping Big Mom
- Most of the higher-tier heroes and monsters in One-Punch Man have some degree of this, with very few exceptions.
- Speed-of-Sound Sonic and Lightspeed Flash as well as the other people from their ninja village live up to their names, relying on extreme speed and precision to eradicate enemies before they even realize what's going on.
- Genos thanks to his rocket powered cybernetic upgrades can move at ludicrous high speeds, in fact he was even capable of keeping up with Speed-of-Sound Sonic being one of the few (besides Saitama) who can do so.
- Boros could move so fast in Meteoric Burst that the friction was liquefying his ultra-durable alien metal spaceship.
- Awakened Garou who effortlessly outpaces the aforementioned Lightspeed Flash in combat.
- And, of course, Saitama, to whom all the above might as well be standing still.
- In Pokémon: The Series, Ash's Pikachu, Cyndaquil, and Turtwig were trained to take advantage of their speed in battle. Turtwig subverts it however when it evolves into Grotle and has to adjust to a Mighty Glacier battle style. In the games, Speed is the most important stat. Ninjask and Jolteon would be pretty useless without that blinding speed to Baton Pass. According to Gary, Digletts can pull their head underground at the speed of light.
- One application of the Rise power from Psyren is this. Two characters in particular are so fast that another character, after teleporting to a point maybe thirty feet above the battlefield and falling at normal speed, feels trapped in mid-air while the other two fight it out below. They finish the fight before he hits the ground.
- In Ranma ½, as with Super-Strength, anyone who practices the right style of martial arts gets the ability to move with superhuman speed. Unlike most super-speedsters, this manifests more in striking speed and the ability to Flash Step than in conventional high-speed running.
- Ranma Saotome himself, in the first volume/second episode, manages to jab at Kunō's forehead fast enough to leave bruises in the pattern of insulting kanji without this being seen or even being felt by Kunō. Later on, he kicks Kunō about a dozen times so fast that, to an observer, he seems to just be sweeping his leg up in front of him. A subsequent story has Ranma hitting Mikado Sanzen'in five hundred-plus times in the span of a few seconds. And he does all of these feats before undergoing the Kachu Tenshin Amaguriken training. This training makes him even more ungodly fast, to the point where he has been known to punch water at villains with enough force to cause serious hurt. Whereas before he was kicking Kunō a dozen times in the blink of the eye, he later learns to punch HUNDREDS of times fast enough so that no-one (including Ryōga, who is being punched), notices more than one blow. In a more conventional display of the ability, in the second of a two-part OAV dealing with Akane's position as the Tendo Dojo's heir being challenged by two girls who claim to be her lost sisters, Ranma proves that in his female form, he can run so fast he can walk on water, at least for a fairly notable distance.
- Shampoo may be slower than Ranma, but she's still much faster than her rival Akane Tendo. In their only duel, Shampoo effortlessly leaps over Akane when she tries to punch Shampoo, and then hits Akane with a Pressure Points and herbal shampoo technique that lets her erase Akane's memories of Ranma; the attack takes 56 seconds in the manga, and only 5 or 6 seconds in the anime. In the manga, Shampoo is also shown effortless protecting herself when Cologne throws daggers at her whilst Shampoo is waitressing by tossing the order into the air, using the tray to deflect the daggers back into the wall, and then catching the order again, all without either spilling the order or looking behind herself.
- Mint of the Musk Dynasty is the most conventional speedster of the series, with a fighting style built around exploiting his superior speed, the product of being bred for generations by men using wolves forcibly turned into human women. His opponent Mousse only wins by exploiting Mint's greatest weakness: that he's an absolute idiot who can be effortlessly distracted by the mere mention of the word "breasts".
- In Rosario + Vampire, while vampires are renowned for their Super-Strength, werewolves like Ginei are known for their speed. Not that vampires themselves aren't pretty damn quick.
- In Rurouni Kenshin, Kenshin himself is trained in battou-jutsu (i.e., quick draw with a blade, effectively) techniques, and his speed is called "God-Speed" In-Universe. Unfortunately for him, he meets an opponent who's even faster: Soujirou—The Dragon in the Kyoto Arc—who can move faster than the human eye can even see and is capable of Le Parkour to the point of being able to run on ceilings, and whose Dissonant Serenity makes it difficult for Kenshin to read his body language.
- This is a default power of all Saints in Saint Seiya. Even the Bronze Saints are making a few Mach numbers, the Silvers are an order of magnitude or more faster, and the Gold Saints are explicitly said to move at lightspeed (and then have battles in which one Gold will say "your lightspeed is slower than mine!")
- In Samurai Deeper Kyo Bikara of the Twelve's insane speed combined with his considerable strength was enough to reach a draw with Kyo in his prime after fighting for a day.
- Straight Cougar from Scryed. His alter power (named "Radical Good Speed") enables him to transform objects (including his own body) to reach their fullest speed capacity. He also both drives and talks very quickly. ("I love it! Two more seconds to live...")
- In Smile Pretty Cure!, this is Cure March's signature power. She promptly discovers this soon after transforming... hitting a bridge support beam in the process and shaking it off like a champ.
- Sonic the Hedgehog:
- In Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie, not only is Sonic his usual high speed self, but Tails and Knuckles are shown to be super fast to a degree as well. And when Metal Sonic comes on the scene , he quickly proves himself to be even faster than Sonic, and is able to go from the planet's surface to space and vice versa in seconds.
- In Sonic X. Most of the anthropomorphs are shown to possess this to a degree, albeit a much lesser one than Sonic. Shadow is once again portrayed as being equal to him, until he takes his limiters off at least, in which case he becomes much faster still. This show arguably has one of Sonic's fastest quantifiable moments of super speed, showing Sonic as being literally fast enough to outrun a 'friggin' lightning bolt'.
- Soul Eater:
- Black Star has a "Speed Star" technique that temporarily emulates super speed. Friction with the ground is actually a problem for him; the first time he uses it on-screen, the fresh mud he was running through caused him to slip during a sharp turn.
- Mosquito's form from 400 years ago is so fast he was able to tear Free in half and cut off one of Death the Kid's arms in 1 second. He claims his form from 200 years ago to have been his fastest, though Free and Kid handled him considerably better.
Asian Animation
- Lamput: In "Zoom Oil", the docs concoct a liquid that lets them run super fast and utilize its effects for the sake of going after Lamput.
- Motu Patlu: In "Cross Connection", Dr. Jhatka and Ghasitaram eat a couple of the former's speed capsules to outrun a car that has hit the tables that Motu, Patlu, and Bad Man's gang are on, sending them sliding out of control. Unfortunately, the speed capsules work too well, and the two wind up unable to stop running; by the end of the episode, the effects of the capsule have worn off, but the two have wound up in Mount Everest because of how fast they were running.
- In Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: War of Invention, Weslie wears a pair of shoes that allows him to run at top speeds.
Comic Books
- The comic book examples are The Flash(es) — a.k.a. "The Fastest Man Alive". They break every single law of physics, and have fun doing it. Their standard cruising velocity has ranged from the speed of light (Pre-Crisis) to the speed of sound (Post-Crisis).
- Deconstructed in the song "The Ballad of Barry Allen", where the narrator (Barry Allen) laments about the inability to slow down his perception, at one point noting that the world is boring because when things happen in an instant, they're almost fast enough for him.
- Such is their speed that Flash-type speedsters (those who draw their power from the Speed Force) are the fastest living beings in their universe once they get going; yes, even faster than gods. At least one of the Flashes (Wally West) was able to outrun the Black Flash who is the representation of Death for speedsters.
- The Flash's Captain Ersatz in the Squadron Supreme is the Whizzer, who's fast enough to deflect a hail of incoming bullets while in free-fall. Unlike the Flash, however, he needs to sleep a comparable number of hours that he's awake and using his Super Speed.
- It's been revealed that Barry, at least, goes through 300 sleep cycles in a 24 hour period. Pretty sure this applies to the other Flashes.
- Wally West was originally depicted as being slower than Barry, not even being able to break the sound barrier. This was revealed to be a mental block that Wally subconsciously placed on himself because he was afraid of surpassing his hero. Once he got over it he truly became The Fastest Man Alive.
- Naturally, the various Reverse-Flashes also have this trope. The only Reverse-Flash who doesn't have this typically is Hunter Zolomon, who is a Time Master. What he does is to adjust his speed while traveling through the timeline, giving the illusion of super speed.
- Just Imagine... Stan Lee Creating the DC Universe presents an alternate reimagining of The Flash, whose faster-than-light speed allows her to outrun time itself (as evinced by her seeing herself start running before she takes off), adding on quasi-Time Travel to her superpowers.
- Superman:
- Most versions show him as just slightly slower than The Flash, usually because running is much more strenuous for him than flying. However, when the Flash's top speed changes, Superman's top speed has changed as well, usually preceding or following by months or years. This is probably because their races are a classic battle. It took a while for The Powers That Be to decide to stop the Evasive Fight-Thread Episode tradition and truly decide that the Flash was indeed the fastest man alive. It went from "Neck and neck then something interrupts the race" to "Supes is just slower, but his running speed is slower than his flying speed" to the Post-Crisis status of Superman being nowhere near capable of even approaching the Flash's top speed. (Immediately-Post-Crisis Superman got quite a power-down from the godlike levels of the Silver Age. Power Creep, Power Seep has made him ultra-powerful again; he now outstrips about 90% of the specialized speedsters in terms of speed. The Flash, of course, is still much faster.)
- It has been shown (in Flash Rebirth #3) that the Flash is still much faster. As Barry puts it "Those races were for charity, Clark." He then leaves Supes completely in the dust.
- Most fans agree that The Flash is the fastest being in the DCU, since, his only power being super speed, he should be the one who does it best. While Superman is the swiss army knife of the DCU, Flash would be compared to a scalpel: not as versatile, but MUCH more effective in its intended use.
- One very important practical distinction is that Supes cannot think or perform complex actions at super-speed (although he does have superfast-but-much-slower-than-Flash reflexes).
- Smallville's Clark Kent probably uses it most frequently, not having mastered the gift of Flight yet. When he's moving and seeing things in super-speed, Impulse is still little more than a red streak. Which just goes to show how obscenely fast Flash/Impulse is, being consistently the fastest character on the show, considering that Smallville Clark has proven to be FASTER THAN BLOODY LIGHT. Though it should be noted that in the successor comics, once he gets the hang of flight, his running speed decreases, to the point where the Flash remarks on it and Clark explains it as a byproduct of being able to fly.
- Many characters also had Super Speed in Smallville, because Clark time is just so awesome.
- Gets a lampshade moment in Warrior when a superhero with Super Speed wonders why there is no sonic boom.
- Pre-Crisis, at least, Superman's speed matched or was a notch below the Flash's; this was the era during which most of the classic Flash-Superman races took place. (One race featured the two forced to race to the edge of the galaxy and back, with Flash surviving in space via a means rigged up by the Guardians of Oa.) While not involving running, Superman also was shown pre-Crisis (and in a few post-Crisis stories, despite the canonical powering-down) as able to fly through interstellar space (without being gone from Earth for months/years). Finally, like the Flash, Superman in the Silver Age and the Bronze Age could travel through time via use of his super-speed, which also came up in a Superman/Flash race, this one through the timestream. (The ability to time-travel under his own power was also how Superboy could be a member of the Legion of Super-Heroes.) Even pre-Crisis, however, what sets Flash's speed apart from Superman's was Flash possessing finite control over his body's molecules, allowing him to do various stunts Superman couldn't do.
- In Superman vs. the Amazing Spider-Man, Lex Luthor declares that Superman may be fast but light is faster. Given that we are talking about Bronze Age Superman, that is a big assumption.
- In Bronze Age story War World, when Superman goes after his missing cousin he pours on speed until he breaks all barriers of speed, space and time.
With a speed that all but beggars description, Superman flashes through the limitless darkness — pushing himself harder, faster — until he surpasses the speed of light itself!
- In another Bronze Age story Kryptonite Nevermore, Superman loses most of his power. However, even when weakened, Superman can run so fast on water that he doesn't sink. After getting his powers back, he tests his speed by flying across space:
Superman: Let's see how fast I am! I'm moving at about ten times the speed of light — quick as The Flash! So I'm okay in that department, too!
- In The Supergirl from Krypton (2004), Superman flies from the Arctic to Gotham within seconds.
- Supergirl is consistently portrayed as faster than Superman (although nowhere as fast as Flash). In the Silver Age she could fly faster than light easily and even shatter time and dimensional barriers. Her power levels were reduced in the Post-Crisis universe, but she can still fly to the Sun and back within minutesnote .
- In Supergirl (1982) Supergirl shows how incredibly fast she is when she flies from Chicago to her foster parent's home in the Midwest within seconds. And in Supergirl #21:
Take a stopwatch to it if you'd like — from the instant Supergirl leaves the Kryptonite Man — to speeding to her cousin's side — turning back a miniature alien invasion — and returning to her starting point — within scant seconds!
- In Demon Spawn Linda's lightning speed allows her put out a fire by spinning quickly until she forms a whirlwind, and dodge Nightflame's strikes.
But the Maid of Might moves with lightning speed...
- In Bronze Age story War World Kara flies at incalculable speed when she hurls herself at Warworld.
Supergirl: If this plan this going to work, I've really got to pour on the speed — move as I've never moved before! I have to push myself — harder — until I reach the speed of light itself — and exceed it!
- In Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures in the 8th Grade Linda is as super-fast as ever but she hasn't learned yet how to stop herself from crashing into things.
- In Bizarrogirl, Supergirl is barely fast enough to slip her molecules between the molecules of solid objects.
- Power Girl being an alternate universe version of Supergirl also has super speed.
- The Flash: Mr. Freeze, Captain Cold, Minister Blizzard — All of them will try to freeze you dead in your tracks, coat you in ice. You gotta know how to counter. If you vibrate at Super Speed, your molecules will be able to slip between the molecules of whatever's freezing you.
- It's Depending on the Writer if Shazam! is faster than Superman, having been blessed with the speed of Mercury, he is one of few beings who can match The Flash in speed.
- Quicksilver from the Marvel Universe can "only" go about 700 MPH. He's explained to a psychologist the reason he's quick-tempered, irritable, and impatient — imagine a world where everyone is that annoying person who doesn't know how to work an ATM and you're behind them in line. note
- Though amusingly this attitude was once reversed during the Marvel vs DC crossover. Quicksilver fought the Flash and found himself just as annoyed to find someone who was faster than him.
- Though when the Flash found himself in the Marvel Universe, with no Speed Force, the tables were very quickly turned...
- 616 Quicksilver's speed has always been a tad inconsistent, but ever since M Day he has been depicted as much faster than 700mph.
- He had some limiters that were removed after a feverish dream which somehow restored his original powers. (Before that, he'd use the Terrigen Mists that powered the Inhumans to try and restore his powers. That didn't work well for most mutants who tried it, but for him, it gave him altered powers: while he could no longer run fast, he could vibrate his molecules at faster than light speeds, allowing him to time travel at will.)
- Ultimate Quicksilver is much faster. He once gave an enemy speedster an object lesson in what real speed is by taking hold of her and running so fast her skin was stripped off and then she burst into flame.
- As of Siege, Quicksilver is comfortably moving at FTL speeds (outrunning radio signals). And more recently, it was confirmed in-universe that he can run faster than the speed of light (meaning he can now more or less catch up to the Flash).
- From the '60s to the '90s Quicksilver is the benchmark/topline speedster of Marvel. In the various Marvel Universe handbooks, nobody could run faster than him (though in the case of Aurora/Northstar and Makkari of the Eternals, they can go faster than him because of flight). Unfortunately back then, his top speed was...175 miles an hour, so Marvel's next fastest speedsters - the Whizzer and Speed Demon would run 125 or 150 miles an hour.
- As of Avengers: No Surrender 688# Pietro is definitely on Flash level now, as thanks to his beloved sister Scarlet Witch giving him a boost with her magic and his girlfriend Synapse unlocking his mind Pietro can go so damn fast◊ that he disappears completely and enters a Pocket Dimension akin to the Speed Force which he can travel to and fro from.
- Though amusingly this attitude was once reversed during the Marvel vs DC crossover. Quicksilver fought the Flash and found himself just as annoyed to find someone who was faster than him.
- Wonder Woman:
- Super speed was one of Wondy's first established powers, as her Golden Age feature in Sensation Comics touts she's "swifter than Mercury". She's got a quicker reaction time than Supes making her a much faster combatant and can keep better track of Flash at his higher speeds but her speed is overall about the same as Supes and generally slower than him over long distances, especially when flying. One time Diana blocked attacks that came from "every corner of the universe◊" with her Super-Reflexes.
- Wonder Woman (1942): While her super speed not made explicit in the text the original Cheetah (Priscilla Rich) is able to run as fast Mala, the only Amazon capable of giving Diana a decent race and Diana did have explicit super speed. Priscilla's speed at running even gives away her identity while she's in disguise once.
- In Comic Cavalcade is much faster than Wonder Woman, and Cheetah by extension, in a sprint. As long as Wonder Woman can keep Badra in her sight and within reach she proves to have reflexes of equal or superior speed, but ends up having to Outside Ride her robot plane since Badra can fly unaided, something Wonder Woman wouldn't be able to do until the "Silver Age".
- In Wonder Woman (1987) Mayfly took a super serum for super-human speed before the gene-bomb permanently activated her meta-gene and gave her speed faster than Wonder Woman's. In Wonder Woman (Rebirth) she underwent experimental procedures to give herself super-speed.
- Cheetah (Barbara Minerva) is much faster than her animal namesake and has learned to steal speed through the Speed Force meaning she has enough speed and knowledge to be a threat to The Flash if they fail to take her seriously enough and lose track of her in a fight.
- Super speed was one of Wondy's first established powers, as her Golden Age feature in Sensation Comics touts she's "swifter than Mercury". She's got a quicker reaction time than Supes making her a much faster combatant and can keep better track of Flash at his higher speeds but her speed is overall about the same as Supes and generally slower than him over long distances, especially when flying. One time Diana blocked attacks that came from "every corner of the universe
- Tommy, AKA Speed, from Marvel's Young Avengers, who not only has super speed, but can accelerate matter of objects to the point that they explode. He's the reincarnated nephew of Quicksilver, and has proven to be much faster than Quicksilver.
- An example of Speed's speed, he ran from New York to Genosha (off the coast of Africa) before Wiccan could teleport there. He also searched the entire place in the time he spent waiting for Wiccan's near instantaneous teleport. As Wiccan put it "Um, Tommy, how fast are you exactly?"
- While always inconsistent as mentioned above, Quicksilver and Speed are both tiptoeing much closer to the "Flash" end of the Speedster scale lately.
- An example of Speed's speed, he ran from New York to Genosha (off the coast of Africa) before Wiccan could teleport there. He also searched the entire place in the time he spent waiting for Wiccan's near instantaneous teleport. As Wiccan put it "Um, Tommy, how fast are you exactly?"
- The Silver Surfer (thanks to his Power Cosmic) is so insanely fast that he can travel LIGHTYEARS in SECONDS!◊. Just to elaborate: 1 Light year = Approximately 9,460,730,472,580.8 Kilometers. In order to travel just one light year in sixty seconds his minimum speed is about 525,960 Times the speed of Light.
- Surfer is so fast it might comes as shock to learn there's at least one individual faster than him: The Runner who is one of Elders of the Universe who literally embodies this trope and has even bested the Surfer when it comes to speed of several occasions. The Runner even makes a habit of challenging Marvel's other speedsters to races.
- The Sentry is Marvel's Superman (or one of them at least) and so naturally has formidable speed, which ranges from merely catching a sniper bullet fired from miles away◊ by The Punisher and then appearing behind him◊ to Speed Blitzing Morgan Le Fay and ripping her head off◊ and traveling from the Earth to the sun◊ (a solid 149,600,000km trek) in minutes.
- Makkarai from The Eternals is a standout in Marvel when it comes to Super Speed he can travel fast using one leg, however unlike other examples he's still vulnerable to fatigue.
- Marvel Comics has a character from Power Pack and Loners named Julie, nicknamed Light Speed. She can move fast, react fast and heals fast. However, despite being called "Lightspeed", in one comic, upon breaking the sound barrier, she claimed she was at her limit. Though part of her name came from the light trail that streamed from her when she flew.
- Marvel also partially subverts this trope, however, by providing characters with a range of speeds to their name. You have the top speedsters, Quicksilver and the Beaubier twins, who can easily break the speed of sound and have been rated as capable of 99.99% of the speed of light. Then come Herald class characters such as the Silver Surfer, whose speed is mentioned above and Thor, who in flight has exceeded three times the Speed of Light. Then you have Iron Man and other tech heroes; most of these can fly and at least keep up with jets. Further down the scale come the various superstrong types like Hulk and Hercules, who don't get instant acceleration but can run several hundred miles an hour once they get a good buildup (thanks to their Super-Strength). Next up come characters whose powers are super-everything: Warpath and Monet are two examples, being much stronger, faster, and with better senses than most. Warpath can run at around a hundred miles an hour while Monet is likely more around thirty to forty MPH depending (her strength seems to fluctuate). Even Spider-Man has a shadow of Super Speed, able to run at around 65 MPH for about two miles before getting too tired from the exertion (assuming no other factors are involved).
- DC Comics' Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew! featured as a team member Fastback, a turtle with super speed powers. The "Just'a Lotta Animals" from Earth-C-Minus also featured the Flash's counterpart, the Crash (a turtle with super speed and Flash's costume). And to top it all off, Fastback's uncle was DC's Golden Age funny animal superhero (and speedster) the Terrific Whatzit (yet another turtle wearing a version of the Golden Age Flash's costume).
- Marvel Comics once saluted the Flash, and in so doing showed that it does not have "all speedsters have one speed", during a race to the moon on an artificial bridge made by The Runner. Only running speed was allowed (thus the Beaubier twins were not competing), and by the end of the race, some speedsters either fell out because they didn't have the endurance, or simply weren't as fast. Makkari the Eternal was in the lead and perhaps a mile from the moon, when "Buried Alien", in the tatters of a red costume, appeared on Earth. He just RAN, reaching the moon just before Makkari did. Since Makkari's running speed is 3,000 miles per hour, this means he achieved a speed of roughly 900 miles per second, or about less than half a percent of the speed of light. A slow jog for the Flash...
- The Mighty Thor is so fast, he catches artillery shells in mid flight, swings his hammer at twice the speed of light, and is described as "faster than the lightning he commands." In flight, he has exceeded three times the speed of light.
- The Incredible Hulk: While he may not look like he can, the Hulk is able to travel at Super Speeds as S.H.I.E.L.D found out the hard way, also like Thor he can also catch missiles with Super-Reflexes.
- Captain Marvel: Carol Danvers aka Ms. Marvel now Captain Marvel can emulate her airforce training by traveling at super sonic speeds without her jet due to her hybrid Kree DNA, Carol can fly from Broadway to the Earth's atmosphere in a minute and 15 seconds◊.
- Spider-Man:
- Spider-Man himself has reflexes that are 15-40 (Depending on the Writer) times greater than that of a trained human, and in conjunction with his Spider-Sense they make dodging bullets child's play. It also makes him difficult to hit in close combat, even by those who possess true Super Speed such as Thor and Quicksilver. On one occasion Spidey even danced laps around Black Panther while simultaneuously dodging Hawkeye's arrows. Spidey once even covered a gun's barrel after the trigger was pulled, but before the bullet was fired. As a result of his reflexes and Super-Strength, which also extends to his leg muscles, Spidey can maintain a comfortable running speed of over 200 mph, which might seem slow compared to other examples on this list, but is still well over twice the top sprinting speed of a cheetah. Spider-Man will frequently Speed Blitz rooms full of mooks◊ and speed is what really clinched his fight against Firelord the former Herald of Galactus. Firelord could've destroyed him if he caught him but Spidey's mobility the meant he couldn't even touch him. Spidey can also reach much higher speeds via web-slinging.
- One time when fighting the Molten Man, Spider-Man dodged a lighting bolt◊ thanks to the Spider-Sense, that's 1100 ft per second right there.
- One time when fighting the Molten Man, Spider-Man dodged a lighting bolt
- Most of Spider-Man's foes possess a similar level of speed, such as the Scorpion, Venom, and Carnage (who is even faster). Special mention should go to Speed Demon, the only flat-out speedster in Spidey's rogues gallery, who reaches Sonic levels of speed.
- Spider-Man himself has reflexes that are 15-40 (Depending on the Writer) times greater than that of a trained human, and in conjunction with his Spider-Sense they make dodging bullets child's play. It also makes him difficult to hit in close combat, even by those who possess true Super Speed such as Thor and Quicksilver. On one occasion Spidey even danced laps around Black Panther while simultaneuously dodging Hawkeye's arrows. Spidey once even covered a gun's barrel after the trigger was pulled, but before the bullet was fired. As a result of his reflexes and Super-Strength, which also extends to his leg muscles, Spidey can maintain a comfortable running speed of over 200 mph, which might seem slow compared to other examples on this list, but is still well over twice the top sprinting speed of a cheetah. Spider-Man will frequently Speed Blitz rooms full of mooks
- Black Panther is one of the most dexterous figures in the Marvel Universe, being able to outmaneuver Spider-Man, Captain America and Daredevil with near unrivalled Super-Reflexes. T’challa also been touted as faster than a Panther who can sprint at speed of 50 mph. And Heroes Reborn (2021) reveals he was holding back a great deal thanks to improvement in his suit.
Black Panther: Vibranium remembers when it was a meteor!
- For someone who neither possesses super speed as his hat, nor is supposed to possess superhuman abilities of any sort beyond "photographic reflexes", Taskmaster is hideously, terrifyingly fast, being capable of casually snatching bullets out of the air with his hands and bisecting, with a katana, 5 men spread out over an area of roughly 30 feet in less than a second.
- Taskmaster's is more or less just jacked-up Super-Reflexes. By watching things on fast-forward, his photographic reflexes let him duplicate it at the same speed. This trick is hard on his body.
- Likewise, Taskie's drinking buddy Deadpool, who has been seen outrunning thrown swords, striking symbiote tentacles, a jetliner about to take off from the runway and high-velocity sniper bullets.
- Gladiator one of Marvel biggest Superman expies can Speed Blitz his foes with ease e.g Nova◊ though he is one the Marvel characters who is hit with The Worf Effect the most.
- Iron Man has armors that can fly at hypersonic speeds that five times faster than the speed of sound and has even reached warp speed. Plus after becoming infected with the Extremis Virus, Tony gains the superhuman reflexes to boot, to extent where he can Flash Step an Extremis-enhanced individual who trounced him earlier.
- X-Men: Besides Quicksilver and Tommy mentioned above there's quite a few Mutants with above average speed.
- This is actually one of Wolverine's greatest powers as his speed is what saved from getting crushed by the The Hulk and Wendigo in his first appearance, Logan can also Speed Blitz ninjas◊, slice bullets before they reach him and even tagged Speed Demon◊ who has given Spider-Man a hard time in the past.
- Wolverine's Opposite-Sex Clone-daughter X23 is shown to be even faster than her originator, at age eleven she killed a man in the time it takes for a camera's flash to go off as an adult she can steal Hydra-Captain America's (who has Super-Reflexes himself) shield then flip over his back, while dodging darts from a team of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents◊. Laura can also deflect bullets with her claws, however she is unfortunately also a Fragile Speedster due to lacking the Adamantium Skeleton.
- Beast can run and move at speeds that are slightly beyond the natural physical limits of the finest human athlete, despite his abnormal size. He can run at speeds up to 40 mph for short distances, particularly if he runs on all fours, Beast can even take out flying foes◊ with his mobility.
- Rogue since she absorbed Ms Marvel's (see above) powers is a huge Flying Brick for the X-Men and like Carol Davers can travel at 62 miles per hour. When she first joined the X-Men Rogue got knocked into space by Carol and then flew back down to Xavier's Mansion in less than a minute, another time Rogue absorbed Colossus's powers and used it with conjunction with her Flight; the result was spectacular. She can also catch bullets
- Aurora and Northstar, Mutants from super-team Alpha Flight, have both super-speed and flight, making them ridiculously maneuverable.
- Gambit has some of the best speed feats for a non-super speedster, he's matched Spider-Man, Daredevil, Wolverine and even Nightwing in Combat Parkour. One time Gambit fought a Flying Brick Gladiator and his agility gave him the edge. Gambit can also limbo dodge bullets, leave behind Speed Echoes with his mobility and once took on the X-Cutioner's convoy (all while avoiding volleys of bullets and traffic) with sheer ninja-like agility.
- This is actually one of Wolverine's greatest powers as his speed is what saved from getting crushed by the The Hulk and Wendigo in his first appearance, Logan can also Speed Blitz ninjas
- The Beano's Billy Whizz, a long running strip about the "world's fastest boy". His speed and reactions are so fast they even allow him to stay dry in a rainstorm by dodging between raindrops.
- To put it into perspective, a "slow jog" for Billy is about 100mph or so. He can easily outrun sound - he once went supersonic at school to prevent a teacher from hearing an insulting remark his friend had just made about the teacher. His greatest moment to date though was when his father wanted to change the TV channel to watch some boring football match, and Billy outran the signal from the remote control in order to negate the channel-change command. Yes, he went considerably faster than light across the living-room and back!
- In October 2013, Billy was introduced to his female cousin, Wilma "Billie" Whizz; who turned out to be about as fast as him. The first thing that they decided to do was challenge each other to a race. Surprisingly enough for a speedster race, it did not end in a draw.
- The first race was a short sprint across Beanotown (several miles) and was won by Billy by about an arms-length. Billie challenged him to 2 further races to determine who was the faster, with the prize possibly being who got control of his comic strip in future. Billy agreed.
- The second race was a "middle distance" race from Beanotown (usually depicted as a small town somewhere in the southeast of England, surrounded by countryside) to Dundee, Scotland (a distance of abut some 400 miles). Billy was leading early in the race, but was overtaken in the latter stages and lost by several metres.
- The third challenge was a long distance race around the world. It started in Beanotown, travelling south and across the English channel, through France, Germany, and shortly afterwards passing through Transylvania (during the Hallowe'en 2013 edition of the comic). At this point, Billy and Billie were still level.
- In Buffy Season 8, Buffy's power boost gives her the power to run faster than a bullet.
- In All Fall Down, Pronto had this before his accident. Later, so does the Modern Prometheus.
- A-Train of The Boys. Unlike most examples, he doesn't really care about the physical effects of running into someone at speeds fast enough to Walk on Water, which starts the plot.
- Occasionally used by Mark Grayson aka Invincible, plus other Viltrumites as well as many other characters. Why they don't use super speed more often is an excellent question in hindsight.
- Scaredycat and Wind of Strikeforce: Morituri had this ability.
- Astro City has M.P.H., the Acceleration Ace of Detroit. Little is known about his origins and background, other than he is a Half-Human Hybrid with 85% human DNA and a 15% alien overlay.
- Asterix: Besides granting super strength, the magic potion is occasionally shown to grant super speed as well, usually depending on the plot of a story.
- While the Blue Blur is listed in the Video Game section, as well as the Film and Anime sections (given that he's the Video Game example), the Archie Comics incarnation of Sonic deserves a special mention, considering that he takes speed to a whole other level than any other version of the blue hedgehog. Amongst other things, he's used balled-up water as a projectile before the physics of displacement could set in (noted to have happened in about 100 attoseconds), is immune to time stopping abilities through his raw speed alone, can run across the multiverse in less than a day via the Cosmic Interstate, and most impressively, he was able to reverse the effects of a sundial that dilates time so much to the point of creating a black hole. Basically, much like the Flash, he can defy basically all the laws of physics. It would be an understatement to say that even by the high standards of Sonic the Hedgehog, this version of the Fastest Thing Alive possesses quite frankly absurd speed.
Fan Works
- In Fate of the Clans you have the Kings, able to move inhumanly fast with their aura. Above this speed is from the Servants. Then you have Cú Chulainn, said to be the fastest Servant in this Grail War on foot, who's able to casually move at several times the speed of sound.
- Hetalia: Axis Powers fanfic Gankona, Unnachgiebig, Unità: Italy has this. Let's just say the only way Germany and Japan were able to catch him in a chase was to trick him into going back to them.
- Hellsister Trilogy: Supergirl already displays this power in the first chapter when she travels to the future by flying faster than light.
Within five seconds, she performed her ablutions in the bathroom, did her hair and makeup, zipped on deodorant and a mild perfume, threw on her Supergirl uniform, and was out of the building at super-speed.
The air friction formed a corona of fire around her as she streaked invisibly through the skies. She ignored it.
Supergirl burst out of the ionosphere, vibrating at a certain frequency, still accelerating. An IFF device in her belt identified her to American and Russian radar trackers as the Girl of Steel, not an ICBM. They only registered her for a few seconds, anyway.
The reaches of near-space gave way to the unsettling kaleidoscope of time-flux. It wasn't that hard to do, Kara reflected, if you knew how and had enough power and speed to do it Superman had had to drill her for a week before she could pop out with pinpoint accuracy at a targeted time.
A subseries of flight ring pulses signalled to her the date and time from which the alert was being sent. She rocketed on, well past the speed of light.
[...]
The red-caped woman sighed without breath, reduced velocity to Mach 12, and sped into the atmosphere. - In Last Child of Krypton, Shinji Ikari has the full Kryptonian package, including super-speed. When Mad Hatter attempts to assassinate the UN Council by having security guards fire assault rifles into the room, Shinji manages to catch ALL of the bullets, also grabbing the guns for good measure.
- In The Last Daughter, Taylor is endowed with Kryptonian powers. She uses her super-speed to disguise herself by vibrating her face to create a blur and fly from America to Paris in just a few minutes.
- In Superwomen of Eva 2: Lone Heir of Krypton Asuka -who goes by Power Girl and later Supergirl- proves that she truly is faster than a speeding bullet by going from flying above the city, through all of the Geofront's armor layers, and into the Geofront to save Kaji in the time it takes for the bullet to get from Chiron's gun to him.
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Supergirl crossover The Vampire of Steel makes quickly clear how incredibly fast is Supergirl:
In the space of a second, Linda stripped out of her pajamas, found the place where a costume compressed to the size of a pea was located, expanded it, put it on, ran a special comb through her hair to change the shade from brunette to blonde and style it a different way, located the place where she’d stashed a pair of flat items that rapidly unfolded to boots, put them on, checked herself in the mirror, loaded her cape pouch with such things as she might need if she needed them (such as her i.d. card, some American money, and her own choice of lipstick in a friction-proof tube), opened the window, tripped the inside lock, exited, and shut the window before the lock had time to catch on nothingness instead of a metal catch, and, moving too fast for the unaided eye to see her, flew into the sky.
- In Pony POV Series:
- This factor of Rainbow Dash is explored more, especially as she comes to master her Sonic Rainboom to the point of being able to perform micro ones. Her Dark World incarnation is even faster, and also has a Super Mode from her Element of Chaos called Ender Dash that can move fast enough to Flash Step and in its purified state is able to reach escape velocity. It's later revealed that the G1 Rainbow Ponies all had this in some capacity, and Rainbow Dash is descended from them and a Rainbow Pony herself.
- Twilight's Halflight Noon form also has this, as she created it explicitly to fight Ender Dash during the Duel of Tears.
- In Equestria: Across the Multiverse:
- Rainbow Dash naturally has this, which is highlighted in "Lighting the Darkness" where most of the population are Muggles and her Super Speed is even more above average than normal, and a match for one of Yomi's Four Kings, Fubo, who was previously the fastest thing in existence. Unfortunately for Fubo, he relied on his speed too much and thus was a bit lacking in technique.
- Speed World has this trope as their entire thing, with each species or tribe having their own comparable speed spell. Princess Rainbow Dash is even faster than normal Rainbow Dash due to being an Alicorn, and Princess Firefly and Princess Wind Whistler are the fastest known beings in the Alliance. Worth noting, Alicorns in this universe are literally The Flash type speedsters complete with a connection to the Speed Force.
- Child of the Storm:
- Jean-Paul Beaubier, as per canon (Northstar of the X-Men). However, he's an Adaptational Badass, and while initially limited to top speeds of Mach 2 after being empowered by a Genius Loci in Book 1, he becomes a fully Flash-level speedster. Thereafter, his usual top speed is Mach 10... in his Restraining Bolt suit. His actual top speed is FTL.
- Fandral in addition to being a Master Swordsman with Super-Strength, is mentioned as being the second-fastest Asgardian, after Hermod. Sif, Thor, and Loki all have somewhat lesser top speeds, and Super Soldiers like Steve and Bucky Barnes are certainly no slouches either.
- Clark Kent, naturally, is beginning to develop this, and his father had it as well.
- In the sequel, Harry develops his already extraordinary reflexes into something closer to this, including the ability to Flash Step fast enough to make a teenage Clark blink.
- Pokémon Reset Bloodlines has a few examples of this:
- In the main story, Lady Ilene mentions to Ash and Misty that a Pidgeot Species Bloodliner would be able to run as fast as an actual Pidgeot can fly (established in canon as Mach 2). This is later showcased in a sidestory by Jane Jackrum, a female Pokémon Ranger who is a Pidgeot Bloodliner.
- In the Gligarman Interlude, one of the members of the Night Watchers is a Flash Expy named Flashstrika, whose Motor Drive ability allows him to run at great speeds.
- Downplayed in Amazing Fantasy. Izuku easily outpaces all of his middle school peers and can run faster than an Olympic sprinter after the spider bite, but he's no speedster like Ingenium or All Might.
- In Neither a Bird nor a Plane, it's Deku!, Izuku is Kryptonian. While he isn't as fast as All Might or Ingenium yet, he can still run at a third of the speed of sound, easily outpacing Tenya, a fellow speedster.
- The Loud House fanfic Lincoln's Memories: The mall Santa says that no human can beat a Christmas elf in a footrace.
- The Secret Return of Alex Mack: This is Ultraman's main power, with a running speed of about 280kph before his shoes catch fire.
- Taylor Hebert in A Speeding Bullet is a full-fledged speedster here, as she can see the entire world in Bullet Time and run so fast that she can visit Washington from Brockton Bay in about a minute. The author states that her top speed is Mach 60 and that her maximum possible speed is about 99% the speed of light.
- Suisei Hoshimachi in Holo-Chronicles is labeled as "the fastest person on the planet". Not only can she casually cause a sonic boom when dashing towards Sora's knights, but her Star Trait lets her completely bypass the laws of aerodynamics.
- The Encanto-based stories in The Kedabory Verse (most notably Sanded Down) feature Sabrina Madrigal, who has this as a Gift. Whenever she uses it, she is described as "dashing off".
- Not the intended use (Zantetsuken Reverse): Thanks to the Black Panther soul, Soma can run fast enough to cause shockwaves, but that's the exact reason why he never uses it; he lives in the college dorms and they're trying to maintain the Masquerade, so he cannot use a superpower that attracts attention and causes property damage.
- Voyages of the Wild Sea Horse: After eating the Vampire Mythic Zoan Devil Fruit, Nabiki Tendo is able to move and react at ludicrous speeds. Part of the reason her counter-attack against mutant animals attacking her crew is so effective is that she becomes so quick that, to her, they might as well be standing still. She is even described as taking a moment to admire the individual wingbeats of several turkey-sized mosquitoes before reaching out and splattering them with her new claws. And this is from a girl who was previously the slowest and weakest member of her crew.
- ''FATE: Last Daughter''. Gae Bolg is a Noble Phantasm that alters Destiny and reverses the flow of time to make sure it hits its target. Supergirl is still fast enough to catch it before it hits her.
Film — Animation
- Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children: Loz is capable of short bursts of speed that take him from one place to another almost instantly. It doesn't make so much difference when everyone has Super-Reflexes anyway, but it does enable him to take out Tifa in an instant after nearly losing to her before using the speed.
- The Incredibles:
- In the first film, Dash initially uses this power to pull pranks on his teacher and annoy his sister, but in time, he learns to use this power effectively in battle, managing such feats as outrunning attack pods, delivering Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs, and even running on water.
- Meta Man has enhanced speed as part of his Combo Platter Powers.
- Kirikou from Kirikou and the Sorceress moves incredibly fast for a someone with such very short legs.
- Megamind: Metro Man at one point casually reads books, flies a kite, takes time out for fast food - at the speed of light. While Rule of Funny does apply here, it's an explicit plot point that he's fast enough to leave the Death Trap that supposedly killed him, have a whole existential crisis outside, realize what he needs to do and bring a prop back to fake his death so fast no one even notices he did anything at all.
- Over the Hedge: Hammy the hyperactive squirrel is super fast. Especially when he drinks caffinated soda.
- The entire Spider-Cast in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse can move and swing very fast (including the Mini-Mecha). The Rogues Gallery is pretty damn fast too, especially The Prowler.
- Bullseye from the Toy Story series can run fast enough (with Buzz on his back, no less) to keep up with a jet liner while it's taking off.
- The titular character in Turbo.
Film — Live-Action
- In Blazing Saddles the Waco Kid is such a fast gunslinger you don't even see him move when he draws his gun!
- The Chronicles of Riddick: A nice side-effect of being Holy Half-Dead. The Lord Marshall himself is able to cover great distances in a short amount of time, even while wearing a full suit of plate armour and maille. Having Super-Strength is rather helpful in those respects as well. In order for Riddick to defeat the Lord Marshall, he had to be quicker thinking then his adversary.
- The watch in Clockstoppers speeds up the molecules of the wearer so that time appears to be standing still.
- DC Extended Universe:
- Man of Steel: Superman has this among his many powers, as do Zod and his soldiers once they reach Earth. Faora especially uses the Flash Step several times. This version of Superman is noted by fans as using his speed in battle better than any other screen version, accelerating to put extra power into every punch or slam.
- Wonder Woman: Diana of Themyscira moves very◊, very fast.
- After a cameo each in Suicide Squad (2016) and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Flash really shows us what he can do in Justice League. We get a few Bullet Time sequences where Time Stands Still, going much faster than he ever needed to in his cameos where only he dealt with lone unpowered human thugs. However, when a Not Himself Superman suffering from Resurrection Sickness attacks the team, he seems frozen to the Flash for a while... until he speeds up. Cue an Oh, Crap! as the Flash sees Supes turn his head to look at him. During that fight, Flash still moves faster than Superman, but not so much faster that a blow from the Man of Steel doesn't still send him flying. When Superman is back to normal, his speed isn't focused on as much as in, say, Smallville, but at the climax he is able to get far from the battle to rescue civilians and then return to the fight easily, the distance a non-issue, just as with Flash in the same battle. So who's fastest? At the end of the film, Flash and Superman begin one of their famed races, this time simply because the Flash wanted to know who'd win. As ever, we don't get to see how it turns out.
- Zack Snyder's Justice League shows that Flash takes extreme care in physical contact with humans when using his speed, which means he can't just move people to safety this way, unlike the above theatrical version (he instead uses it to destroy or shove debris falling on them aside). And he can also use his speed to travel in time, as seen in the climax when he uses this to save the Justice League and Earth from destruction by the Unity of the Mother Boxes. Wonder Woman also demonstrates some impressive speed in her fight, especially against the mad bombers at Old Bailey in London. That ability to travel in time is centerstage in The Flash.
- The titular Shazam has Super Speed as one unforunate mugger learned first hand◊, the Big Bad Dr Sivana has it also. In the climax all of the kids get Super Speed too, Darla in particular uses Bullet Time, signifying she's the fastest.
- Elysium: Aside from being able to rip off the heads from droids and throw people around like dolls, the Exosuits increase the user's physical performance dramatically. They move more quickly then the average combatant. Earlier, we have Max running away from the botched heist, on foot, at high sustained speeds. Considering the amount of distance that was put between him and Kruger, he had to be moving at least 35 mph.
- The Russian film Guardians (2017) has this as Khan's power. A leaked video shows him facing off against several SUVs and pickup trucks full of heavily-armed Mooks. He takes out his curved Absurdly Sharp Blades and then speeds up (this is demonstrated by the butterfly fluttering next to him slowing down to a crawl). His first dash cleaves an SUV neatly in two, and the pieces (including that of the guy who was sitting in the middle) collapse a few seconds later. He then proceeds to slaughter everyone else (although some are actually killed by Unfriendly Fire from a Mook too focused on hitting the fast-moving target to see where he's aiming his minigun). The short Curb-Stomp Battle ends without a scratch on Khan and everyone else dead.
- In John Carter, Woola is a Martian dog-like thing that can move incredibly fast (John uses his super-jumping skills to get from the ground to a high ledge only to find Woola already waiting there). Later on, Woola uses its speed offensively, but pouncing on a hostile Thark tribe attacking John.
- In Kung Fu Hustle, The Beast catches a bullet fired at very close range and attacks quickly even when the world is shown in slow-mo.
- Sing and the Land Lady display this as well, in a very Road Runnery fashion.
- In Lazer Team, the Suit of Power's boots grant the wearer this ability, although an untrained person is likely to throw up. While normally meant to work in tandem with the rest of the suit, the titular team ends up each with a piece of the suit, with a former high school football player getting his hands (well, feet) on the boots. They also appear to grant him a small measure of Super-Strength, as he's able to push a pickup truck for miles at normal driving speed.
- Marvel Cinematic Universe
- Avengers: Age of Ultron has its own version of Quicksilver, though compared to the one from the X-Men film series, he is slower — Word of God says he is "as fast or almost as fast as a bullet." Still, Quicksilver proved to be unstoppable to the likes of Cap and Hawkeye.
- Some people don't need powers to have Super Speed as normal human Tony Stark aka Iron Man proves in his first movie when he goes faster than two F22-Raptors in his suit, most impressive because those jet go can 2,410 km/h. Tony's speed feats get bigger in The Avengers (2012) as not only does he Speed Blitz Thor the God of Thunder, but starts up one of the Helicarrier's turbines by pushing it fans estimate it would take 642 m/s (1400 mph) just to get the Helicarrier off the ground so Mr Stark is well going past the speed of sound by keeping the ship airborne. Not to mention in the climax, where Iron Man catches up to nuclear missile likely going at 7,500 mph seizing it and guiding it through Manhattan without harm; until the missile reaches the portal where the Chitauri are coming from then Tony lets it go.
- By the time Avengers: Infinity War Iron Man's flight speed has reached a peak where he literally rockets◊ into space, and rocket take off speed requires 18,000 miles per hour (nine times faster than a rifle bullet).
- By the time Avengers: Infinity War Iron Man's flight speed has reached a peak where he literally rockets
- Thor the Avengers's first Flying Brick is no slouch when it comes to speed, in his first movie he travels so fast with Mjolnir he puts a hole clean through a ice beast, as well getting away with rugby tackling The Hulk in Avengers. Even without the magic hammer Thor's latent electrical powers put his speed greater than most of Avengers; as he becomes a literal Lightning Bruiser in Thor: Ragnarok.
- Carol Danvers aka Captain Marvel has super speed able to blitz through Skrulls, Kree and humans effortlessly, and also catch up a speeding train. But Carol also gets into the echelons of this trope during the Final Battle where she becomes◊ a Flying Brick proper and can even travel light years as seen at the end when she leaves the galaxy... and arrives back on Earth in front of the Avengers just after Nick Fury's pager goes off.
- Other enhanced speed examples in MCU include The Hulk, Vison, Spider-Man, Black Panther, Captain America, Bucky and Red Guardian (last three of whom have taken a Super Serum). The jolly green giant can smash through almost anything with the speed of a freight train and let's not forget Hulk's In a Single Bound jumping, Vison equals Thor in terms of being a Flying Brick and flies as fast as the Iron Man suits, Spider-Man can Speed Blitz super soldiers like Bucky and with the help of Doctor Strange even Teleport Spam Thanos in Infinity War. Black Panther has excellent showing of his mobility in his first fight scene where he chases down Bucky in Captain America: Civil War, to point where he, Bucky and Cap are running faster than the speeding cars in the underpass.
- The Matrix movies show improved reaction time and movement speed as being common abilities for those who know the Matrix is an illusion... but Neo can move at such speed that his slipstream drags along cars behind him◊.
- Münchhausen: Munchhausen's runner, who is called, uh, the Runner, can make a journey in 20 minutes that would take two days for a normal man on foot. Munchhausen puts the Runner's skills to use when he wins his freedom by betting the Turkish sultan that the Runner can make it to Vienna and back in an hour.
- Both the protagonist and the antagonist of The One (both played by Jet Li) get enhanced strength, enhanced reflexes, and enhancey speed due to the Conservation of Ninjutsu, thanks to the Big Bad killing all their doubles in parallel worlds. In his first appearance, the Big Bad Yulaw is able to dodge bullets and beat up a SWAT team in the space of a few seconds. The final battle between the two characters has both of them speeding up at various points, until a large part of the fight takes place at super speed (we see it from their perspective, while sparks from broken machinery slowly fall around them). And to think that the original plan was to have The Rock do the film.
- In Shinobi Heart Under Blade, Gennosuke has a technique that lets him move at such speed that his opponents seem to be slowed, to the point of barely moving at all. When we finally see it from an outside perspective, he just looks like a blur that takes out a few dozen Ninja in seconds.
- Sky High (2005) has a villainous example, with one of the students.
- Jeremy from Slick is a professional pickpocket who uses this to pick pockets by moving too fast for anyone to realize. He also pulls off several Tied Together Shoelace Trips with this as a way to keep people from catching up to him. Slick lampshades the latter ability at one point while he and Jeremy interrogate Judge Janelle.
Slick: Have you ever seen Jeremy tie people's shoelaces together? It's freaky!
- Sonic the Hedgehog (2020):
- Sonic. At one point Sonic zooms past Tom's police cruiser. The car's radar gun clocks Sonic's speed at 760 miles per hour, which is just under Mach 1. He also moves so quickly around a baseball diamond that he causes an EMP that causes a gigantic blackout in the United States' Pacific Northwest. He also speed reads a stack of comics on The Flash, moves fast enough to play table tennis and baseball with himself, and runs fast enough to be in multiple locations at once. He can use his power to enter Bullet Time, with everything around him appearing to stand still. Robotnik uses this against Sonic with one of his quills, able to enter the same state to keep up the chase.
- Much like Sonic, Tails can move incredibly fast. He flies from the top of a cliff overlooking Green Hills into the town proper in just a few seconds, leaving an orange trail behind him.
- Force Speed is a nifty trick the Jedi can use in Star Wars seen◊ when Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan flee from the Droideka in the The Phantom Menace ... however, it does become Fridge Logic when the Jedi never use it again in the rest of movies despite all times it could’ve been very useful, although they Hand Wave this by explaining in supplementary material that it's draining to use and requires a longer recovery period. Despite this, it pops up much more frequently in the Star Wars Legends novels and games.
- In Up, Up and Away!, Scott's brother Adam (AKA Silver Charge) has that as one of his powers. According to Scott, Adam can run around the world in under a minute. In one scene, he changes to his superhero costume before his father can finish asking for his help.
- X-Men Film Series
- Callisto from X-Men: The Last Stand, can run really fast.
- Wolverine is generally depicted as the living blender when on a Unstoppable Rage especially in Final Battle in Logan
- Quicksilver's superpower. In X-Men: Days of Future Past, he has one scene where he makes it look like Time Stands Still while Time in a Bottle by Jim Croce plays.
- In X-Men: Apocalypse, he does it again, allowing him to save dozens of people from an explosion that's already happened by tossing them out of the blast radius (and setting up cushions for their falls) in a matter of nanoseconds. Then he uses it to beat the crap out of Apocalypse himself, until the latter uses some of his many powers to alter his own perception of time to keep up and lays a quicksand trap under Quicksilver's foot.
- In X-Men: Apocalypse, he does it again
Literature
- Older Than Feudalism: According to Virgil, the Thracian Harpalyce (daughter of Harpalycus, king of the Amymnei) was capable of outrunning horses, the river Hebrus and the East Wind.
- In Aeneid by the same author, Camilla can run so fast that she can run over a field of wheat without breaking the stalks or over the ocean without getting her feet wet.
- The Divine Comedy:
- As Virgil and Dante rise out of Hell, they witness an angel moving across the ocean so fast "its motion by no flight of wing is equalled."
- In ascending from Purgatory to Paradise (if Dante's experience is to be generalized) move faster than lightning out of anticipation to finally return home.
- From The Song Of Hiawatha:
Swift of foot was Hiawatha
He could shoot an arrow from him
And run forward with such fleetness,
That the arrow fell behind him! - The 1901 H. G. Wells short story "The New Accelerator" is about a scientist who invents a serum that can accelerate a human to time-stop speeds.note Notable for being perhaps the first example of this trope that attempts to depict the real-life side effects that would ensue, such as the atmospheric friction discussed above.
- In Animorphs one book has the team morph into cheetahs. Cue a Villain of the Week with this ability.
- Doc Savage: In The Whisker of Hercules the villains use a drug that temporarily induces this, after Monk takes a dose he thinks that everyone else is moving in slow motion. Large doses also cause Rapid Aging, unfortunately.
- In the Dumarest of Terra series, the slow-time drug gives its users this. It's usually used to heal people up quickly. If you use it while conscious you have the problems of moving so fast you kill yourself if you trip, and possibly starving to death before the drug wears off.
- The Shrike from the book Hyperion, can travel through space at about 70 trillion times lightspeed (you read that right) thanks to time manipulation powers. It doesn't seem to be quite so fast in combat but still sufficient to absolutely humiliate every would be speedster it encounters.
- Nemes, an android designed to defeat the Shrike, can time shift enough to effectively stop time. While traveling through a tunnel system, with her time shift active, all of the lights go out simultaneously. When she checks her sensors she confirms that there is nothing around for kilometers that could have caused that. Then the Shrike appears in front of her.
- Gyges, an android of the same model, is able to use the time shift keep up with the Shrike in a fight for a few moments before being torn apart. The last thing he sees before dying is the Shrike using its Flash Step to vanish too quickly for him to follow even with the time shift.
- In a confrontation with the Pax is manages to massacre two armies, disable two starships, and meticulously kill every living thing abord a third ship. In thirty seconds.
- Kassad is briefly gifted speed sufficient to dodge lasers and when he watches the Shrike fight it still moves too quickly for Kassad to notice even a blur.
- In Heretics of Dune, Miles Teg gets this power as a result of a botched interrogation — implied to be a result of the unique mechanics of the interrogation device unlocking a latent genetic talent. His speed also includes accelerated reflexes, slowed time perception, a form of Super-Senses (explained as an amplification of his Mentat training), and massive boosts to his metabolic rate and the oxygen storage capacity of his blood to handle the increased energy demands. The effect also turns him into a Big Eater, which is played for both drama and laughs. Fortunately, he can turn the ability on or off at will.
- John D. MacDonald, who normally writes mainstream detective fiction starring Travis McGee, once wrote a novel titled The Girl The Gold Watch And Everything, which featured a watch that could slow time down to near-timestop levels. The inertia that ordinary objects would have at such superaccelerated perceptual speeds played a key role in the story.
- Spider Robinson borrowed the idea for a story in Lady Slings the Booze.
- Anne Rice's vampires have this ability.
- Shown to great effect in the first chapters of Interview with the Vampire. Louis stands in a darkened room with his human interviewer and tells him, very calmly and very thoroughly, that he is going to step across the room and turn on the light. The man is baffled, wondering what the big deal is. When Louis moves, at a speed he later assures the man is nowhere near his top speed and in turn nowhere near the speeds of many other vampires, it appears to human perception that Louis' arm grew to incredible lengths to reach the light switch and turn it on, while to Louis, he very deliberately reached out his arm, walked across the room, turned on the switch, and walked back to where he had been standing.
- As do the vampires in The Saga of Darren Shan. All vampires (whether they're still part-human or "fully-blooded") can move so quickly over short distances that it seems instantaneous to humans. Mr Crepsley uses this to fake Mind over Matter, snatching things out of people's hands so quickly they don't see him take them. Full-blood vampires can cover much greater distances via "flitting".
- Turbo from Super Minion. His power seems to work by distorting time, as he's been know to talk very fast while using it and anything he throws at other people returns to its normal speed and kinetic energy.
- The Runelords have super speed if they take endowments of speed from their Dedicates. It averts Art Major Physics, though, in a section that explicitly spells out (and demonstrates) a speedster leaning into turns, being careful not to break his legs, and arcing through the air after cresting a hill.
- Akane Akiyama of the web-novel Domina has this power.
- In Codex Alera, talented Windcrafters can draw on their Fury's power to move really damn fast. But, if they don't have metalcrafting, they can damage themselves pretty badly in the process.
- In The Vu Sabella Hall can move at incredible speeds which increase her reaction times and allow her to perceive the world as if in a time dilation.
- In the Discworld books, iconographs are externally just like cameras, but they have little imps inside that paint the pictures. This means that the imp can paint a photorealistic picture in a split-second. They may not do any running, but that's very fast indeed.
- Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli ran 135 miles in 72 hours in The Two Towers to catch up to the Orcs holding Merry and Pippin hostage. Eomer even tells Aragorn that his nickname “Strider” sucks and that “Wing Foot” is a more accurate description.
- Elves in general are fastest beings in Middle Earth since they don’t have any perceptible weight e.g Legolas can run (or more like fly) up Caradhras and back without so much leaving a footprint in the snow.
- Shadowfax is the fastest horse in Middle Earth to point where he makes the literal wind look slow. Riding Shadowfax Gandalf reached the Shire from Isengard only a couple days after Frodo left Hobbiton.
- One of the more common gifts granted by the titular Bond Creatures in the Spirit Animals series.
- In Marion G. Harmon's Wearing the Cape series, all speedsters are similar in powers. Their personal speed can vary between normal and up to 10x normal. Beyond that they "jump the wall" into "hypertime". Essentially everything is stopped, and they're moving at normal speeds along with whatever they bring (one speedster brings his motorcyle with him so he can get around in the "instant" faster). It's lampshaded in the filler text that the laws of physics for hypertime are hideously inconsistent and make no sense whatsoever.
- Michael Grant's Gone series has Brianna. It's never stated precisely how fast she can run, but at one point she races a bullet (and loses — she has to dodge out of the way), and another character estimates her speed as around 300 miles per hour.
- In Mistborn, Feruchemists can replicate this effect using steel; by being more slow for a time, they can be faster later for an equal period of time. Or they can compound how "quickly" they draw on this reserve, meaning they can have double the increase for half the time, triple for a third, etc. With sufficient storage, a Feruchemist can cross a country on foot in a matter of hours. However, if they haven't stored up physical endurance, or mental speed, or any other Required Secondary Powers, they may still have to deal with those problems.
- In Rumor's Block, the character Red Racer achieves super speed by a form a gravity manipulation. It is stated that his father had the same power.
- There is a novel about a guy who witnesses a Negative Space Wedgie in his backyard and wakes up the next morning noticing that everything else appears to have been slowed down. In fact, he is the one that is sped up and continuing to speed up. A bum who has been sleeping in his backyard at the time also ends up in the same boat. Unlike the protagonist, the bum uses it as the opportunity to start stealing stuff. The entire novel takes place over the course of a weekend, while his family is away, but it seems to last for weeks, if not months, to the protagonist. He even recalls the above-mentioned short story "The New Accelerator" and points out certain stupid things about it, such as the scene of a guy throwing someone's dog, noting that the dog would've probably died from such acceleration. The novel ends up going into the some of the problems of moving this fast, although not all of them (the two characters can still walk and run normally without bouncing, and air resistance or breathing don't become a problem until much later). At the end, the protagonist manages to reverse the effects on both himself and the bum by putting themselves into tubs full of ice.
- In The Secrets of Drearcliff Grange School and The Haunting of Drearcliff Grange School, this is "Light Fingers" Naisbitt's ability. To begin with, she mainly uses it to pick people's pockets. Later, she discovers that it also endows her with "quick thinking", the ability to develop complicated theories and plans in a moment, and the flash-forward indicates that she will go on to become a successful detective.
- In Sergey Lukyanenko's Rough Draft duology, several types of Functionals are able to move with incredible speeds. This includes Customs Officers and Police Officers. At one point, the protagonist is running away from soldiers and a helicopter gunship and manages to outrun them, while dodging bullets. Those soldiers then start popping certain pills and temporarily accelerate to his frame of reference.
- In Lukyanenko's Genome, Fighter-Speshes can move so fast, they look like a blur.
- This is Sasha's power in Super Powereds. She's not even close to the Flash's level, being able to move at a couple hundred miles per hour at most. Other limitations include inertia (she has to appreciably slow down to change direction) and poor aim (her perception is sped up along with her, but only to the same rate as a normal person running, so hitting things at super speed is still difficult with any precision). Her body's endurance is strong enough to handle accelerating to such speeds and survive the air resistance, as well as punching things at such speeds. Still, her first battle at the college is against a girl, who can turn her skin into steel and who waits until Sasha has already committed herself to a super speed punch before hardening it. Sasha's hand is shattered from the blow (luckily, there are a number of Supers with Healing Hands standing by). During the class's nature trip, she opts to get there on her own two feet. According to her, road trips are a slow-ass nightmare. She ends up being barely more than a blur to Roy, who's speeding down the highway on his bike. Knowing that there's only one speedster in his class, he mutters "Bitch" and resolves to try to catch up to her, already knowing it's futile. The same limitations don't apply to elemental-based speedsters, an extremely rare kind. Their powers are based on manipulating a particular element to the point of being able to take on that element's characteristics. In the case of one professor, electricity. The professor is able to actually turn into a bolt of lightning and move extremely fast, taking down a roomful of Supers before they have a chance to blink. Elemental-based speedsters like him don't need to slow down before attacking, as they're not made of flesh and bone at that moment. Even when in human form, they can move faster than the eye can see. In Year 3, the students encounter a speedster, who has been boosted by another Super to an extent that he's even faster than the above-mentioned professor. However, as he learns, speedsters shouldn't try to take on an energy absorber, after all, kinetic energy is still energy.
- The Stormlight Archive: Downplayed with wielders of the Surge of Abrasion. They can "slick" things so that friction has no effect on it; slick their entire bodies, and they can skate at ridiculous speeds because they can ignore wind resistance entirely. However, ice skating doesn't exist on most of the planet, so this is a difficult skill for them to master. It's easier for them to slick everything but the soles of their feet, letting them run at high speeds.
- The shadowhunters and fairies from The Mortal Instruments can move fast. In fact, both have a fighting style, which has speed as an essential part.
- Vampires and werewolves are much faster. However fast a shadowhunter might be, a vampire or a werewolf could easily escape him.
- That also seems to apply to many demons. Lilith proved not only particularly strong, but also surprisingly fast.
- Due to the experiments of Valentine, Jace Herondale and Sebastian Morgenstern are much stronger and faster than other shadowhunters.
- The demigods in Percy Jackson and the Olympians and The Heroes of Olympus are not only stronger than humans, but also faster. However, the extent of their powers differs from which god or goddess is their parent. So Hazel was impressed by how quickly Percy and Jason could move in battle.
- The Traveler's Gate: If a Valinhall Traveler makes a pact with the Nye, they are granted part of their essence, which slows the world while still allowing the Traveler to move normally. Kai is the only experienced Valinhall Traveler known to not have Nye essence, as he refused to make a pact.
- the secret lives of Princesses: Princess Zig-Zag is faster than the speed of light.
- In Shadow of the Conqueror, this is one of the powers granted by Lifebinding. Sunforged armor also doubles the user's speed as a secondary effect.
- Togetherly Long: Teeves has this, allowing him to easily protect his master from objects traveling at the speed of bullets.
- RWBY: Fairy Tales of Remnant: In The Man Who Stared at the Sun, the farmer's Semblance allows him to cover great distances in the blink of an eye. It enables him to easily manage his extensive farmland, and allows him to explore the wonders of Sanus. The reason the sun turns down the initial contest suggestion of a race is because they've seen the farmer run faster than the wind.
- Epithet Erased: Prison of Plastic: After being kicked out of Lorelai's Dream Bubble, Rick uses his Soulmate epithet to copy Trixie's potion-making abilities (which she doesn't actually have, but Rick's powers work off what he BELIEVES his friends can do) and brews a potion of speed, allowing him and Molly to get back to Lorelai's tower much faster than before.
- In The Outside, Talirr's former student Luellae has this ability, which she can share with anyone she's touching.
- Tales of the Bounty Hunters: Dengar was enhanced surgically to become an Imperial assassin, with him being able to dodge blaster fire if he sees when it's coming.
- The Enchanted Files: As noted in In Diary of a Mad Brownie / Cursed, brownies have the "scurrying" ability, which lets them move so fast that they appear to only be a blur. It doesn't work for long distances, but it helps them get out of sight of humans who aren't supposed to know about them.
Live-Action TV
- Ricky Fitness of The Aquabats! Super Show! has this power.
- Glory, the Big Bad from season 5 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer — although she didn't use it nearly as often as she could have.
- Buffy possesses super speed to an extent too. In the final episode she manages to catch up to a speeding school bus despite having been stabbed in the stomach a few minutes ago.
- In the Angel spinoff episode, "Somnambulist", there was a vampire sired long ago by Angel's evil side, Angelus, who could move at super high speeds.
- Angel himself could move like that. They never show the movement on-camera, but occasionally a camera jump shows he's moved 60 feet in about a quarter of a second. Notable in "That Vision Thing" right after he kills Kal Penn's character and in the Buffy episode "Passion" before he kills Jenny Calendar.
- They do show it on screen, somewhat. Once when he leaves Lilah's car's backseat, via the window in a quick blur, and once when he flash steps across a restaurant to hassle an old woman he mistook for a witch. Word of God, however, states that Penn moved so fast in that scene because it was from Kate's point of view when she was freshly introduced to the supernatural, so it might be that all vampires move at super speed but it only seems like a blur to muggles.
- Angel's son Connor could do the Flash Step too.
- Other vampires are seen moving super speedy too. In his first episode, Spike kills two men and hides the bodies before introducing himself to the girl they were walking with a few seconds ago. In the Angel episode "The Girl in Question", Spike is shown flashing across a crowded room as fast as Angel can. Darla, Angel's sire, also speeds up to Cordelia when she's pregnant and hungry in "Offspring".
- The Angel episode "Calvary" features a demon that can move so fast that it makes Connor look like a noob in battle.
- The Boys (2019) has plenty of speedsters, from A-Train (who kick-starts the plot by accidentally running through Hughie's girlfriend Robin), Shockwave (A-Train's rival), Homelander (who casually outpaces fighter jets), to Kimiko a.k.a. the Female (who proves to be super-fast in a melee that she even manages to throw A-Train off in Bullet Time while he's going at full speed).
- Charmed (1998):
- Several demons and magical creatures, such as Dwarves and Leprechauns, possess super speed. some magical beings naturally have superspeed.
- In one episode, Paige has a charge who possess the power of super speed.
- When the Charmed Ones are turned into superheroes in "Witches in Tights", super speed is one of their stock powers.
- In "Battle of The Hexes", the Golden Belt of Hyppolita granted Billie this power too.
- Doctor Who:
- The Weeping Angels.
"They are fast. Faster than you can believe. Don't turn your back. Don't look away. And don't blink."
- The Vashta Nerada from "Silence in the Library"/"Forest of the Dead" can move fast enough to strip someone to the bone in the blink of an eye.
- The Weeping Angels.
- An episode of Eureka has a group of scientists who try to beat another group at a project in order to impress their boss. In order to cheat, they injest a serum that temporarily allows them to move much faster than normal. However, it ends up turning fatal when one of them forgets to Look Both Ways and hits an SUV.
- Several episodes of The Flash (1990) involve bad guys trying to duplicate this ability. One rich guy builds himself a power suit that does this (it's unclear how he overcomes the side effects, such as friction and lack of Super-Reflexes), but Flash pulls an Are These Wires Important? on him. Another scientist tries to replicate super speed using cloning, but all his subjects end up burning themselves out (literally) from a cellular chain reaction and friction. So he acquires a sample of Barry's blood to make an improved clone (named Pollux), physically an adult but mentally immature, given a blue costume modeled after the Flash's red one to further protect him from friction. At the end, though, Pollux ends up pushing himself too hard preventing an incoming bullet from reaching Barry (despite their current super speed fighting due to identity crisis) and burns up like the early subjects.
- In another episode, the pilot's Big Bad Pike tries to kill the Flash with a nuclear missile. Somehow, a nuclear explosion boosts Barry's super-speed to Time Travel levels, and Barry ends up 10 years in the Bad Future, where Pike runs the town. Barry and his Love Interest overload a nuclear reactor to return him to his own time.
- In yet another episode, a drug dealer gives him a whiff of some new exotic drug, that causes Barry's molecules to vibrate to such an extent that he passes through a brick wall (Although as noted above, this was a standard trick of Barry's in the comics).
- In The Flash (2014), Barry counters the Weather Wizard who is creating a hurricane by running around it in the opposite direction. The hurricane collapses back on the Wizard.
- Barry starts every episode with "My name is Barry Allen, and I am the fastest man alive." It's telling that, in one episode, after that intro, Barry says, "My name is Barry Allen, and I'm not the fastest man alive." In the previous episode, he realizes this after coming face-to-face with the Reverse Flash, who turns out to be much faster than Barry (this turns out to be due to, in part, the Reverse Flash continually charging himself with a futuristic battery, since his own connection to the Speed Force has been cut off over a decade ago).
- In the second season, Barry meets "Jay Garrick", the Flash from Earth-2, who claims that he lost his connection to the Speed Force after passing through the portal, but he has invaluable experience and takes over the mentor role. The new enemy is Zoom, who is obsessed with killing every other speedster in every world to be the only one. Eventually "Jay" was revealed to be Hunter Zolomon, a serial killer, and Zoom, their enemy.
- There is also a metahuman known as "the Turtle", who is able to slow down everyone around him, which seems like he's super-fast to anyone looking at him. He even manages to sap Barry's power.
- King Shark can swim at speeds comparable to Barry's running speed, able to keep up with Barry and nearly kill him while Barry is running on water. While King Shark is not nearly as fast on land, his speed is still very impressive compared to ordinary humans.
- A drug called Velocity (with variations like 6, 7, 8, and 9) can grant super speed and improve existing super speed, but it has dangerous side effects. Eliza Harmon took it and became the supervillainess Trajectory. She seemed to be faster than Barry, but her body eventually crumbles to dust from overusing her speed. This drug is also the reason why Zoom is so much faster than Barry.
- Barry also eventually learns to travel through time by entering the Speed Force and visualizing his destination. However, this can result in Time Wraiths hunting him down. Zoom also teaches him the trick of creating a time remnant by using time travel to make a duplicate version of the speedster. One of them usually ends up dying anyway. However, this practice is even more likely to attract Time Wraiths due to the resulting paradox.
- The real Jay Garrick is from Earth-3 and has super speed, although he has problems due to his age.
- In the Flashpoint timeline, Kid Flash got his speed while drag racing. His car, filled with an experimental fuel mix, was struck by lightning. After the explosion, he spent 9 months in a coma, after which he woke up and found he could move really fast.
- In Season 3, Barry encounters the Rival, who is Kid Flash's Evil Counterpart, at first, and then his own. He appears to be just slightly slower than Barry and can't do some of the things Barry can (e.g. running in mid-air inside a vortex to stop it), although he has been shown spamming lightning bolts. Later, Jesse finally becomes Jesse Quick. In the previous season, a depowered Barry recreated the accident that gave him his powers, and Jesse and Wally were also caught in the "lightning." Jesse's speed finally manifests as a car is about to hit her on the street, and she becomes a heroine after a bumpy start. Wally is upset that he hasn't developed super speed and he nearly gets hurt trying to replicate Jesse's "event". Barry and Joe are wary of Wally potentially becoming a metahuman. Eventually, Barry encounters an alien-looking speedster, whose speed is unmatched and can only be seen by Barry. He calls himself Savitar, the god of speed.
- Wally eventually does develop powers, of course. It's unclear if they would have kicked in on their own, but the villain Dr. Alchemy, able to give characters abilities they had in other timelines, jump-started him (he was rescued before he could suffer any mental tampering.) It turns out that he is faster than Barry was on his first day as a metahuman. However, he gets the Curb-Stomp Battle treatment from Savitar, just like everyone else.
- And now Earth-19's Accelerated Man joins the growing list of speedsters in the Arrowverse with his purple lightning, bringing the total count to 9: Flash (Barry), Reverse-Flash, Zoom, Trajectory, Flash (Jay), Jesse Quick, Kid Flash, Savitar (Barry's time remnant from the future in a fancy suit), Accelerated Man. H.R. also mentions his world's Flash. It's never made clear if the Flash of Earth-19 is the same person as the Accelerated Man or a different speedster.
- Iris West temporarily becomes The Flash because Matthew Kim accidentally sent Barry's powers to her. Matthew Kim sends Iris' new powers to Barry at the ending.
- Just how fast these speedsters are is best highlighted in "Enter Flashtime." An entire episode takes place in the amount of time it takes a nuclear explosion that has already happened to travel a few feet. It appears perfectly still whenever we see it. One plan to stop it has Barry, Jesse, and Jay running with their usual super-speed appearance while the world around them is slowed to this degree. So, they're not just so fast a nuclear explosion stands still a whole episode - they can move at the speed it takes to be so fast as to be invisible but for the lightning trails while the explosion appears stilled. This also settles the "Flash vs. Superman" debate for the Arrowverse even if they haven't actually raced; we're talking several orders of magnitude faster than any Kryptonian over in Supergirl (2015) has ever moved even when time was most crucial. However, this is apparently pretty much the heroes' limit: Jay and Jesse don't have the stamina to keep it up to the end, and pushing himself far enough to do so himself keeps Barry hospitalized for some time afterward.
- As of season six, a villain uses ultraviolet ray blasts that the Flash can't outrun. The computer Gideon clocks the UV blasts at 186,000 miles per second (light speed) and says that this is 80 times faster than Barry's current maximum. While it seems a letdown to those assuming the previously-mentioned feat must've been light speed or much faster, consider that 186,000 divided by 80 is 2,325. 2,325 miles per frikkin second! That's Mach 11,250, or 8,370,000 miles per hour. That means it'd take just under 11 seconds to circle the Earth. It's easily fast enough to accomplish some (but not all!) of his most impressive feats in any medium.
- On Gilligan's Island, in the episode where the castaways ate radioactive vegetables, Mrs. Howell gains this from eating sugar beets.
- An episode of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys has Herc travel to Oireland and learn this trick from a local demigoddess. He ends up beating a god this way.
- Heroes:
- In season 3, Hiro meets Daphne, a girl who can go so fast that when he stops time she is just brought down to normal speed (this is how he discovers that he's not stopping time completely). She then speeds up even faster and runs off before he can catch her.
- Edgar from Season 4 has the same power. In one scene, Peter copies it and they have a super-speed battle.
- One episode of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids has Wayne Szalinski building a device to accelerate him to Super Speed because he was over-committed one day. Mr. Jennings finds the other unit. The device malfunctions and he and Mr. Jennings gets stuck moving at the speed of light until he ends up in a cold location to slow him back down.
- Interview with the Vampire (2022): Vampires can move from one end of a room to another in a blink of an eye. Louis de Pointe du Lac swims faster than he drives.
- Hyde, from BBC's Jekyll, has been shown to be able to get up from a chair and to the door of a room in the time it takes the woman who had been facing him to turn to the door, among other examples.
- Kamen Rider:
- Six of Kamen Rider Kabuto's eight heroes (and nearly all of their enemies) have an ability called Clock Up, enabling them to move at nearly light speed. The titular character later gets Hyper Kabuto form, whose Hyper Clock Up makes characters who are in normal Clock Up appear to stand still. By exceeding the speed of light, Hyper Clock Up can even allow him time travel or hop dimensions. However, Clock Up is hardly ever important to the plot, but used only to allow for fierce battles with surrounding civilians standing in place or debris falling at a microscopic rate to make the fight prettier. As for the two who don't, since Clock Up is rarely important and used only to make fights look cooler, we see less of it as the series goes on. It's not clear that the last two Riders, introduced long after it mostly stopped being a thing, can't do it. They can use it in the video game, and in Zi-O, Punch Hopper does use it, but it turns out it's a Worm imitating him, so he may have been using his own natural powers.
- Before Kabuto, Kamen Rider Faiz had Accel Form, which enabled him to move at the speed of sound for ten seconds. When the eponymous Kamen Rider Decade squared off against a Kabuto character, he uses Accel Form to match his opponent's Clock Up. The same arc used it as a plot point, wherein Tendou's AU counterpart is stuck in permanent Clock Up and can't revert to human form.
- A requirement for Kamen Rider Double riders seems to be that they are abnormally fast in some respect. Double is running and brawling speed, Skull is shooting, and Accel becomes a living motorcycle on top of high speed sword fighting. Accel's Trial form takes it up a notch.
- Lab Rats: Bree is the one with this ability.
- Let the Right One In: Vampires can move with stunning speed, to the point it can seem like they vanished (Eleanor uses this with the impromptu "vanishing act" that she performs for Isaiah).
- Johnny B in Misfits of Science has this power along with the ability to conduct electricity and hurl lightning bolts.
- In No Ordinary Family this is Stephanie Powell's super power.
- An episode of The Outer Limits (1995), "In the Zone", has a scientist develop the means to tap into the potential of the human nervous system, increasing a person's perception and reflexes. He uses the procedure to help an aging athlete get back into his prime. However, when the scientist notices that the athlete has also started aging faster, he cuts off the treatments. The athlete sneaks in one more treatment, which ends up putting him permanently into the super-speed mode, making him effectively invisible to everyone else (from his viewpoint, Time Stands Still). Realizing they only have a short time to save him before he dies of old age and crumbles to dust, the athlete's wife undergoes the same treatment to get the athlete into position. The scientist tries to bring them both back by dumping the "energy" into a chunk of neural matter, only to realize that the matter can't take all the energy. He pulls a Heroic Sacrifice by sticking his hands into the tank and letting his body absorb the energy, putting himself into the super-speed mode permanently. After returning to normal speed, the couple sees a card he left them - his driver's license, showing that he's only 30 years old, while appearing to be much older, indicating that he has discovered the aging side effect when testing the procedure on himself.
- Power Rangers:
- Conner's Dino Gem ability in Power Rangers: Dino Thunder. Trent from the same series also has this ability but only in ranger form
- Also, in Power Rangers Operation Overdrive, the Yellow Ranger, Ronny, has this as her civilian power. The next series, Power Rangers Jungle Fury, gives its Yellow Ranger, whose animal motif is the cheetah, the "speed of the cheetah," but it's used for Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs rather than running faster.
- A couple teams of vehicle-themed Rangers (specifically, Power Rangers Turbo and Power Rangers RPM) can often be seen running at Super speed while car sounds are heard.
- In Power Rangers Ninja Storm this is known as the "Ninja Streak" ability.
- Antonio the Gold Ranger has this ability in Power Rangers Samurai.
- The Future Predator◊ from Primeval is a dangerous predator. He can move very fast, and is hard for even trained soldiers to hit him with rifles.
- Smallville unsurprisingly features this, as it has its own versions of Superman and The Flash (see the comics section). Unlike the comics version, though, Clark uses his Super Speed running as his main method of travel, rather than Flight.
- It's also probably Clark's most commonly used power. Clark and Impulse have the obligatory "Who Has Faster Super Speed Powers?" race, though that trope is quickly subverted when Impulse just speeds up and leaves Clark in his dust.
- Aquaman can swim much faster than Clark can.
- An episode of Stargate SG-1 has the team (except Teal'c) get enhancement devices that give them this, along with Super-Strength and amplified appetites. They use the "speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out" properties of Stargates to defeat the Jaffa guarding a Goa'uld base.
- They also move fast enough to pass through Goa'uld shields, as they're oscillating.
- Many of the creatures of Supernatural including werewolves, vampires, and djinn, are much faster than humans.
- In Tokumei Sentai Go-Busters, Hiromu has a super speed mode. Naturally, during Super Hero Wars, he faces off against Kamen Rider Kabuto during the humongous Sentai vs. Rider Let's You and Him Fight sequence.
- In the final mecha battle, Hiromu grants this power to OWN Mecha by diverting all energy to the legs as a desperate and successful gambit.
- Cole/Dagon from Tracker (as well as all the members of his species) can enter "hyperspeed" at will, although he can only do it for a short while and it drains him. He can usually only do it once a day. We always see it from Cole's perspective, so Time Stands Still. In one episode, the Big Bad invents a device that allow anyone to do the same, and it recharges in 20 minutes. In another episode, Cole uses this trick to get a mobster to think he shot him. He is kneeling on a dock. The bad guy shoots. Cole enters hyperspeed and moves his head out of the way. The bullet slowly makes its way past him. Cole then puts his head back in the same place and "resumes" normal time. Cole falls in the water. The bad guy leaves, satisfied.
- True Blood. Vampires can move at super speeds, and apparently without harming the human they're currently carrying. They can even do this while wearing high heels and a dress.
- The X-Files: The episode "Rush" has teens that gain temporary bouts of super-speed, but are slowly dying from it, as the human body simply isn't build to go at superhuman speeds.
- Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. features Elena Rodriguez (aka "Yo-Yo"), an Inhuman with super-speed that functions with two limitations - she can only run at superhuman speeds for the duration of one heartbeat, and she always bounces back to where she started. In the final season of the show, the latter limit is revealed to be a psychological block rather than an inherent part of her powers - once she unearths and resolves a traumatic childhood experience, she's able to speed up with snapping back at the end of it.
Mythology & Religion
- Norse Mythology: In one legend, Thor's servant Thjalfi races against Hugi, the servant of the giant they are visiting. Hugi stands still at the starting line until Thjalfi is close to the finishing line, and then effortlessly runs past him and wins. It is explained later that Hugi was just a manifestation of the giant's thought processes ("hug" in Old Norse, compare Odin's raven Huginn)pronounciation .
- Greek Mythology:
- Hermes. Those winged sandals ain't just for show. He's such an influential Ur-Example that The Flash's wing decals are direct homages to Hermes' sandals. To the ancient Greeks, wings were the ultimate symbol of superhuman speed in living creatures.
- Though not so well known today, Iris, the Nymph of the Rainbow. Daughter of sea and sky, kin to earth and the underworld, she can go anywhere and be welcomed.
- As a daughter of the ocean, Thetis is able to swim massive distances in seconds. The Achilleid tells us that in just three breaststrokes, she travels from the bottom of the ocean just outside Troy to the shallows of Thessaly, which in real life are over one hundred and fifty miles away on opposite ends of the Aegean Sea.
- The Thebaid: Mars' chariot can fly through heaven as quickly as Jupiter's lightning; its speed also leaves behind streaks of fire through the sky that make a pretty good omen that war is coming.
- Possible UrExample of the trope can be found in Lugalbanda, either ancestor or deity of Gilgamesh (depends on which legend mentioning his name you're reading at the moment), which received a blessing from Anzu bird (spirit of Storm and Thunder) - ability to run really really fast. At that time he was a simple footsoldier in a current ruler's army, later he was promoted to messenger (of course), ended up as the next King, and after his death, a god, although somewhat minor.
Roleplay
- Dawn of a New Age: Oldport Blues:
- Emmanuel's power is super speed, which has been directly compared to The Flash. While it's not yet clear in the story what his top speed is, supplementary material suggests that he can go so fast that he can travel back in time. As a drawback, using his speed burns up calories something fierce, so he has to eat constantly to keep his weight up.
- Jemimah's superpower allows her to remove the effects of friction from the soles of her feet, allowing her to glide around at great speeds. As a Required Secondary Power, she's able to keep her balance while doing so, and also won't skin herself as a result of air friction or coming into contact with another object.
Tabletop Games
- Champions: Because the underlying Hero System is "effect-based" and you can potentially do a lot of tricks with super speed, there's not simply one speed power — instead, you basically buy and pay for what you're planning to actually do with it. This list may just start with an increased Speed attribute for more actions per turn, extra Running (possibly with an increased noncombat multiplier) to get from A to B more quickly, the Autofire advantage (hopefully coupled with Reduced Endurance Cost) for your character's unarmed punches...
- DC Heroes has a Super speed power. Power values in this game system were described by a single number; in the case of Super speed it described your running speed, could be used in place of your Dexterity for dodging attacks/rolling attacks/causing damage (imagine punching someone at the speed of sound, or punching him several times per second), and defined how much "faster" you could perform a lengthy action such as disarming a bomb. An optional rule allowed you to roll dice to see how many extra "simple actions" you could perform on your turn.
- Dungeons & Dragons:
- Wizards have the happy opportunity to cast the "Haste" spell, which grants a small dose of super speed to the party. In 2nd Edition, this boost came at the cost of a year of the targets' lifetimes, as their metabolism kicked into overdrive. 3rd Edition removed this drawback, and also added magical weapons that move fast enough to grant extra attacks per round.
- The partially martial arts-inspired 3rd Edition supplement The Book of Nine Swords draws on the super speed concept with the "Diamond Mind" school, whose practitioners are described as acting in moments others aren't aware of. The ultimate Diamond Mind technique is named Time Stands Still, which lets the user take two full attacks in one round. To actually receive a Time Stop effect, you have to take a Diamond-mind focused prestige class.
- Exalted has a number of speed-altering Charms. The most consistently impressive has to be the "Wind-Born Stride" Adorjani charmset from Infernals, which is based largely around ways to improve your running, including making sprinting as restful as sleep, running on water, and running so fast you set off a small-scale shockwave like a quiet sonic boom. This led to this rpg.net thread, which came up with a build capable of breaking the sound barrier on foot, and outracing the Concorde in a scout warstrider. (Lunars have an even more impressive Charm that allows them to chase and catch this one, but that one requires you to be specifically chasing them.)
- GURPS:
- You can get either Enhanced Move which lets you accelerate to high running speeds. However Altered Time rate is a more traditional speedster power, allowing you live at double speed (or tripe, quadruple etc).
- The game also suggests that you to take Resistant To Acceleration, if you don't the character is liable to blackout if he tries to start too fast.
- Magic: The Gathering: The Unhinged parody set presents the Rocket-Powered Turbo Slug. It has the ability of Super Haste, which is like ordinary Haste, except it can attack on the turn before you cast it.
- Mutants & Masterminds has a Super-Speed power, but it essentially deconstructs into a combination of the Speed (run faster) and Quickness (perform skill checks in a shorter duration) along with an array of alternate powers (things like being able to use your super-speed to run up a wall, spin and deflect projectiles, dodge oncoming attacks, etc). The core game does not allow multiple attacks per turn, so the only use of super-speed to attack allowed is in the form of descriptors on alternate powers.
- In Nomine: Ofanim can spend some Essence to temporarily move at incredible speeds, typically in the range of several miles per minute. This can be dangerous when in corporeal form, however, since physical bodies aren't meant to move at such speeds.
- Sentinels of the Multiverse: The hero Tachyon is a super speedster scientist. Gameplay-wise, her Super Speed means her deck has quite a few cards that grant her extra card plays so she can get a bunch of bursts in her trash (in Definitive Edition there are no burst cards and instead she just needs a lot of cards in her trash regardless of type) to unleash as many Lightspeed Assaults as possible (going by the card art, it is Tachyon simply punching the target repeatedly)
- Warhammer:
- Warhammer 40,000: The Sanguinary Discipline Psychic Power 'Quickening' sees a Blood Angels Librarian enhance their speed, or that of an ally, with the in-game effectnote of increasing the model's Movement and combat speed considerably.
- Warhammer Fantasy Battle has the Lore of Light spells Speed of Light and Birona's Timewarp. The first turbocharges a unit's Weapon Skill and Initiative, allowing them to go before most enemies and hit far more accurately. The second doubles movement speed, gives bonus attacks, and bestows Always Strikes First upon the unit. Both are fairly popular with the Lizardmen, whose frontline combat units are generally Mighty Glaciers.
- The World of Darkness:
- Vampire: The Masquerade has the vampiric Discipline of Celerity which accelerates a vampire to superhuman speeds, often becoming quite a Game-Breaker in combat-oriented campaigns. In fact, using Celerity above level one in front of Muggles is an instant breach of The Masquerade. Oddly, Celerity is only a partial example. While effect is Super Speed, what's actually happening is the vampire is moving at normal speed, but has speeded up time for just themselves. Most vampires don't know they are doing this, which is probably for the best. Those that did know made a mess.
- Vampire: The Requiem: Celerity allows a vampire to outrace a car, jump up the initiative roster, and apply their Defense against firearms attacks.
Toys
- BIONICLE:
- The Mask of Speed allows you to speed yourself up and the Mask of Time allows you to slow someone else down (or, presumably, speed them up, though this is never shown).
- Kapura, a powerless fire element villager could "go fast by walking slow". In effect, this allowed him to traverse great distances in an instant, even mid-conversation, but he didn't technically teleport as he needed physical access to his destination. This was something of an acknowledged Forgotten Phlebotinum and an example of Early-Installment Weirdness — after Kapura's creator Bob Thompson left LEGO, the other writers never used Kapura's ability as they didn't understand it.
Video Games
- Sky Fish in Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow. It's so darn fast that even before you will react, it will get away. The key to get its soul is to use Chronomage soul, which stops time, but it has unique effect on Sky Fish - it reduces its speed to reasonable (but still faster than most enemies in game) speed, at which you can kill it. Due to how hard it is to kill it, it has highest EXP per HP ratio in the entire game, with 30 EXP per one hit point. It's also tied for highest EXP yield out of all non-bosses.
- ADOM has a speed rating for all creatures that determines how quickly they can act in relation to each other. It also has quicklings, which to start with tend to be so much faster than the player character that they can step next to you, attack, and step back out of reach before you get another turn. The ordinary ones might not qualify for super speed, but their tougher versions get faster and faster. It's also possible for the player character to gain a pretty ridiculously high speed rating later in the game, especially by eating lots of quicklings.
- In City of Heroes, Super Speed is one of the "travel" power pools. It consists of Super Speed, the "run really fast" power, Flurry, "punch fast", Whirlwind, the "spin around and make a tornado" trick, and Hasten, which makes it so that you can use your other powers more often.
- The Kinetics power Siphon Speed allows you to drain the speed from an enemy and become fast yourself. The same powerset also has Speed Boost, a much-loved buff that bestows Super Speed on other players.
- Champions Online has Super Speed as a travel power, except in this case it does leave some major marks into the ground you run on due to the friction.
- In DC Universe Online one of the travel powers selected at creation is Super Speed that also doubles as Wall Crawling in that it allows you to run up buildings and across water. Like the other powers it has its own skill tree with various attacks like a speed-powered Megaton Punch, the ability to creat whirlwinds and blow your enemies around and just making you run even faster.
- In the latter portion of Dead Space, you face off against Twitchers. Originally soldiers with time-manipulating gear similar to Isaac's, when reanimated, it allows them to move crazy fast.
- The Time Bangle of Devil May Cry froze mooks in place, but bosses were unaffected. The Chrono Heart in DMC2 and Quicksilver in DMC3 only slow things down... but vitally work against bosses. Some Fan Fic writers also hold that all demons are naturally much faster than humans and the games are depicting a slowed-down "version" that we players can come to grips with - which would elevate a resident Badass Normal to Charles Atlas Superpower.
- Disgaea goes whole-ham on this trope, as several skills show the user going amazingly quick.
- The Female Warrior / Valkyrie has her Sonic Smash skill, where she runs faster than sound to attack the enemy.
- Disgaea 3's World Rounder Axe skill has the user run around the world in about 2-3 seconds to deliver a blow.
- Many other skills show the user able to jump to the Sun, or even to outside the Solar System in a few seconds.
- Disgaea Dimension 2 opens with Laharl returning from showing off his power as Overlord. He claims he went to destroy every star in the sky, whilst Etna then claims that most demons could easily replicate his feat. Considering how far away stars are, and assuming Laharl performed his feat in a single day with few to no breaks, he had to have been moving somewhere around several quintillions of times faster than light!
- The DOOM Slayer in DOOM (2016) was granted this by some mystical being according to the game's lore files (in reality, it's a callback to the classic Doom games in which you were able to run at quite frankly ludicrous speeds - estimated by some players to top out at about 57 MPH/92 KPH). While this game's protagonist isn't nearly as fast as the first two games - due to level design choices, the developers had to go for a max speed that more closely resembles Quake -, he's certainly much faster than his Doom³ incarnation and significantly faster than almost all of his modern contemporaries (who can't even maintain such high speeds due to focuses on "realistic" mechanics).
- In The Elder Scrolls series, the Ring of Khajiiti is said to bestow this power (along with silent movement and invisibility) on its wearer. However, it brings with it some Gameplay and Story Segregation in terms of the power it offers. According to legend, the Khajiiti Impossible Thief Rajhin was able to move "quick as the wind" while wearing it. In-game, it just provides a solid boost to the wearer's movement speed, but not to the level of "super" speed.
- Final Fantasy VII:
- All SOLDIERS appear to have enhanced speed in addition to great strength and toughness thanks to being exposed to MAKO.
- Zack in Last Order: Final Fantasy VII is able to Matrix-dodge bullets fired at him by Shinra mooks. He’s also keep up with Bahamut who as shown in DEATH BATTLE! can fly between planets at FTL speeds.
- Cloud often becomes a blur while performing his Omnislash Limit Break and can easily react to Loz and Remake Reno who both use Super-Speed. He’s also blocked machine gunfire with his BFS at close range.
- Sephiroth takes homes the gold for speed, he liberally employs the Flash Step and at one point took on both Angeal and Genesis at once, lazily blocking their high-speed attacks. He’s also blitzed the aforementioned Zack and Cloud multiple times.
- Tifa has displayed impressive super speed before, but in Final Fantasy VII Remake she’s got highest speed stat in the party and can literally run circles around most enemies and bosses. Despite not being a SOLDIER, in the finale she’s even able to get the jump on Sephiroth! Something only Cloud has pulled off before.
- This is the main ability Reno in Remake, he moves with an electrically charged super speed◊ allowing him to flash step Cloud and blitz the whole party. Reno’s partner Rude is very fast himself, but focuses on strength more-so than speed.
- All SOLDIERS appear to have enhanced speed in addition to great strength and toughness thanks to being exposed to MAKO.
- In First Encounter Assault Recon, whenever the Point Man or another character triggers Slow-Mo, they are actually speeding up and moving incredibly fast. The trailers show this most clearly, including one where the Point Man goes from kneeling on the floor with three men pointing guns at him to killing all of them before they can react.
- Freedom Force:
- The original game has Bullet, a clear Expy of The Flash. In his backstory clip, we find out that Dwight Arrow was an Air Force pilot nicknamed "The Fastest Man in the Air" whose fighter was hit by Energy X above North Vietnam. His super speed immediately manifests itself when he dodges Vietcong bullets and manages to run all the way to the States on the ocean. He can use his ability to create small hurricanes and Flash Step. Despite the presence of flying characters, he is still faster than them at his normal running speed.
- In the sequel, Dwight is revealed to have been a huge fan of the Sky King (Golden Age actor-turned-hero with a Jet Pack). However, due to his speed, Mentor forbids him from going into the past to meet his idol, warning him that he may be stuck in the past for good. Dwight ignores him and manages to help the Sky King get his jetpack working. How? Because he remembers reading about it in one of the Sky King comic books.
- In Freedom Planet Sash Lilac, who’s a Sonic-Expy can move at super speeds with her own Spin Dash. We see Lilac outpace speeding vehicles and gunfire in the story.
- The Big Bad Arktivus Brevon is incredibly fast himself, able to decapitate enemies in the blink of an eye. He’s even able to keep up Lilac and cut her out of the air when she tries to blitz him.
- Kirby
- On his own, Kirby doesn't seem all that fast. But in his anime, he's shown to be capable running across water and outracing Kracko's lightning bolts for a very long time, showing he's capable of superhuman speed. Kirby can apparently move his own body parts fast too as Sword Kirby's description in the Kirby's Return to Dream Land website states he can swing his sword faster than lightning.
- Things get more interesting when Copy Abilities are in play. Several of Kirby's abilities give him boosted speed. The most notable ones in this respect though are Wheel Kirby and Jet Kirby. Wheel Kirby is his fastest ability on land, allowing him to zoom over water and in the anime, it's shown that he can move and react fast enough to lap Dream Land in seconds. Jet Kirby is shown to be his fastest air ability, being able to go faster than Mach 5.
- This pales in comparison to Kirby's personal tool, the Warp Star. With it, Kirby achieves Faster-Than-Light Travel, and is able to zoom through the solar system he lives in in seconds as seen in Kirby Super Star. What's even crazier that Kirby Air Ride features rides such as the Flight Warp Star, Dragoon, and Hydra that can fly even faster than it.
- Meta Knight, is quite a speed demon in his own right. He's often shown able to run faster than Kirby, can swing his sword faster than sound, and in flight, his speed is shown to be on par with the Warp Star.
- In certain games, the Invincibility Candy grants the user increased speed.
- On his own, Kirby doesn't seem all that fast. But in his anime, he's shown to be capable running across water and outracing Kracko's lightning bolts for a very long time, showing he's capable of superhuman speed. Kirby can apparently move his own body parts fast too as Sword Kirby's description in the Kirby's Return to Dream Land website states he can swing his sword faster than lightning.
- In The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, there is the Marathon Man, who you cannot beat in a race no matter how fast you run.
- Subverted in LEGO Batman 2 as despite how fast Flash runs compared to other characters, he’ll still be slower than the average LEGO car. Played straight when it comes to Flash-only puzzles and the Comsic Treadmill shows up in the third game.
- Flying LEGO characters can reach sonic speeds (e.g Iron Man) in LEGO Marvel Superheroes and it’s a way more fun mode of travel than using vehicles, though sadly Web-Slinging is a slower affair.
- Magicka: There is a spell temporarily speeds you up, and a certain item gives you that effect permanently; best of all, you can use both to double up on your speediness. Just remember not to run down the stairs, or you'll trip repeatedly and smash yourself up.
- Mass Effect 2 allows Shepard to take the Soldier class, which gives him/her the unique power of Adrenaline Rush, which for five seconds dilates time to let him/her line up shots. It also lets Shepard run and strafe at normal speed. The base version gives "+50% time dilation" and the upgraded version 70%. In effect, everyone else is moving at 30-50% of their normal speed from Shepard's perspective, meaning in actuality Shepard is moving x2 to x3.33 faster than s/he normally does.
- Quick Man in the Mega Man (Classic) series. He is weak to a weapon that makes time stand still.
- This seems to be a fairly common power for Mega Man characters, but they tend to mix it up with some other abilities. Turbo Man and Nitro Man, for example, also have the ability to transform into a racecar and a motorcycle, respectively. Charge Man, Slash Man, and Pluto just seem to be fast in general. Overdrive Ostrich of Mega Man X2 continues the tradition, and Quick Man himself gets a NetNavi counterpart in the form of QuickMan.EXE.
- Taken to Serial Escalation levels in Mega Man Zero with Harpuia who is capable of super sonic flight.
- Mega Man 11 gives several bosses a "Speed Gear" that enables them to do this. Mega Man himself has a Speed Gear but its effect is to speed up his perception and thus mechanically it acts as Bullet Time. However, a purchasable upgrade for it allows Mega Man to move at "normal" speed while it is active, meaning that while he controls normally for the player he is moving at super speed compared to everything else.
- Metroid:
- One of the recurring powerups in the series since Super Metroid is the Speed Booster, which allows Samus to run at supersonic speeds. While moving at super speed she can run through certain walls (as well as any enemies unfortunate enough to be on the way), but stopping, turning or bumping into something makes her lose the speed. She can however temporarily store the energy generated by running and release it to fly very fast in a straight line, or run again if there is a slope she can run on. Many puzzles depend on clever utilization of this ability.
- In Metroid Fusion, there is the Serris, a Sea Monster that can move faster than sound. Samus receives a version of the Speed Booster by absorbing its X.
- In Metroid Dread, E.M.M.I.-04SB emulates the Speed Booster and is easily able to keep up with Samus on a straight path, forcing her to get creative in terms of evading it. She only reclaims the Speed Booster after taking it down.
- Many Nasuverse characters are superhumanly fast. Generally, they have to be actually beyond human, but there are some exceptions.
- Most vampires can keep up with a sprinting human at walking pace. Somehow.
- Arcueid, even while most of the nerves in her body aren't even connected, can still achieve this. Who knows how fast she really is.
- The Servants of Fate/stay night, being real superhumans, can move and fight faster than the protagonists can actually see. The most extreme example would be Saber going Mach 13, headfirst-leaping four kilometers in a second (she had help). Lancer, the fastest Servant, is so fast his movements were a blur even to another Servant, and a single back 'step' moved him about fifty metres.
- A good example is Fate/Zero's Berserker VS Archer. Archer fires two weapons out like rockets. In an instant, there's an explosion, and Waver wonders just what happened. Rider asks Waver if he couldn't follow, and explains what happened as the scene replays itself but is slowed down, and we see Berseker easily dodge the first incoming sword, grab it, and use it to destroy the next spear. Next, Archer fires over a dozen weapons, with Berserker effortlessly discarding/grabbing new ones and deflecting the onslaught. All of it happened in a brief instant, and only the viewers/Servants could actually see what is happening.
- Araya Souren can dodge a bullet after it's been fired. Ryougi Shiki can move faster than Araya's eyes can track, cut apart Araya's one-word instant spell with a sword attack clearly begun after Araya had spoken it, and remove his arm via said sword attack before he realized he was cut.
- Shiki, from Tsukihime, is apparently quite a speed demon. Running up walls seems pretty easy for him. Take this quote from the game for instance: "I was so fast that I disappeared from Akiha's vision in an instant." Talk about DBZ teleportation speed, and he wasn't even fully pumped up nor was he in his other self. Though it was probably more of a Flash Step.
- Even the slowest Servant speed rank is ten times better than what a human can ever achieve. Note that Nasuverse humans include the above Araya and both Shikis.
- NetherRealm Studios:
- Kabal is the fastest character in Mortal Kombat despite being covered in third-degree burns. In MK11 Kabal dices machine gun bullets Cassie fires at him at close range to pieces with his hook blades. Lampshaded by Kano when he tries to zap the Flash in Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe, as he says that Barry would give Kabal (who doesn't appear in the game) a run for his money.
- The Flash himself, of course, is the fastest character in Injustice: Gods Among Us. His character special has his opponent slowed down to Bullet Time while he still moves at regular speed. In the sequel, he uses Speed-Force-induced Time Travel as part of his super move. One of his combos even ends with him employing Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs, with his opponent not reacting until after he finishes punching them, all the while he patiently waits for them to quit thrashing around.
- Besides the aforementioned Kabal, Johnny Cage and Mileena display Super-Speed to a less flashy extent. Johnny has his Green Halo-powered Shadow Kick which lets him blitz his opponents and leaves an afterimage. Mileena is able to move at blinding speeds, especially in MK11 where her “Spinning Out of Control” Fatality where she turns into a pink-Sonic the Hedgehog.
- Raiden being a Thunder God fitting tends to move like lightning, especially when doing his Torpedo attack.
- Lechku, a boss from Ōkami, has this power. It seems to need its twin to activate it, though.
- Blight, an earlier boss, moves so fast that Ammy needs to activate Bullet Time to even see it, let alone dodge it.
- Super Speed is a powerup in many games in the Backyard Sports series. Several characters allegedly have this naturally, like Pete Wheeler and Luanne Lui.
- Tracer, the literal poster child of Overwatch, can zip in and around enemies in the blink of an eye using her Blink ability. She can even put time in a bottle and rewind the clock to when she was at higher health using her recall ability. Although she's mostly ability-driven, that hasn't stopped her from becoming the most popular (and generally well-liked) offense.
- In the 2009 Punch-Out!! game, Piston Hondo is shown outrunning a bullet train as part of his Title Defense training.
- Albert Wesker of Resident Evil fame has insane speed thanks to injecting himself with the prototype virus, which gave him Super-Strength and Super-Toughness as well... but it's clear this trope is his best ability. Wesker's ability to Flash Step and Teleport Spam makes him a formidable foe not only for Chris Redfield but anyone familiar with Marvel vs. Capcom 3, in RE0 you can even use his super speed in "Wesker Mode". Though you're more likely to dash straight into the arms of a zombie, making the ability Awesome, but Impractical.
- In Saints Row IV, Super Speed is among the first superpowers you earn, allowing the Boss to sprint faster than any vehicle.
- While not a superpower, the Powered Armor in Section 8 allows you to go into Overdrive and cover large distances quickly. If you happen to run into an enemy while in Overdrive? Well, it's the equivalent of the guy being hit by a truck.
- Much like the Metroid series it is inspired by, Shadow Complex also features a speed booster ability. The difference here is in the lack of ability to store the energy and boost off in a direction, but made up for by being able to run across the lake (there's an achievement for it too!), be able to jump and keep running, and being able to run along walls and ceilings.
- Sonic the Hedgehog:
- Sonic is the video game example is, who can run faster than the speed of sound,note and is generally billed as "the fastest thing alive." Notable in that in the Genesis games, he is actually capable of outrunning the screen's ability to scroll.
- Sonic's actual top speed is never officially clarified. In some manuals, he is referred to as a "hypersonic hedgehog", which would make him anywhere from 5-10 times the speed of sound. Sonic Unleashed suggests that Sonic's top speed is slightly higher at over Mach 10. Though in Sonic Colors he is observed by Omega to be approaching the speed of light (to which Sonic comments that light speed is no challenge).
- When he turns into Super Sonic, Sonic gets a massive jump in his speed, to the point it's been stated he can casually hit the speed of light, if not surpass it. Hyper Sonic is explicitly described as faster than light.
- Other characters in the series tend to have some degree of Super Speed as well. Tails is even able to keep up with Sonic while in flight (and in Sonic Adventure and Sonic Colors, outpace him), which in fact is partly the reason why they became friends.
- Confusingly, in Sonic the Hedgehog 2 for a few seconds before jumping into his Death Egg Robot, Dr. Eggman can actually run at the same speed as Sonic while being chased. This is brought up again in Sonic Lost World when one cutscene has the scientist running alongside Sonic.
- According to Sonic Runners, all hedgehogs can reach Sonic's casual running speed. It's that Sonic is the outlier of this norm, being faster than them. This is how Amy is able to keep pace with him.
- Of the four teams in Sonic Heroes; Sonic, Shadow, Amy, and Espio are the speed-type characters and have similar movesets as a result. Shadow in particular is considered to be a match for Sonic's speed, though it should be noted that Shadow's footspeed is augmented by his Hover Shoes/Air Shoes and on occasion Chaos Control.
- Metal Sonic is also a notable example as he was built to be better than Sonic in every way. While there are instances of Metal being faster, it comes with poorer traction (see: Sonic Adventure 2) and the risk of overheating as a trade-off (see: Sonic Generations). Of course, being the Player Character, Sonic tends to win their races properly.
- Two techniques in the games, exclusive to Sonic, Shadow, and Metal Sonic, are explicitly referred to both in name and description as light speed - Light Speed Dash and Light Speed Attack.
- Blaze the Cat is also an example. She propels herself forward using her pyrokinesis, allowing her to run almost as fast as Sonic. In high heels, no less.
- Spelling Jungle: The gazelles constantly run around the level at high speed, easily out-pacing Wali, until bribed.
- In Spider-Man (PS4), the Wall Run ability is so fast that you can keep up the flow of your web slings with it and even run up skyscrapers.
- In Spider-Man: The Movie, Harry's suit in Green Goblin mode grants him this ability so long as the player has energy in their meter.
- Many Star Wars games feature the so-called "Force Speed" available for the Jedi:
- The Dark Forces Saga features it extensively. What's more, Jedi Academy also has a Force power called "Dark Rage", which stacks up another speed bonus on top of Force Speed. Once you max out Speed and Rage powers and learn the Fast Lightsaber Style, you can kill most enemies before their even switch their lightsabers on.
- In Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II, using a custom script to display player's speed in a custom level, running with maxed Force Speed is 107 km/h or 67 mph(compared to 47 km/h or 29 mph without it), achieving this speed from a standstill in about 1 second and also can make the sharpest turns ever at this speed, and hitting a wall at this speed results in slight health loss. When using a cheat code to fly, top speed with maxed Force Speed is 323 km/h or 201 mph (compared to 143 km/h or 89 mph without it), but reaching this speed from 0 km/h will take much longer (at least 5 seconds but don't remember exactly), and turning at this speed requires lots of space, and hitting a wall head on at this speed will kill you.
- Knights of the Old Republic had Force Speed as a fairly basic spell increasing your movement rate and the number of attacks per round.
- In the Suikoden series, the possessors of the True Holy Rune (which is a mistranslation and not actually a true rune, and in later games is correctly translated as the Godspeed Rune) tend to have the ability to run at super high speeds (in addition to other nifty powers, such as double world map speed and a 100% escape rate from battles). One such character, Stallion from S1 and 2, was able to outrun a village-destroying explosion. While carrying another character.
- Suikoden Tactics, being the only game in the series where combat is movement-based, presents a vague idea of just how fast the Godspeed Rune makes a character. There's one mission where, in order to recruit the bearer of the Godspeed Rune, you have to catch him. It's ridiculously hard, even with you being able to send characters in opposite directions of a circular map in an attempt to surround him; a single error and you lose, and without one you might still lose.
- Mario, Luigi, Toad and Yoshi of the Super Mario Bros. series. Mario and Luigi can easily run up walls and outpace a soundwave. Luigi can even run on water. Yoshi and Toad (especially the latter) are almost always even faster. It's not clear exactly how fast they're supposed to be, though all of them can consistently run over twice as fast as Bullet Bills (which Mario Kart says move at 145 km/h).
- Super Smash Bros.:
- The Bunny Hood of Super Smash Bros. Melee and Super Smash Bros. Brawl (which originally comes from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and grants a speed boost in The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask) gives the characters super speed.
- Wario also gains super speed when he transforms into Wario-Man with his Final Smash. This stacks with the aforementioned Bunny Hood.
- And when Sonic wears the Bunny Hood, he can outrun the cars on Big Blue.
- Downplayed in Team Fortress 2. The fastest class, the Scout, is capable of just over 22 mph at top speed. This is quite possible to reach in real life, but the Scout is still beyond normal for being able to run at that speed consistently without being exhausted.
- Tekken: Kunimitsu and her daughter have the Setsunagake stance that allows them to quickly dash in at their opponents which is quite hard to react to.
- Terraria has the Hermes Boots, which let you run super-fast, but interestingly don't give you super-acceleration; you'll need a long run-up to get up to speed, though you can get around this by grappling towards the ground while in midair and releasing the hook before it attaches you to the ground.
- In Touhou Project, the entire Tengu race are credited with super speed, but Aya Shameimaru is billed as the fastest being in Gensoukyou. Youmu Konpaku can reach an appreciable fraction of the speed of light when she slashes something, and Aya's even faster, with one of Reimu's victory quotes in Hisou Tensoku implying that the reason she could appear in her photographs in Shoot the Bullet is because she's just that fast.
Reimu: Why do you show up in the newspaper photos? Can it be that you moved at ultra high speeds after you pressed the shutter... and so you managed to photograph yourself?
- Reimu herself is able to theoretically accelerate to an infinite extent with her ability Fantasy Heaven, which allows her to phase out of reality.
- Vampires also count for this trope, being said to be as fast as Tengu and as strong as Oni. When the main characters invade the Moon in Touhou Bougetsushou, Remilia Scarlet makes a point of attempting to intimidate Watatsuki no Yorihime by flying around the Moon multiple times in an instant and then declaring herself the fastest, strongest being alive. Even Reimu and Marisa make fun of her for this boastful assertion, pointing out that Suika and Aya have her beat on both accounts.
- Remilia's meido, Sakuya Izayoi, can also achieve this through her Time Master abilities. She even seems to think of her Time Stands Still powers as closer to this trope than actually stopping the flow of time, stating that she's not stopping time, she's just moving at infinite speed with zero mass.
- Buster Bunny has this ability in several Tiny Toon Adventures video games, such as Buster Busts Loose, Buster's Hidden Treasure, and Tiny Toon Adventures 2: Montana's Movie Madness.
- The Tribes series has this as its hat. 200 km/h on foot? No problem! Tribes: Ascend lists itself as the fastest shooter on the market. Ironically, the first game was originally intended to be much slower-paced, but an Ascended Glitch allowed players to build up tremendous speed by "skiing" downhills.
- Sam Gideon in his DARPA Suit from Vanquish goes absolutely nuts with how fast he can go in Bullet Time.
- Viewtiful Joe uses "Mach Speed" as one of his time-controlling powers, complete with Speed Stripes.
- Can’t forget the bit in DMC3 where Dante and Cool Sword Rebellion reach terminal velocity falling/running down the tower.
- Can’t forget the bit in DMC3 where Dante and Cool Sword Rebellion reach terminal velocity
- In Virtual Villagers, a villager who likes running moves faster than the others on the map, which is useful in getting tasks done faster. On the other hand, a villager who dislikes running moves like molasses.
- Warframe: The Warframe Gauss is built around speed, and already starts off with the highest Sprint Speed of all frames, ousting Loki. His first ability, Mach Rush, does pretty much that — Gauss runs full-tilt forward, and unlike other abilities, Power Strength doesn't affect this skill. Sprint Speed Mods (such as Armored Agility, Rush and the Sprint Boost Aura) are what affect it. Since they all stack alongside speed-boosting abilities like Volt's Speed, Gauss can end up running fast enough to not only outpace the Itzal Archwing (which in itself is the fastest Archwing), but can even make the camera glitch out!
- Wild ARMs 4 depicts any user of Accelerator, such as Jude and Hauser, as being able to move at this speed.
Visual Novels
- While super speed is fairly common in Dies Irae, none can compare to shear absurdity of Wolfgang Schreiber. While fast enough as is, tearing up pavement and creating violent wind surges from speed alone, he is able to summon a bike that allows him to go even faster. And if that wasn't enough, upon using his Beri'ah "Niflheimr Fenriswolf", he is made so that he is always faster than his opponent no matter what. Even if he is just sitting still in this state, space itself will start to warp and expand so that everyone else seemingly moves backwards. Even attempting to slow him down with drain abilities or slowing down time will only have a limited effect since, again, he will always be faster. The only real way to hit him like this is to either use an attack that cannot be avoided at all or flat-out freezing time itself.
- Oko San of Hatoful Boyfriend is a fantail dove. He can outrun a healthy human teenager, and match her for endurance (humans evolved for endurance running). He can run faster than he flies. Or across water. This is eventually somewhat justified; the local Mad Doctor has been slipping him steroids as an experiment pertaining to his grand scheme.
Web Animation
- A creature known as Bitey of the Brackenwood continuity by Adam Philips has the ability to hop great distances in an instant, or sustain a galloping pace at ridiculously fast speeds; so much so that in the video, the Yuyu, it is heavily implied he encircles the small world of Brackenwood in roughly 30 seconds.
- In DEATH BATTLE!, super speed and super reflexes can make or break a fight. Of course, sometimes rules have to be invoked so that it isn't too lopsided — during the second fight between Mario and Sonic, the Archie Comics incarnation had to be disqualified as it was so wildly against the character as he usually is that it would be a curbstomp towards Mario.
- In general, most combatants have this trope, such as Spyro (who could at least keep up with planes while flying), Thanos (who could easily keep up the Silver Surfer and fight him easily despite not usually being a speedster character), and Beerus (his punches have to be at least 242 quadrillions time the speed of light in order for the shockwaves to spread across Universe 7, which is stated to be at least 9 to 13 times larger than our own universe, in seconds).
- Special mentions have to go to Spongebob Squarepants, who at the time of his battle, has the fastest calculable speed feat at 8.2 quinvigintillion (that's 1078) times the speed of light from the time he unraveled a string and destroyed the universe. No wonder it's one of the main reasons why Superfriends Aquaman lost to him. His speed feat of outpacing a kryptonian monster that can fly at 55 billion times faster than light is a snail's pace compared to Spongebob.
- Red vs. Blue: Freelancer Agent Carolina has an armor enhancement that lets her reach running speeds equal to that of a speeding motorcycle.
- RWBY:
- Ruby's Semblance is the ability move at extremely fast speeds. She appears to transform into a red torpedo, leaving behind contrails of rose petals, and can even travel for short bursts through the air as if she's flying. As a side effect, she can create powerful winds and vacuum tubes as a result of her great speed. She can also go from a standing start to so fast that she appears to have teleported because her movements are so quick. It's revealed in Volume 8 that what she's actually doing is breaking herself, and anyone she carries, down into particles that defy mass, and then reforming them at her destination.
- Professor Ozpin's abilities are a mystery. He's only been shown in action once, but he's so fast that he strikes down a wall of projectiles in the space of a second◊. The exact nature of Ozpin's ability, and whether it's a Semblance or magic, isn't explored for many volumes; his successor, Oscar, begins tapping into this ability at the end of Volume 8, his arm speeding up to strike his opponent multiple times in a second.
- Harriet Bree leaves lightning trails in her wake once she gets moving. Lightning will crackle from her eyes to her feet when she's getting ready to use it. As a result, she specialises in speed-based fist-fighting, making her a powerhouse that's often too fast to strike back against.
- DSBT InsaniT: Bill gains Super Speed in his second form by turning into a comet of light.
Webcomics
- In Driftbreak, Kaycee has her Iconic Item super shoes which gives her the power of super speed.
- In It's Walky! and its spin-off Shortpacked!, Robin is a truly troubling combination of Super Speed and Genki Girl. It's specifically stated that her powers come from consuming large amounts of sugar. At one point she eats Cadbury cream egg cereal, and got elected to Congress. At another, eating the same resulted in her sleeping with another congressperson and passing a bill that brought about world peace. Recently it's been shown that she asked the Head Alien for super speed specifically so she could never be caught and could get away from her family.
- Seems to be a relativly rare power in the 'verse of Grrl Power. Colonel Maxima Leander has it as one of her power-suits to max out. When another speedster "Mach the Knife" shows up, Maxima (who just observed to see how her team of superheroes was faring without her) offers to fight against him before he can wreak havoc.
- Saiko of Saiko and Lavender has super speed to such a degree that is also grants multipresence.
- In Rascals, Reiko gains incredible speed when she goes into her demonic mode, as seen during her fight with Issy.
- Sluggy Freelance:
- Hyperactive ferret Kiki enters a more hyperactive state whenever she eats candy (to the extent that Riff once expects her to make it around the world before the effect ends, although that's not seen happening).
- Santa Claus, meanwhile, can move at tremendous speeds by harnessing the same power that lets him deliver presents all over the world in a single night. After acquiring the position of Easter Bunny, Bun-bun can do the same thing using his egg hiding abilities. When the two fight, the rest of the world appears to be frozen in time.
- Vampires in general seem to be able to move so fast that they're already there before mortals can make a move — but special mention goes to Urja, who has trained up her natural abilities to the point that other vampires seem to stand still as she moves. She can even use the Effortless Dodge against Kusari.
- In Everyday Heroes, Dot Dash is the speedster on the S.A.V.E.U.S. team. Her top speed hasn't been clocked; one treadmill got up to 400 mph before blowing up.
- The Sonoda ladies in MegaTokyo appear to have super speed as a primary ability. It certainly helps with their inclination toward thievery. Yuki has been seen to leave to type on her computer and return to the dinner table without being missed (except by the other speedster), as well as steal things between sentences.
- One-Punch Man: "Speed of Sound" Sonic and Lightspeed Flash are capable of moving at at least the speeds indicated by their names. Genos is a little slower than Sonic, but can still snip his hair without him noticing. Main protagonist and Comically Invincible Hero Saitama effortlessly outclasses all three of them.
- In addition to their Super-Strength, most of the major enemies/monsters in the series have this as a secondary power, making them all some degree of Lightning Bruiser.
- The time monks in Errant Story have super speed via their time manipulation powers; they can move much faster than any human can, as well as dodge things that no one could dodge with human reflexes (including bullets). However, they still have their limits — the ability is magical, meaning that it can be shut off with Anti-Magic effects, and they still have a limited amount of attention, which means they can't do two things at once — such as block a sword blow and a bullet coming from opposite sides.
- Genocide Man: Due to its usefulness, practically every Super-Soldier project out there adds this to the pool of capabilities however possible. The Ugandan Deviancy's clawed Child Soldiers managed it through an enhanced nervous system, while the actual Genocide Men who took them (and many others) out have both a previously improved nervous complex and a gland that floods their blood with something compared to rocket fuel that gives them absurd speed and reflexes. Jacob Doe, at his eighty-something years, still effortlessly takes down an entire squad of assassins that already have him in their sights and have opened fire (with an onlooking reporter lamenting that he isn't filming at high speed).
- In Tower of God, this is one of the standard powers everyone seems to get as they advance to Rankers, and to some extent from coming from the Ten Families or being Jahad's Princess. In addition, a few characters are noted for it specifically even without any of those factors.
- Edin Dan is known for his speed specifically. No numbers are given, but an example was shown in a test where his team was pitted against another in a contest where each team tried to reach the other's base. The opposing team seemed to have the advantage because they had members capable of tunnelling underground, but when one of the tunnellers popped out near Dan, the game was already over because he immediately ran down the tunnel and pressed the winning button at the other team's base before anyone could react.
- The bee-like Vespa claims to be the fastest Regular — even if that means only those of her own level, it would make her faster than Dan. If this is remotely true, it also means the living weapon Beta also has Super Speed, since when he tries it out against her in the Workshop Battle, he's proven to be much faster.
- A weaker and slower version of Urek Mazino — one of the absolutely most powerful characters in the story — is able to move too fast to be reflected in a magic mirror. Someone calculated this implies he was moving at a third of the speed of light, assuming they interpreted what was happening right. (The fact that the fully powered Urek has to spend some small amount of time to move around on the Floor of Death, and later bothers to use a Dangerous Forbidden Technique to teleport, suggests he's not fast as light in practice.)
- Trevor (2020): Trevor moves through the ventilation system inhumanly fast for his size.
- God-Emperor and Dimension Lord Solomon David from Kill Six Billion Demons can move so fast that Time Stands Still, apparently as part of the ultimate martial arts form he has mastered. The author casually describes him as "able to move 3000 miles an hour" in the Alt Text for one comic.
- In Sleepless Domain, the magical girl Starlight Spear's main power was to dash at incredible speeds in a flash that resembled a shooting star. Her final moment of awesome before losing her powers involved her using said super speed to get a nearly frozen Kokoro to the hospital.
- In Homestuck, one of the members of the billiards-themed Time Master mob The Felt is Itchy, whose power is to slow down time relative to himself, allowing him to move super quickly.
- unOrdinary:
- Wenqi's ability is "speed", which augments her and allows her to run at super-speed.
- Heinz's ability is "catch up" which lets him chase down a targeted person at super-speed.
- The Ragtag Bunch of Misfits (a.k.a. Vector's travelling companions) in Castoff includes Arianna, a Kung-Fu Wizard who can cover quite a lot of ground In a Single Bound, but the speedster of the group would be Rori, the snarky, incredibly fast tomboy who mainly uses her Super Speed to play pranks, run from guards and steal magi gems. Magi gems that are being worn by people (as necklaces, mind), including Arianna, who only cottons on after a while.
- Huckleberry:
- Huckleberry's banana-based superspeed makes him go very fast, with immunity to air friction and some control over his direction.
- Superfast is called "the fastest superhero of all", and is shown outrunning Huck.
- In Sundae Comics, a hero with super speed attempts to hide the suffering he endures living in a world that moves incredibly slow.
Web Original
- The most powerful superhero in The Fall of Doc Future is Doc's daughter Flicker. She can't reach the speed of light, but she seems to be capable of accelerating to anything short of that, with all the plasma and shockwaves you'd expect, and has the Super-Reflexes to make full use of it. The first time she appears in the story, the chapter gives a millisecond by millisecond account of how she's on the phone to a friend in another country, hears the squealing of brakes, and is able to cross the world, track Stella down, and move her out of the way with blasts of air before the bus hits. Leaving a line of fire all the way across the Atlantic Ocean.
- There are lots of speedsters in the Whateley Universe — even with the relative rarity of super powers, it is common enough that there are entire lines of sportswear specifically for them (most notably the "SmartLyne™" brand of high-impact running shoes, which gets referenced a number of times). However, the Whateley world has much lower power levels than the DCU, so top speed for these speedsters typically ranges between 80 and 250 mph, depending on the individual. The Super Hero School Whateley Academy currently has more speedsters than any entire country except the U.S. and maybe China.
- Several characters in the ASH universe. Lightfoot is notable because he makes anything he's touching faster. This includes motorcycles, cars, spacecraft and his own body.
- Worm has a few: Velocity can move extremely quickly, but has a reduced effect on the world to avoid being killed by the friction, Battery can charge up to gain greatly increased speed and durability for short periods of time, and Chuckles is a Monster Clown who moves and thinks at extremely high speeds, which makes it impossible for him to speak.
- If you remember the Wizard of Speed and Time... you are ooooold.
- Velocity Raptor, Dino Superheroine. She teaches special relativity.
- Ivy from the Noob franchise, thanks to Bio-Augmentation.
- Things of Interest examines some of the Required Secondary Powers and physical implications of a speedster in Ground Effect.
- One of the theories as to how the Slender Man moves around. In Tribe Twelve, he is shown moving from the end of a hallway to right up close in an instant (and without moving his legs). This might also explain his apparent Offscreen Teleportation.
- SCP Foundation
- SCP-1447 ("Tulpa"). SCP-1447-1 (the Tulpa) can move at speeds over 200 k.p.h. for 20 hours per day.
- SCP-1522 ("Ships That Pass In The Night"). When its partner SCP-1522-2 was attacked by a ship of the Global Occult Coalition, SCP-1522-1 accelerated to approximately Mach 4 and rammed the GOC ship, destroying it.
- SCP-2757 ("Dr. Wondertainment's Projector Fantastico™"). When the SCP-2757 projector is used with the film SCP-2757-1e The Valiant Crusaders, one of the powers gained by the experimental subjects is super speed.
- SCP-2872 ("A Fast Horse"). SCP-2872 is a thoroughbred stallion racehorse. If it didn't win the Kentucky Derby at least once every five years, it would accelerate to a speed of 320 meters per second and race around the countryside. However, after the Foundation locked it up and didn't let it move around, it burst out of containment and went into outer space using Faster-Than-Light Travel.
- SCP-1447 ("Tulpa")
Western Animation
- The Powerpuff Girls (1998)
- The girls get into the relativity scenario while racing home from school, and travel 50 years into the future, during which time Him conquered the city of Townsville.
- Bubbles ran a race against E-Male (episode "Members Only"), a superhero who could circle the earth in 7 seconds, and won by the time Major Glory had counted down to 3. Bubbles started after E-Male and ran at his side to talk for a few seconds to verify whether she should be trying to win or just keep up. When E-Male says that one of them should win, Bubbles turns on the after-burners and wins handily.
- In one episode, when the Gangreen Gang gain superpowers (thanks to the girls), Lil' Arturo has this as his superpower.
- Cheetara of ThunderCats (1985) and ThunderCats (2011). All of the clerics have this in the new series, and they are not all cheetahs, implying this is a mystical or trained ability, rather than a racial one. Though Cheetara in this version already had super speed even before being trained as a cleric, which made her even faster.
- Force Speed is utilized with gusto in the animated Star Wars works like Mace Windu's One-Man Army moment◊ in Star Wars: Clone Wars.
- Kim Possible receives a pair of shoes that allow her to move at "hyper speed" to combat the Beebees who have developed the ability since their first appearance. After Kim uses them to help manage her hectic schedule, the shoes speed up to "the rest of the world looks like it's standing still" speed, despite the viewers' ability to see the obvious passage of time.
- Ron Stoppable has natural reflexes similar to super speed, due to a combination of always running from bad guys and avoiding the results of their activities. So much that he is able to qualify for Running Back on the school football team. Combining this with Ron's new awakened Mystical Monkey Powers might actually give him true super speed.
- Craig of the Creek features Keun Sup, nicknamed "The Blurr" for good reason. Humorously enough, he casually mentions his whole family is super-fast, and he's considered the slowest!
- Avatar: The Last Airbender:
- An Airbender's power to control air currents and wind resistance allow Aang to "run faster than the wind". By the end of series, Aang becomes as fast or perhaps even faster than lightning.
- Waterbenders use water pressure to go high-speed surfing◊, earthbenders use a similar technique called Earth Wave, and firebenders can emulate◊ high speed Flight with jet propulsion. Despite these techniques, none of the other three elements and their benders are as nearly as fast as the airbenders (particularly Aang◊ and Zaheer◊).
- The Lion Guard: Fuli, being a cheetah, is accurately described as the fastest animal in the Pride Lands. Artistic License – Biology is at work here, though, as she runs much faster — and apparently has more stamina — than her species is capapble of in Real Life.
- Ulrich's "Super Sprint" ability on Code Lyoko.
- Transformers:
- Blurr, from Transformers: Generation 1, is the fastest land-based Transformer on any side, faster than some jet-based members of his species. He moves fast, talks fast, shoots fast, and annoys you only a hair slower than Wheelie.
- His Transformers: Animated incarnation is admitted to be the fastest thing on wheels even by the immodest Bumblebee.
- Also from Animated is the human villain Nanosec. However, if he uses his speed too often, he will suffer from Rapid Aging. He later teams up with and starts dating the villain Slo-Mo, who can use her time manipulation abilities to make him young again whenever she chooses.
- Red energon introduced in Transformers: Prime dramatically increases the speed of ordinary Cybertronians for a limited amount of time.
- One of Bravestarr's animal-based powers is "speed of the puma".
- Looney Tunes:
- The Road Runner (Accelerati incredibilus) is a famous super-speeder...
- ...as well as the basis for Little Beeper of Tiny Toon Adventures and Rev Runner from Loonatics Unleashed.
- Speedy Gonzales. "¡Ándale! ¡Ándale! ¡Arriba! ¡Arriba!"
- In accordance with the trope, the crossover race ended inconclusively.
- A Latin American Cartoon Network promo features a race between the Flash (DCAU version), Speedy Gonzales, and the Road Runner, which (after racing around various world landmarks) proves inconclusive.
- The Rabbit Talisman from Jackie Chan Adventures grants the carrier the ability of super speed.
- As seen when Jade used it to run from California to Florida in a few minutes.
- In one episode of Jonny Quest: The Real Adventures, while traveling in Japan, Jonny wears an experimental device on his ankle that grants him super speed. At his fastest, he's able to chase down a jet airplane as it's taking off. The downside is it hyperaccelerates his metabolism; any scene in which he's not running he's eating a sizable amount of ramen.
- Hunter from Road Rovers, who even leaves a trail of fire behind him.
- Obviously, the Flash in the DC Animated Universe. Less so Superman, in keeping with the show's producers generally keeping Supes a little more powered-down than his comic equivalent. They did still have one of their traditional races for charity in Superman: The Animated Series, but Justice League soon establishes that Flash can reach speeds that Superman never could.
- Futurama:
- Fry and Leela both have this power in the Superhero Episode "Less Than Hero".
- A temporarily but awesome example with Fry in "Three Hundred Big Boys" when he spends his entire $300 tax refund on a 100-cups coffee. Bonus points Fry saves Leela first before anyone else.
Leela: I think we were saved by a mysterious orange blur.
- Roger Smith of American Dad! is capable of moving at lightning speed.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
- Rainbow Dash is an absurdly fast flier, as she demonstrated on her Establishing Character Moment by zooming through the skies to clear it of clouds in "ten seconds flat". According to calculations by a fan, at a normal pace she can go mach 5, and when she engages the Sonic Rainboom, she can reach mach 10 (over 7000 miles per hour). Even these numbers don't reflect what the creators intended, it's clearly stated that the Sonic Rainboom is a sonic boom, so at least her top speed exceeds the speed of sound. The only other pegasus who may have achieved that onscreen was Rainbow's idol Spitfire, who once, in "Hurricane Fluttershy", created a puff of cloud while flying somewhat like an airplane breaking the sound barrier in real life.
- Rainbow's rivals Gilda, Lightning Dust, and Wind Rider have been shown able to keep up with her. This would make them supersonic based on the above fan calculation, but there's no other in-series indication that they are; they don't race her while she's in Sonic Rainboom mode.
- There's also Rainbow Dash's protege Scootaloo. Unlike all other pegasi in the show she cannot fly, but put her on her scooter and stand back as she propels it to incredible speed with her wings. She can make it from Ponyville to the Crystal Empire in less than a day while pulling her two friends along, a trip that normally takes two days by train. And if there is a makeshift ramp available she can use it to gain some serious air. It's enough to make Rainbow Dash take notice of her.
- In "Party of One", Pinkie Pie is able to follow the flying Rainbow Dash on foot, turning into a blur like she, but that's more of a Rule of Funny thing. Later on, in "Power Ponies", Pinkie Pie becomes "Filly-Second" in the comic book world, a parody of The Flash, and Rainbow's got nothing on that; Filly-Second's speed is basically infinite for all applicable intents and purposes (like getting cupcakes from 65 blocks away in half a second, which might mean moving at around a hundred times the speed of sound).
- Fluttershy can match Rainbow's normal air speed if she is sufficiently motivated, but since she is usually acrophobic, it only comes up a few times to save the day.
- In "Games Ponies Play", the tourist pony can run so fast that Rainbow Dash struggles to catch up to her while flying. Afterwards, Rainbow is out of breath while she isn't.
- Twilight Sparkle can temporarily outfly Rainbow Dash while supercharged with magic in "Twilight's Kingdom, Part 2". She has a hard time controlling it, though, making her Too Fast to Stop.
- In My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Legend of Everfree, the Humane Seven start getting super powers, and naturally one of Rainbow Dash's powers is super speed (complete with rainbow contrails like her pony counterpart), as well as flight.
- In the Phineas and Ferb episode "Run, Candace, Run", Phineas and Ferb build a pair of shoes that make the wearer extraordinarily fast. At full speed, Phineas is able to run faster than sound, but the test they ran pitting him against a flashlight beam showed he comes up short compared to the actual speed of light. Candace, who is double-booked that day, takes a pair to attend two separate events, unaware that she took unstable prototypes.
- Ben 10 has five. It may be worth noting that this means there are at least five entire planets full of these:
- From the original series, we have XLR8, a raptor-like speedster who can run fast enough to create whirlwinds.
- From Ben 10: Alien Force, we have Jetray, who uses this to fly, and can also shoot Frickin' Laser Beams from his eyes and tail.
- From Ben 10: Ultimate Alien, we have Ultimate Echo Echo.
- Also from Ultimate Alien, there's Fasttrack, who's just an Expy of XLR8.
- Way Big/Ultimate Way Big also has this.
- The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius:
- One episode has Jimmy spraying his shoes with a special chemical that will let him run incredibly fast. He uses it to try to beat Cindy in a rematch to a race that he lost, and then continues to use them to move so fast that he appears invisible, letting him play pranks on people. This backfires when he starts running so fast that he can't slow himself down or stop.
- Sheen also gains this power (and low bladder control) when he becomes "Vibrating Lad" in "The N-Men".
- Family Guy: In the non-canon "Family Guy Viewer Mail #1" episode segment "Super Griffins", the family gets superpowers when a truck of toxic waste crashes on their lawn. Brian gets Super Speed and twice does the comedic version where he disappears briefly, then returns wearing the hat of the nation he just visited; he also uses it to steal drinks at a bar.
- In Young Justice (2010), Kid Flash (Wally West) is a member of the team in the first season, though since the Time Skip between the first and second seasons he's retired to focus on college. Interestingly, he's depicted as being slower than the Flash (Barry Allen) and Flash's future grandson Impulse (Bart Allen). The latter two can easily lap Wally, and when they speak to each other with Super Speed Wally can't follow it. It's also demonstrated throughout the series that while Barry, Bart, and even 97-year-old Jay Garrick can stop on a dime, Wally has to accelerate and decelerate, and is subject to inertia when Barry and Bart have to drag him along at one point.
- Teen Titans (2003):
- Kid Flash can vibrate his molecules fast enough to move through solid objects, but still slips and falls on a puddle of water if you move the yellow caution sign. He runs circles around the Hive Five and is basically unstoppable, noted by fans as a rare example of a speedster using their powers to the fullest. Which makes it even more surprising when Madame Rouge, with Voluntary Shapeshifting powers, is able to stretch her limbs fast enough to strike and grab him.
- Más y Menos have this power, but only when they're touching.
- Winx Club: Anagan has super speed.
- In the Quack Pack episode "The Really Mighty Ducks", the trio gain superpowers. Huey's is Super Speed, and he dubs himself "The Really Incredibly Fast Guy" because he couldn't think of a better name.
- All vampires in Castlevania (2017) have Super Speed, but specifically, Alucard has an extreme Flash Step which lets him make sport of monsters, vampires and gave Trevor Belmont (who has Super-Reflexes) a hard time in their meeting. Alucard at top speed even becomes a Flash-like blur of motion, but this trope gets subverted quickly when Alucard tries to Speed Blitz his father Dracula... who has none of it and catches him in mid blitz and slams him down.
- The Awesomes: Frantic is stated to be able to run at least 500 MPH, and true to the usual personality of superhero speedsters, he's a Motor Mouth and a huge Keet, and is described by the other characters as being "batshit crazy." He is a good guy nonetheless.
- The title monster from Godzilla: The Series is able to run incredibly fast for a creature of his size; he's able to keep pace with vehicles on the Brooklyn Bridge; which means he can go somewhere around 50 miles an hour or more.
- Agent Jay in Men in Black: The Series once gets this ability by being exposed to some alien reactor. He also becomes extremely agile (capable of Wall Jumping). At one point, he runs away from an alien who has been given wings by the same energy and realizes he just ran halfway across Washington, D.C., in a matter of seconds. He turns around, accelerates, and jumps high enough to drop-kick her to the ground. Since Status Quo Is God, he is turned back at the end of the episode.
- Invincible (2021):
- Red Rush The Flash-Expy of the Guardians of the Galaxy is easily the fastest supe in the show. He’s so fast his perception of reality means even the briefest conversations seem to take hours to him. When Omni-Man attacks the Guardians of the Globe, Red Rush puts up the best fight as not only saves his allies from Omni-Man initial surprise attack and even leave a mark on Omni-Man‘s nigh-invulnerable body with some Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs, which causes Nolan to faint after killing all the Guardians of the Globe.
- Nolan a.k.a. Omni-Man and his son Mark the titular Invincible have super speed as Viltrumites, although Nolan in particular blitzes across an entire planet destroying everything in his wake.
- Red Rush The Flash-Expy of the Guardians of the Galaxy is easily the fastest supe in the show. He’s so fast his perception of reality means even the briefest conversations seem to take hours to him
- In the Birdman (1967) episode " Versus the Speed Demon", the title villain's power is moving and acting so quickly that no one can see him. Unfortunately for him, his metabolism speeds up as well until he suffers Rapid Aging.
- Darkwing Duck: The titular character gains this power in the episode "Going Nowhere Fast", due to a device Negaduck invented, but unfortunately, he also finds that Rapid Aging comes with it. He's somehow able to become younger again by running backwards (yeah, that... could work) and then uses the power to research and develop an antidote within the span of a few seconds (and still has time to get behind Negaduck and clock him).
- In The New Spirit, Donald is so determined to pay his income taxes that he personally runs all the way from California to Washington D.C.
- As revealed in "The Figgis Agency", Ray Gilette of Archer has this ability, owing to his robotic legs.
- In The Amazing World of Gumball, the title character, his brother, and his father have this ability in some episodes due to Rule of Funny. His mother has it as a Charles Atlas Superpower.
- PJ Masks: Connor/Catboy has this as his primary superpower.
- The Fairly OddParents!: One of many powers that Mr. and Mrs. Turner get as Mighty Mom and Dyno Dad, able to go millions of miles in seconds.
- Freakazoid! can turn himself into lightning and zip from place to place almost instantaneously. He prefers to run at normal human speeds with his arms above his head making whooshing noises.
- Kaeloo: Stumpy's little sister, Vitamine, moves at super speed compared to the rest of the world. Unfortunately for her, even though this makes her able to move quickly from place to place, it also renders her incapable of communicating properly with those around her because they aren't able to perceive her speech.
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Real Life
- The fastest animal on Earth is the peregrine falcon, with a diving speed of about 200 miles per hour.
- Cheetahs are a famous example, and multiple cultures have some to associate them with the concept as a result. They can run at over 60 miles per hour thanks to having a body specialized for body, including long thin legs and a lean torso. This is pretty good considering that unlike the bird above, an adult male cheetah can be the size of a man. Its acceleration is also remarkably high, going from 0 to 60 miles per hour in less than three seconds.
- Grizzly bears can reach speeds of up to 35-40 mph in bursts. Which may not sound like a lot compared to the above, but then you remember that an adult male grizzly can weigh over 300 kilograms and stand over 2.4 meters/8 feet. They're pretty terrifying to view in motion.
