Is it possible to write a character with super-speed and not have his powers be an inconsistent mess?

Yes, they just need to have a crutch. They can't be Flash tier OP

Yes but you have to actually understand the law of physics. Once you ignore the law of physics without giving a proper reason, it's pretty clear that no law in your fictional universe will be obeyed.

Speed Force was a mistake.

You can if you establish limits and cap values

The problem with Flash is that the writers went full retard ad he went from a guy who runs fast to someone capable of outrunning the concept of death itself

>Infinite stamina.
It works better without, makes the guy less overpowered.
And no bullshit like eating 10 cereal bars to get back the lost energy in a few minutes.

I didn't want it to makeit too underpowered but ok. OP never said anything about it being too weak anyway

>the writers went full retard
That the usual consistency problems you got when many writers work in succession on a character. Especially when the first one didn't give clear limitations in his run. And even that can be retconned.

Better question: how is it possible to have a character with a super-fast metabolism not lift weights, yet be built like he can shotput a 200lb man 50 feet?

well to be honest, sonic the hedgehog.

True enough, but I like to single out Flash because I think he's the best example of what can happen to a characters with vague powers forced into power creep over the years.

chaos emeralds

>best example
The power to understand any language

Yes, he can run with super speed.
That's all.
No super thinking.
No super reaction.
No super durability, meaning when he punches someone with super speed he also feels the punch.

Didn't give him Friction resistance

nope, the amount of physics breakage is to great to overcome without tons of bull-shit.

maybe make it something that needs to be "switched on" and needs time to rest after use

>No super thinking.
>No super reaction.
His power would be near unusable. If he can't think super fast, he can't change trajectory to avoid an obstacle. A driver needs like one second to see, analyse and decide what to do.

I'll even add that such a character needs to be able to see very far because with super speed, you run so fast, the distance you can cross during the 1 second reaction time would be huge.

>the flash can't outrun hundreds of different cars
You are retarded

Or the ability to process information quickly enough to make use of his speed.

That's just a guy with the power to kill himself

Tell that to the Flash writers.

Flash was never powercreeped. The rest of the universe was nerfed around him. He's the only hero who's still at his full Silver Age ridiculousness, probably because he's the one who kickstarted everything we know and love/hate about the era, from the stupid covers to ridiculous SCIENCE. The only later addition is the Speed Force, and the only thing it gave them that they couldn't do before was the ability to summon pants.

This here is our basic disagreement.

Depends.
If his superpower is superspeed, it might not be a given that he has mass while moving fast.
So with raw speed, invisible trickster.
But to also get the mass? That takes acceleration.

In fact, I think they nerfed the Flash over the years too. Has any speedster pulled out the "total control of my molecular structure" bullshit secondary power these last two decades?

The perfect solution, from Worm

Velocity a speedster as he speeds up, impacts the world less. So at top speed (which for him was only like 300-500 km per hour) his punches are like a little kids one, except you get a few hundred of them every second . It was some time based power, or something to do with shunting matter to another dimension.

Link to the story.
parahumans.wordpress.com/

Doesn't CW's Flash do this? I thought the show did a pretty good job of balancing the Flash's powers between Justice League-worthy and vulnerable. He's just fast enough to stop bullets even though they give him a challenge, he can travel through time but only at super high speeds that tire him out, and the villains he faces are actually a challenge for him. I'm not saying the show is a perfect representation of what being able to tap into the speed force is like, but it's the best example I can think of

Sure, either keep him consistently overpowered or consistently underpowered.

The problem is that multiple writers want to do different things and the characters exist in a state of perpetual ongoing drama so there's no true character resolution, just another pit stop to the next thing.

Chaos power and natural speed power are two separate things in the Sonic universe.

Silver is remarkably slow and he can still turn super with chaos power and use chaos control.

I wish I had that power.

Weirdly enough this. Mostly because there's not a lot of emphasis on explaining his abilities and creating random feats of speed. Mostly just generic fighting or toonforce depending on the era.

Worm has awful characters.

Pact was at least better because I could give a shit about the main character more. Then he turned into a tree and it all went downhill.

What about Sonic?

>literally picreleated
Yes, by making him, sometimes dumb, comic-relief.

No, that's actually the exact opposite of what the solution is. Flash got so OP because people 'understood' the laws of physics well enough to know that running so fast needs all these caveats, like friction resistance and incredible metabolism and fast brain, so he gets all these secondary and tertiary powers that can be combined in ridiculous ways.

Ironically, it's much more consistent when physics are ignored. Flash runs fast. No vibrating his molecules to phase through objects, no outthinking Superman, no limitless stamina

>TFW I started reading at issue one
>TFW I started months ago
>TFW I'm not even a quarter of the way through everything
>TFW I still have half a dozen reboots and my favorite characters won't be introduced for dozens of issues

And that's for a series that started in the 90s, not the 40s. God, how the fuck does anyone get into capes?

eras and runs.