| “ | Yes, I am a god. The God of Speed. | „ |
| ~ Godspeed’s most famous quote. |
| “ | August Heart: You're too much of a hero to sell me out. Now, Impulse, that's a different story. Barry Allen: I said leave my son out of this. August Heart: Oh, but I can't. He's the one who helped me realize the truth. That artificial speed would always be a pale imitation of the real deal. Spoiled little brat. He's not just reckless, he's unworthy. All the times we fought. He was so cavalier with his gift; a gift that should have been MINE!!! Now it will be... thanks to you. |
„ |
| ~ August Heart explaining his motives and obsession with obtaining organic speed to the Flash. |
| “ | Don't you two get it? You can't kill a god! | „ |
| ~ Godspeed before fighting the Flash and Reverse-Flash |
August Heart, also known as Godspeed, is a major antagonist in the 2014-2023 superhero television series The Flash, which is part of DC‘s Arrowverse.
He was a promising young physicist from 2049 in the future who secretly operated as a villainous speedster after obtaining artificial speed powers through the recreated Velocity-9 serums. After seeing Impulse in action, he became jealous of the heroic speedster and desired to obtain true organic speed at all costs to become the fastest speedster alive. He is the archenemy of Nora West-Allen/XS and Bart Allen/Impulse.
While masked, he is voiced by B.D. Wong. While unmasked, he was portrayed by Kindall Charters in Season 5. From Season 7 onwards, he was portrayed by Karan Oberoi, both masked and unmasked.
His Evil Ranking[]
His Villainous Deeds[]
In General[]
- Unlike most other villainous speedsters in the franchise, who had personal tragedies, big or small, that moved them to be evil, Heart only turned to villainy out of a desire to gain as much power as possible. Though he had a history of getting fired from multiple jobs, this isn’t played for sympathy and even if it was, it would be far too petty of an excuse for his actions, to count as a genuine tragedy.
- Despite having a brother who died, there is no indication that he cared for him and their relationship is left unexplored. Heart never even mentions his brother during his appearances, making it even more unlikely he cared for him.
Background[]
- While working at Mercury Labs, he allegedly experimented on 17 different elderly constituents patients.
- He experimented with tachyons to give himself speed and began stealing chemicals to recreate the Velocity 9 serum. Due to this, Heart believed himself to be a god, constantly boasting about it to his enemies as a way to taunt them.
Season 5[]
- While stealing more chemicals from Ollins Laboratories, he severely injured Dr. Bruce Bonwit and attacked Nora West-Allen by launching her against a metal rack with his lightning, simply for being a witness to his crimes. This would shorten our Nora’s Meta-dampening chip, causing her to seek out Eobard Thawne for assistance in being a speedster, therefore allowing Thawne to manipulate Nora into destroying Cicada’s dagger, which caused the Anti-Monitor Crisis to be moved from 2024 to 2019 and Nora being erased from existence.
- He attacked Nora with a lightning bolt and murdered her best friend Lia Nelson in front of her for destroying what he planned to steal.
- He attempted to steal a device that would make his powers permeant before being stopped by Nora.
Season 7[]
- He started a feud with Barry Allen’s future son, Bart West-Allen due to deeming him as “irresponsible” and “unworthy” of his powers, which is extremely hypocritical given Heart’s speed isn’t organic, but artificial.
- In an erased timeline, he captured Jay Garrick and killed him in front of Bart West-Allen just to spite him. This was enough for Bart to consider Heart his archenemy.
- He spawned clones of himself to cause chaos throughout Central City in the present day. One of the clones would attack the Flash and his team at S.T.A.R. Labs to steal Barry’s speed and later threatening to murder innocent civilians every minute Barry didn’t surrender. His actions would cause a war between the clones, as one group wanted to steal Barry’s speed for Heart while the other group wanted to free themselves by locating and killing him, resulting in much destruction and innocent deaths.
- While he felt remorse for his crimes as an amnesiac, he subverted this when he regained his memories, completely embracing his villainy.
- He manipulates Barry into giving him organic speed under the threat of having his army of clones destroy Central City and possibly the entire world.
- Though he absorbs his clones once Barry gives him what he wants, it wasn’t out of care for the people of Central City, but so he would gain more power.
- He attacks Barry and nearly kills him with lightning until Thawne intervened.
- His threat was so dire that it required Barry to get Thawne’s help in order to defeat him. This makes Heart indirectly responsible for Thawne’s crimes from that point, including the Reverse-Flashpoint.
- Though he was stabbed by the Reverse-Flash at the end of their battle, he definitely deserved it and it wasn’t played for sympathy. Even when Flash calls Reverse-Flash out for nearly killing him, Reverse-Flash rightfully pointed out that he needed help to deal with a threat.
Season 9[]
- He teams up with Cobalt Blue, Reverse-Flash, Zoom and Savitar to finally kill Barry Allen and his team once and for all.
- That said, before being told who brought him there, was likely willing to kill Reverse-Flash, Zoom, and Savitar due to claiming that he's the one true god of speed.
- He also mocked Reverse-Flash and Zoom during their interactions.
Why He Doesn’t Stand Out?[]
- Despite passing the general baseline and attempting to destroy Central City, he still doesn’t quite meet the Heinous Standards of the Arrowverse due to many other villains attempting the same thing. Furthermore, his personal cruelty to Bart and Nora isn’t that bad when compared to Reverse-Flash, Zoom and Savitar. While it’s true that Heart has way less resources compared to them, he still fails to Eddie Thawne, who managed to do worse with a similar amount of screen time. Though it’s implied his clones would’ve gone on to destroy the world, this wasn’t explicitly confirmed.
External Links[]
- Godspeed on the Villains Wiki
- August Heart on the Arrowverse Wiki
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 Villainous Benchmarks
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