Who Was That Fast Man?

So recently I was watching The Flash, the standalone film about the DCU’s resident speedster:

Now, the astute reader will not need to be told that my wife was not the least bit interested in this movie. However, as I happened to be watching it just as she wandered in to catch the next episode of Treme, she saw a scene towards the beginning where The Flash was rescuing a bunch of babies who were falling out of a collapsing hospital*. As is typical for scenes where speedsters are being speedy, everything (except for The Flash himself) was moving in Extreme! Slow! Motion!

My wife paused her wandering to watch this scene, and thought she recognized the character, even though she didn’t. Not really.

Wife: “Isn’t that the guy who stops time? Who rescues the dog?”
Me (considering this for a moment): “No, you’re thinking of Quicksilver, from the X-Men. He rescues everyone** from the mansion before it explodes, including a dog that’s eating a pizza. And neither one of them stops time, they’re just really fast. They put everything else in slow motion to show just how fast they are.”
Wife: “Oh. Okay.” (pause) “Which one is faster?”
Me (immediately): “The Flash is faster. No question. But they speeded Quicksilver way up for the X-Men movies. Here, let’s compare …”

Naturally, this led to a break in watching The Flash so that I could show my wife subject my wife to the memorable scene in X-Men: Apocalypse*** in which Quicksilver performs his rescue while Charles Xavier’s mansion is getting blown up by the bad guys.

Then I replayed the “Baby Shower” scene for her, so that, you know, she could see the entire thing and do a proper comparison.

Me: “So what do you think?”
Wife: “Well The Flash seems to be stronger and he has lots of stuff falling on him, but Quicksilver is way more interesting. I forgot I was supposed to be paying attention to The Flash.”
Me: “I agree, Quicksilver has more style. He also has better music.”

Since I seemed to be on a roll with getting my wife to indulge in watching superhero scenes, I then proceeded to show her subject her to Quicksilver’s first-ever superspeed rescue, from X-Men: Days of Future Past****, in which he prevented a group of armed guards from killing Magneto, Charles Xavier, and, if not killing, at least seriously inconveniencing some other guy you comic book fans may recognize.

In fact, it’s not just you comic book fans who may recognize that other guy. In fact my wife managed it just from looking at his knuckles, even though, at this time, he didn’t have his iconic adamantium extensions.

Wife: “Is that Wolverine?”
Me (inordinately pleased): “That is Wolverine! Excellent job!”

Unfortunately, three superhero clips proved to be a little too much for her.

Wife (observing the strange firearms carried by the guards): “Those guns look like they’re made of glass.”
Me: “Oh they are made of glass, or at least, some kind of crystal. See, that other guy is Magneto, and if they shot at him with metal bullets, they would blah-blah-blah-blah***** …”
Wife: (Quite clearly could not care less)
Me: “Well let’s watch Treme now.”
Wife: “Yes, let’s.”

So anyway, there you have it ― my wife not only mistook The Flash for Quicksilver, but she correctly identified Wolverine. So that’s two more superheroes she can identify besides Tony Stark. Now if we could just get her to identify Iron Man …

Incidentally, The Flash was not a great movie, although it did have some good scenes and I liked the apparently-controversial****** casting of the Supergirl character. However, far and away the best scene was, in fact, the beginning of the end credits*******, which shows the “baby shower” from a different perspective; it follows a therapy dog as it falls out of the hospital along with the babies:

Because hey, if Quicksilver rescues a dog, then The Flash has to rescue one too.

Even if Quicksilver did it with more style and better music.

* This scene of falling babies is referred to by Batman’s butler sidekick aide-de-camp Alfred as a “baby shower”, because even dark Batman movies can’t resist the occasional silly pun apparently.
** Well, almost everyone.
*** Which, don’t get me wrong, is not a very good movie. But the mansion rescue scene is still pretty epic.
**** Which actually was a very good movie.
***** Writer’s interpretation of how my wife was hearing that explanation at that point.
****** Controversial on account of the actress is not blonde. 🙄
******* Closely followed by the stinger, because if there’s one thing this movie could’ve used, it was more Aquaman.