The Flash: How Iris West dies in the comics

In true comic book fashion, it’s a much more convoluted tale than the one being told on TV — but it features two characters fans of The CW series have seen.

Barry Allen has a pretty clear motivation during season 3 of The Flash. Having seen the love of his life, Iris West, die at the hands of Savitar several months in the future, Barry and his friends are pulling out all the stops in an attempt to ensure that doesn’t happen.

As with many things in the television series, the death of Iris is a subplot inspired by events from old issues of DC Comics, but done in a new way. The fun twist is that The Flash just this week introduced Clive Yorkin, a villain who appeared to be responsible for Iris’ death in print.

Her killer ended up being a much more famous Flash foe, albeit one with a strange plan that played out over the course of the better part of a year of comics. Let’s take a look at how it all went down.

Clive Yorkin, Wrongly Accused

Yorkin was first introduced in The Flash #271 as convicted murderer who ended up as the first test subject for something called the Nephron Process. It was supposed to remove the urge to commit criminal acts by associating them with the pain center of the brain, though Barry Allen had objections to its use from the start.

His instincts prove correct, as Yorkin ends up receiving super powers from extended exposure to the Nephron Process while also being driven insane. He ends up stalking both the Flash and his wife, Iris West, and it appears that Yorkin successfully kills Iris in The Flash #275.

Why couldn’t the Flash save her? Because he was dosed with drugs (hold on, we’ll come back to that), a fact later discovered by the Justice League. With the help of a psychic girl named Melanie, the Flash is able to find and eventually confront Yorkin — now possessing a life-draining touch similar to but not exactly like the one we saw on TV — but while he defeats the villain, Allen also receives word that Yorkin was not the one who killed Iris.

Iris’ Real Killer

It takes several more issues before the Flash learns the truth. And it’s kind of a doozy while being silly in a Silver Age way at the same time. Turns out that the Reverse-Flash wanted to take over the Central City heroin trade, which is why he had Flash dosed with drugs.

He also killed Iris, angered by her spurning his romantic advances. Moving fast enough to be invisible to the naked eye, Reverse-Flash vibrated his hand through Iris’ brain right as she was about to be confronted by Yorkin, framing him for the murder.

Naturally, Flash is able to learn the truth and stop Reverse-Flash, sending him back to his own time (dude was originally from the 25th century) to face justice. He later ends up killing Reverse-Flash anyway, unintentionally snapping his neck to save the life of fiancee Fiona Webb in The Flash #324.

In an interesting side note, when Barry Allen is put on trial for the killing of Eobard Thawne, his defense attorney is Cecile Horton. Yep, that’s the same name used for the Central City D.A. who is currently dating Joe West.

Epilogue

But wait, since this is comics we’re talking about, Iris wasn’t really dead either! Since she, too, was from the future, her soul was somehow drawn back to its correct time, the 30th century. In the final issue of the first volume of The Flash, Barry discovers that Iris is alive with her soul in a different body, and he elects to stay there and live with her until his famous sacrifice in Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Next: The Flash season 3, episode 12 recap: Untouchable

While the TV series is obviously taking a much different path to the death of Iris — who herself is not the same character as the Silver Age Iris of the comics — the use of Yorkin and a speedster as her murderer are elements adapted from the source material. As most fans would no doubt like Candice Patton to stick around for a while, the hope is that Iris’ death can be prevented, because there’s not likely to be any way back for her if it can’t.