While Metahumans are most associated with The Flash, the superpowered beings have made a name for themselves across the whole Arrowverse. Some come from the S.T.A.R. Labs particle accelerator explosion while others exist thanks to Team Flash’s efforts with the speed force and dark matter. Others owe their Metahuman abilities to genetics or mutations from a vaccine.
Whatever the cause, these powerful individuals use their abilities for both good and evil. Heroes and villains alike take advantage of the Metahuman genes they are given. Here are five of the best, and five of the worst, Metahumans in the Arrowverse, ranked.
BEST: Team Flash
Caitlin Snow’s alter ego is a villain on Earth-2, but when Barry’s Flashpoint creates an alternate reality Killer Frost comes to life on Earth-1. Cisco Ramon’s Earth-2 counterpart also comes to life, but whereas Reverb was a villain, Vibe is a hero. After experiencing the Speed Force and dark matter explosion on the bus, Ralph Dibney becomes Elongated Man.
Together, this unlikely group of superheroes stumbles and grows, learning to cope with their new realities as a team. It’s the kind of team that proves being a hero is a choice, not one’s destiny.
WORST: The Turtle
Russell Glosson, dubbed the Turtle, had the power to absorb the kinetic energy around him, making everything appear to slow down, including the Flash’s speed. When his wife tried to leave him and he gained Metahuman powers, he used them to force her to stay in a permanent state of slow motion.
He then turned to a life of crime and used his ex-wife’s former place of work as a storage for his stolen treasures. Considering all the Metahumans and their abilities out there, this one is pretty lame.
BEST: Kid Flash
In the reality created by Flash Point, Wally West plays the role of Central City’s speedster superhero. Once Barry restores the timeline to its proper place, Wally is a regular civilian again, but not for long. He regains his alternate reality powers from an explosion of dark matter after Barry tries restoring his powers.
Given the name Kid Flash, Wally isn’t too pleased with being known as The Flash’s sidekick, but he’s just happy to be a speedster at all. He becomes a hero on his own, even joining the Legends for a time.
WORST: Hazard
Becky Sharpe once suffered from perpetual bad luck. But that was before getting hit with dark matter from the speed force experiment used to bring Barry back. As a Metahuman, Hazard was able to transfer her bad luck to others and gain good luck for herself. It’s an ability reminiscent of Domino from the Marvel universe.
All the other Metahuman abilities are explained through plausible science, but Hazard’s jinxing power doesn’t fit the bill. The show tried using quantum particles to explain the concept of luck, but that never made sense.
BEST: Firestorm
When Dr. Martin Stein joined forces with Ronnie Raymond, the two became a single entity with pyrokinetic abilities stemming from their nuclear fusion. Their team-up caused friction at first, as their personalities were on completely different ends of the spectrum.
Eventually, they gained an understanding of one another and became a force to be reckoned with. After Ronnie died, Dr. Stein found Jefferson Jackson, a mechanic and former football player, to be his Firestorm counterpart. Together they joined the Legends in fighting villains across time and space.
WORST: The Weeper
The Weeper started as an unknown man crying to himself on the bus when the dark matter hit and turned him into a Metahuman. Once changed, his tears contained a psychoactive drug that everyone wanted to use to their advantage. As far as origin stories go, that one was pretty underwhelming.
The Weeper was never even given a proper name, as he was only used first by Amunet Black and then by Clifford DeVoe, the Thinker. After all that suffering, DeVoe killed the Weeper once he extracted the tears he needed to control his wife.
BEST: Dinah Drake
Dinah Drake worked undercover for the Central City Police Department when the particle accelerator exploded, imbuing her with dark matter. After Sara Lance left to join the Legends and Laurel Lance died, Dinah took on the Black Canary mantle.
The Lance sisters used a device that gave them the iconic Canary Cry, but Dinah Drake’s Metahuman abilities made the sonic scream a natural part of her. Like the Lance sisters before her, Dinah sought justice at all costs, making her the perfect candidate for Black Canary.
WORST: Livewire
As Supergirl came to Leslie Willis’s rescue during a bad storm, she was hit by a bolt of lightning that transferred into Leslie, along with a form of the heroine’s Kryptonian DNA. What made Livewire one of the worst Metahumans was her obnoxious demeanor as a radio DJ before she turned into a powered being.
Her on-air rants served nothing more than shock value, and when she began to attack National City’s beloved heroine Supergirl, even Cat Grant, her mentor, grew tired of her. But she redeemed herself in Supergirl’s fight against Reign.
BEST: Black Lightning and Thunder
As a child, Jefferson Pierce was injected with a vaccine that gave him the power to control electricity. He used those Metahuman powers to become the superhero Black Lightning for his community, Freeland, a neighborhood of marginalized people without someone to fight for them.
His daughter Anissa inherited the Metahuman gene in the form of super strength and the ability to make herself invulnerable. Together as Black Lightning and Thunder, they fought for their community that was long ago written off as a lost cause.
WORST: Pied Piper
Hartley Rathaway named himself the Pied Piper after gaining Metahuman powers from the S.T.A.R. Labs explosion. He tried to intervene in the particle accelerator’s use the night of the explosion, but Wells fired him. Thinking that Barry Allen took his place as Wells’s right-hand man, Hartley threw a tantrum and used his Metahuman powers for revenge.
Growing up as a child prodigy turned Hartley into an insufferable know-it-all, so it’s no wonder he turned into a villain so easily.
