The Flash vs. The Amazing Spider-Man

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Acceptable Sources: DC and Marvel Comics, TV shows, and movies.

Arena: Manhattan Island, New York City, New York, USA, Earth.

Banned Powers: For the sake of simplicity, the one-shot regeneration from the Spider-Man Arc The Other.

Abilities: Both sides are at full power (Spiderman doesn't have his powers unique to the The Other story arc).

Simple enough question: Who could capture, incapacitate, or kill (if need be) the other one first?

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I think this one is pretty easy to be honest, but to be fair I don’t know that much about the Flash.  I’m just going on what I’ve read below.

Both Spider-Man and the Flash have super human abilities of course, but Spidey’s abilities really don’t even begin to compare with the Flash’s.  When it comes to battling Flash, it’s pretty much always a question of speed. So let’s look at speed:  

According to the Marvel Database Spider-Man “…is capable of running and moving at speeds that are far beyond the natural physical limits of the finest human athlete. Spider-Man has showed to be fast enough to catch up to an accelerating car while on foot, but prefers to travel by webs.”  

Compare that with the Flash, which the DC Database/wiki says “… does not often go beyond Mach 10, as speeds above that level are catastrophic to the environment.”  Lol.

And “[The] Speed Force conduits have one main ability above all else. Conduits are connected to the barrier and accumulation of all Speed known in their universe. These characters immediately understand how to run at superhuman speeds and their bodies instinctively understand how to react at high-speed situations. Older speedsters have a reduced but maxed speed of 770mph which is just below sonic booms allowing them to react to situations without causing civilians undo stress. Speedsters in their prime can travel at much faster speeds such as the max level of recorded aided speed on Earth and even reach the speed of light with enough willpower. It is possible for conduits to travel much faster than the speed of light however such levels require an incredible amount of stress.”  

Considering the Flash is one of the greatest Speedsters endowed his abilities by the Speed Force of all time, we’re talking about a fast mofo.

Wikipedia says “All incarnations of the Flash can move, think, and react at light speeds as well as having superhuman endurance that allows them to run incredible distances. Some, notably later versions, can vibrate so fast that they can pass through walls in a process called quantum tunneling, travel through time and can also lend and borrow speed. Furthermore, all members have an invisible aura around their bodies that prevents themselves and their clothes from being affected by air friction as they move at high speed.”  

“On several occasions, the Flash has raced against Superman, either to determine who is faster or as part of a mutual effort to thwart some type of threat; these races, however, often resulted in ties because of outside circumstances."

Considering that Spider-Man can beat the best human runners and can catch a car (let’s say 60 MPH?), but the Flash can approach speeds near C and do so relatively easily - how in the world would Spider-Man ever hit the Flash?  And how in the world could he protect himself from being hit by the Flash?  And this even goes for the old school, slower Flash.

Listen to this from the DC wiki about his reaction time: “The Speed Force grants them enhanced senses that allow them to see, hear, smell, touch and/or taste at an increased speed and understand it as it is processed.”  

And: “Sometimes neglected by Speedsters who only operate at superhuman speeds and never slow down enough to understand their full potential; Speedsters can access superhuman levels in their brains further than processing information. They can test theories, understand difficult equations and run trial and error in their brains at superhuman speeds.”  

And finally, “Speed Force conduits can vibrate their molecules so quickly that they can achieve intangibility for short bursts allowing them to phase through objects.”

Flash’s reaction time must be truly incredible.  Compare it to Spidey’s from the Marvel wiki: “Spider-Man's reflexes are similarly enhanced and are currently about 40 times greater than those of an ordinary human. In combination with his spider-sense, the speed of his reflexes allows him to dodge almost any attack, or even gunfire, if he is far enough away. Spider-Man has even been shown in some cases, to be able to dodge gunfire using just his reflexes without his Spider-Sense.”

Dodging gunfire is very impressive, but consider that a typical 9mm bullet travels at about 1100 feet/sec tops.  Flash could paint polka-dots on bullets midflight.  Literally.

Spidey won’t know what hit him.  I say the Flash has this one no question.

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Flash actually has a few weaknesses:

1. He's human and therefore very mortal. Given that various incarnations of the Flash have died in different ways, we can assume that he has no special invulnerabilities, Wally West especially.

2. His metabolism runs at a greatly accelerated rate due to his powers. If he doesn't eat enough, he may pass out fromstarvation.

Spiderman's main advantage in this match-up are his web-shooters. According to the Marvel Wikia;

Peter Parker devoted many hours of practice to weaving his webs in many different ways: as a shield, a parachute, a safety net, a barrier, skis, a raft, a club, a ball, or sticky glue.

According to the official Marvel website (web lol), Web-shooters have a pressure of 300 psi, or about 95 meters per second in air. While this may be nowhere near enough to catch up to the Flash's subsonic 770 mph (assuming he limited himself to avoid excessive damage to Manhattan and its people), it would be easily enough to shoot copious amounts of sticky web over enough surfaces to slow or trip the Flash.

While the Flash may have an outright advantage, Spidey has enough tricks up his sleeve to have the potential to wear him down by attrition.

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