1) You're actively hamstringing police investigations
In the current episode--S1E19, "Who is Harrison Wells"--a metahuman capable of disguising himself as anybody he touches uses his abilities to frame a detective in the shooting of two cops. It looks like a slam dunk case because
nobody really wants to broach the topic of metahumans. Defending the detective, Barry points out some things can't be explained around Central City. Not "I saw someone disguised as the detective" or "you know the Flash and the Weather Wizard and all the other super weird shit that's happening around here? What if something something something, and then that happened?" Barry, you were on the scene as
yourself. You can say that you saw what you actually saw, and you're not putting your identity at risk. The DA even admits to having seen the Flash at the end of the episode, so it's not like you would have looked silly because she thinks he's just an urban legend.
You idiot.
2) You're putting the public in harm's way
This is kind of like the police--but for literally every person in Central City. Metahumans have so far been proven to be almost universally dangerous. Nearly every single one murders at least one person in the commission of their crimes. Boy! If only people were open to the idea that terrifying people with awful superpowers were everywhere, all the time! People with loved ones that are missing or acting strangely could probably report them, so you're not waiting for someone to be choked to death by psychically controlled strangler vines or something before responding to a metahuman.
3) Oh, you're just illegally detaining people?
Seriously, you just catch people and lock them in a 3x5 cells? (
S1E3: Things You Can't Outrun) First of all, it's dumb because it's expensive; even at minimum security it costs about $60 a
day to keep an inmate locked up (
source), and
oh yeah these aren't white collar embezzlers. I guess you see some savings when there's nobody guarding these inmates or... even paying attention to them?
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| Barry! Barry. Has anyone been feeding them? |
S.T.A.R Labs appears to have three employees, who, as far as I can tell, are all volunteers and none of them ever spend
any kind of time with all those prisoners you have illegally detained. Oh yeah, no charges, no trial, no sentence. No long-term plan for what to do with these people, or even any effort to study them, as far as has been visible on the show. Just a freak in a red leather bodysuit who's going to keep them down there until it's convenient to let them out to fight someone else. I shouldn't have to explain to a forensic investigator, two police detectives, and three geniuses with multiple degrees across a dozen fields that prosecutors have a special name for what you're doing, and it's called "slam dunk felony convictions". Because false imprisonment is a felony. Oh, and your victim's lawyers will also have a fun name for it: "alley-oop! We own all your possessions now." Central City lawyers are apparently
way into basketball.
And here's the dumbest thing! It's so expensive you guys, and you could probably get paid by the state. These metahumans are horrifying monsters that can do scary things like explode constantly, turn into chlorine, or project the movie version of Green Lantern directly into people's brains. (S1E3, S1E5 respectively) I know, easy joke, but Ryan Reynolds is unbearable. You have a facility that securely holds these people as long as nobody stupidly lets them out for personal reasons, exactly like you guys have do constantly. You know who wouldn't do that? Professional guards with no personal reasons to let them out. Professional guards who would probably be paid by a state that isn't super on-board with the idea of a man who can just straight up turn into anyone he wants. We're barely comfortable with a woman running for office--I can't imagine a woman who can teleport into a bank is going to be popular.
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| Menstruation AND teleporting? This is why I'm so anti-science |
4) Good luck getting a conviction, idiot
In the legendary Marvel comic arc Civil War, Tony Stark points out that vigilante action drastically reduces crime numbers not by getting criminals off the streets but by preventing criminals from being convicted. That makes sense! On a scale measuring quality witnesses, adults who dress in costumes and commit multiple felonies during the act of "preventing" a crime are probably not reliable people you want on the witness stand. The Flash's anonymity appears to violate the 6th Amendment; you can't face an accuser who, in spite of being a single man in his mid-20s, is refusing to come forward to "protect his family" like every person he catches is going to put a mob hit on him. This is all a fairly standard argument against superheroes, but it gets worse for the Flash.
See, the Flash can often apprehend people before anybody notices what is happening. In S1E18, he catches an armed robber, pulling them out of the car they are driving, and replaces them with a police detective, handcuffing the passenger-side suspect at the same time. All this happens without any interruption to the control of the vehicle, and before the (admittedly distracted) passenger even notices there's been a change.
Instant defense against any of these: "The Flash is framing me. I was just outside, minding my own business, when suddenly I'm sitting in the back of a police cruiser in nothing but a trench coat." A defense attorney could probably make pretty good money just torpedoing cases where the Flash was "unnofficially" involved, by calling on prosecutors to prove that the Flash isn't framing people, as other metahumans like Everyman (S1E19) have already done.
5) Why are you doing this for free again?
This is something that comes up with nearly any superhero. Why they feel the need to patrol the streets in disguises, and keep real jobs in addition to the often late-hours work of fighting crime in the middle of the night. But this is something that's extra baffling for the Flash, who
already works for a police department. Barry isn't even afraid of being experimented on--he's literally teamed up with exactly the people who are going to do that.
6) How does this protect Iris again?
Joe, Barry's adoptive father and biological father of his love interest/ adoptive sister Iris insists that Barry keep his identity as the Flash secret from her, "to keep her safe". How would her knowing that Barry is the Flash put her at risk? And what does her not knowing about that connection do to minimize that risk? We've already seen what villains do once they've captured someone they think knows who the Flash is--they torture until they get an answer, and then they stop. (S1E16) Her not knowing just means she has to endure more torture and possibly murder before the villains are satisfied she doesn't know anything.
Joe and Barry have also tried to convince Iris to stop writing about the Flash. That effort failed so catastrophically that Iris ended up working for a newspaper... writing about the Flash. She has even been kidnapped at least once, and wouldn't it be handy if she knew she had a personal line directly to the Flash for just such occasions? Wouldn't it be handy if she (and everyone who works with the Flash, actually) were prepared to be abducted by lunatics?
Not only that, but being the Flash isn't the kind of secret one keeps their entire life, like how much you enjoyed Ryan Reynolds as the Green Lantern. As of episode 19 of the first season, there are at least 12 people who know the Flash's true identity, two of whom are the Flash's enemies. Someone's going to slip, or she's going to figure it out, and it's going to be so bad for Barry, and so bad for Joe, when she finds out.
And of course she finds out, and is furious.
