| October 2042 | Edition nº21 |
Henry Allen: Father to The Flash
Wait, where do we know him from?
Henry Allen, the father of the one and only Barry Allen (aka, the Flash), has been through quite a lot. Not only did his wife (and Barry’s mother) pass away, but he also spent quite some time in prison. Henry has been portrayed in many different ways. From comics to TV shows to cartoons; but the one most people most likely know him from is The Arrowverse.
Henry Allen and the Comics
In what DC Comics to find Henry Allen
In total, there are 35 different appearances of Henry Allen all throughout the Prime Earth comic books. About 33 of these were The Flash comic books (a win for him, I suppose). Those other two were Convergence: Detective Comics Vol. 1 and Secret Origins Vol. 3. Have you seen him in either of these? Or maybe in one of The Flash comics?Henry Allen’s Past
Henry and Nora lived a happy life. They were married and had a son who they raised in Fallville, Iowa; just your average normal couple. Henry worked as a doctor and Barry (their son, obviously) was a police scientist. But that all changed when Professor Zoom decided to change the original timeline. Instead of his life ending in a peaceful death and spending plenty of time with his son and wife, Nora’s life was taken from her. Henry was framed for this incident and spent the rest of his time in prison, trying to prove to everyone that he was wrongfully accused.Henry Allen’s Abilities in the DC Universe
While Henry does not have any special abilities, such as superspeed or electrokinesis, he is quite a smart man. He has much knowledge in biology as well as mechanical engineering. Plus, he knows his way around firearms.
Henry Allen in DC’s Arrowverse
As we all know (and if you didn’t before, then now you do), there are many shows as well as many timelines in the Arrowverse universe. This makes the life of Henry Allen a tad complicated as well, but we’ll try our best to get into it!The Allen Family
In 1955, Henry Allen was born to his parents with unknown first names. In total, there actually isn’t much to know about Henry’s early childhood. We simply know he went to medical school and received a medical license to become a doctor later. Then, in 1989, Henry married Nora Thompson (Nora Allen after this event), and they had a son; Barry Allen. Throughout Barry’s youth, Henry already kind of started to motivate him for the wrong things; such as praising him for winning a fight instead of scolding him for even getting into one.Breaking Henry Allen’s Family Apart
It was on the night of March 18th, 2000, when Barry was 11 years old that everything started to go wrong. This was the night Nora passed away - it is the same event in the comics, leading Henry to spend his next few weeks in Iron Heights Prison. When he was in prison, Henry didn’t want to see his son; not wanting Barry to see his father like this.
Barry still sneaked in and later even thought of changing his name (though he never did, as he did say he was proud to be his father’s son). It was years later (somewhere after even 2014), that Henry’s case got opened up again. He would stand for trial in the hopes of getting out. But, of course, it didn’t actually happen. As The Mist came in between and started hurting all the people around. Barry later started to look into the person who took his mother’s life, and Henry thought to help him and Joe, but instead, he just got himself stabbed and beaten by a cellmate. From here on out, pieces started to fall into place in Henry’s mind, realising his son might be the Flash; which Barry, obviously, denied. He even said that his father would be the first to know if he was indeed the Flash, which was not the case. However, it is fairly clear that Henry noticed his son lying to him and said that he would be a proud father if his son were the Flash. When Henry was kidnapped (and then saved by Barry), his son did actually reveal he was the Flash and thus that his father had been right.
Eventually, through a video, it was revealed that Harry did not take the life of his own wife, and he was set free; which he celebrated with Team Flash.
It was Zoom who then kidnapped Henry (yes, this man got kidnapped multiple times). He was brought to the house Barry grew up in, where he drew his last breath in the arms of his son.