Red Death

## Ryan Wilder

* Civilian
* Red Death

**Ryan Wilder** (born May 30, 1995), also known as the **Red Death**, is a speedster who allied herself with the Rogues to defeat the Flash. She is also a former member of the League and an alternate timeline version of the current timeline's Ryan Wilder. Upon her displacement in the current timeline, she briefly stole the identity of her alternate timeline self to trick Iris West-Morningstar into trusting her.

## Biography

### Original multiverse

#### Erased future

"*Flash did everything he could, but Cicada killed more people than Zoom or even the Red Death.*"
—David Singh
Sometime in the future from where Nora West-Allen came, the Red Death plagued Central City. Zoom and Red Death were both said to have had high kill counts by David Singh, although they were exceeded by Cicada.

### New multiverse

#### Early life

Ryan was adopted by the Waynes as a young baby, who were gunned down in an alley, similar to the current timeline. Ryan then swore to protect her city as Batwoman, battling various villains over the years. At some point, Ryan joined a League where she allied herself with other heroes like the Flash. She also became a close friend of Iris West-Morningstar.

#### Becoming a speedster

As Ryan saw that each of her criminals (like Hush, Simon Hurt, and her own brother) continued escaping from Arkham and preying on the innocent, she decided to study the technology of her enemies. Ryan eventually also tried to study the abilities of other heroes, starting with the Flash. Ryan used the data from the Flash's suit to build her own artificial Speed Force using an armor she created, which she used to fight crime as the Red Death in a totalitarian way, putting criminals behind bars before they even thought of committing crimes.

The Flash eventually freed a bunch of his Rogues from Iron Heights in an attempt to stop Ryan. During one of her fights with the Flash and his Rogues, she accidentally killed Iris with a lightning bolt meant for the Flash. Ryan later tried to escape by hiding in the Speed Force, but she was rejected as her speed was not organic. However, when she was rejected, the Speed Force brought her to a different timeline and left her stuck in a vibrational form. She arrived in that new timeline shortly after the Ryan Wilder from that timeline disappeared during one of her patrols as Batwoman.

#### Plotting against the Flash

##### Alliance with the Rogues

"*The Flash is never truly alone. But once I'm done with him, he will be.*"
—**Ryan Wilder** to Owen Mercer
Ryan hoped to return to her timeline in order to kill her version of the Flash. At some point, Ryan had an encounter with the criminals Owen Mercer, Andrea Wozzeck, Michelle Amar and Roy Bivolo, and they became allies, forming a new team of Rogues. She would then plot to take down the Flash. While still stuck in her vibration form, she gave orders to her team so they could steal various devices that would allow them to build a Cosmic Treadmill. She also gave each of the Rogues new cutting-edge nanocircuit-based technology that, due to her upbringing in her native timeline, resembled some advanced prototypes from Wayne Enterprises in the current timeline.
Then she met Sean Thawne aka the **White Dino Ranger**, he then joined the Rogues and became the archenemy of Sam Thawne yet again.
The Red Death tasked Owen with stealing the battery from a Roemer Accelerator of Kord Industries, during the heist he confronted the Flash and eventually used the accelerator to try and blow up the city, escaping while the Flash saved everyone by phasing the explosion. After Owen handled the battery to her, she gave him brand new boomerangs as a reward.
##### Regaining her original form

"*Where's your speed now, Flash?*"
—Ryan Wilder to Barry Morningstar
After the Fiddler failed to steal the sonic gauntlets from Pied Piper, she claimed that the upgrade the speedster had provided her with did not work. Ryan countered that it was Andrea's fault for not completing the mission, running through her and shocking her with lightning, reminding her that failure was "not an option." She demanded Andrea to get the gauntlets, or else she would die. When Andrea eventually got the gauntlets, Ryan used them to power a machine that helped her regain her original form, freeing her of the perpetual vibrational state she was in. Following this, the Red Death ran to a building and admired Central City while stating that she would make them pay for the Flash's actions. She later tasked Sean, Owen, Andrea and Michelle Amar with breaking into Corbin Taft Industries and stealing a temporal scanner. The Red Death then contacted Mark Blaine and Sam Thawne at O'Shaughnessy's and asked him to join her team of Rogues, to which Blaine and Thawne agreed, on the condition that he could bring Frost and Caitlin back to life.
Ryan tasked the Rogues with stealing the last component for the treadmill, a quantum vibration engine that was located at the DOD research facility, but Barry Allen created his own group of "Rogues" to get the engine before her team could. Fortunately for her, Blaine was one of Barry's "Rogues", who betrayed Allen immediately after he got the engine. While both teams of rogues were fighting each other, she showed up and disabled the Flash's speed, allowing her to negate any speedster connected to the positive Speed Force. After taunting his lack of speed, she rushed her team away and took them back to their lair. When Blaine threatened to walk away from the group, claiming that they didn't even know her identity, she unmasked herself and told Mark that she was "vengeance".
##### Identity revealed

"*Always seeing the best in your enemies and worst in your so-called allies."* *"How would you know that?"* *"Because I know who you are. A pathetic excuse for a hero, more than willing to stab his friends in the back.*"
—Ryan Wilder and Barry Morningstar
Ryan watched over Chillblaine as he finished building her Cosmic Treadmill, and explained to him that she would take care of powering the machine, and left to recruit another Rogue, Roy Bivolo. The Red Death then appeared in the middle of Central City, challenging the Flash, who quickly arrived and tried to talk her down. Ryan used Bivolo's pathokinesis to subdue the Flash with fear while she unleashed a wave of lightning that cut the power all over Central City, putting the city in a blackout. Chaining up the Flash in their lair and depowering him with power-dampening cuffs, Ryan left her suit behind and controlled it remotely. The Red Death dismissed Barry's claims that the negative speed force was corrupting her mind, explaining that she used artificial Speed Force.

Meanwhile, Ryan herself went to Barry and Iris' apartment, meeting Iris in her civilian identity, pretending to be her alternate timeline self, claiming that she was also attacked by the Red Death. Unfortunately, Iris deduced that she wasn't the Ryan from her timeline. Ryan tried to talk Iris down and explain her history, but Iris realized that Ryan's Flash only turned against her due to Ryan's own greed, which lead Ryan to take Iris to her lair by force, then Sam came to pretend to be on Iris' side saying "Leave my Sister out of this". Eventually after a while They revealed that Sam was working with her.

Ryan later revealed her identity to the Flash before forcing him to run on the Cosmic Treadmill, otherwise she would torture Iris. As Barry ran in the Cosmic Treadmill, Mark and Sam betrayed Ryan and overwhelmed the machine, throwing all the organic speed that Barry was generating back at her, knocking her out temporarily. After waking up and seeing that the way to return to her timeline was destroyed, she decided to take over the timeline she was now trapped in as revenge against the Flash.

#### Era of the Red Death

##### Setting the stage

Seeing as the Flash lost a lot of his speed while running in the Cosmic Treadmill and that her Rogues captured Mark following his betrayal, Ryan decided to keep him alive to use it as bait for the Flash in order to steal the rest of his speed later.

Ryan eventually contacted Gorilla Grodd, who was left hopeless as all his fellow gorillas from Gorilla City lost their sentience following the Anti-Monitor Crisis. She promised Grodd that she'll help him reunite his tribe in exchange for amplifying her telepathy.

##### Rise and Fall

he Red Death and the Rogues then lead an assault on CCPD, while Captain Kristen Kramer tried to use her mimicry powers to stop them, Ryan was unfazed by her attack and put power-dampening cuffs on her. When Team Flash tried to use Cecile Horton's empathic telepathy to track her, Ryan gave Cecile the location of Mark while pretending to struggle to push her out of her mind. Red Death hacked into the CCPD's satellite to power up her suit, gaining a neurological boost that allowed her to create strong mental projections of herself across Central City, this psychic manifestations were named "sentinels". After Flash and his Rogue Squad traveled to her lair in order to rescue Mark, the Red Death ambushed them and absorbed what was left of the Flash's speed. Ryan used her powers to transport Barry into his own mindscape in order to briefly show him that she succeeded in her new plan with the help of Grodd before leaving the hero and his allies behind.

Unfortunately for Ryan, the Flash contacted Grodd and convinced him to return the speed that he gave him during their last encounter. The Flash then destroyed her satelite, which angered Ryan. The two speedsters had a showdown on the streets of Central City, which resulted in the Red Death defeating the Flash. As she was about the deal the killing blow on him, the Red Death was temporarily prevented from murdering Barry by the Rogue Squad. After defeating the Rogues, the Red Death was attacked and came face to face with Batwoman, her alternate timeline self. Batwoman used a special batarang to nullified the Red Death's speed, leading to an even fight between the two Ryans, which lasted long enough for Barry to wake up and take the Red Death's suit off.

## Personality

"*I wanted to do this the easy way. But you wanna get nuts? Come on. Let's get nuts.*"
—Red Death
While Ryan started as an heroic individual in her timeline, she eventually developed into an incredibly deluded and driven individual. During her crusade against criminals, she saw how utterly pointless arresting criminals was, as they kept escaping and resuming their activities. This caused Ryan to become more obsessed with adopting several different types of elements from both criminals and her fellow heroes.

After creating her artificial Speed Force, Ryan used it to not only arrest criminals that were guilty, but also individuals that hadn't done anything yet based on the idea they might "think" of committing a crime in the future. This even included the criminals of other League members; all of whom were displeased with Ryan for her interference. Ryan was so deluded that, when describing the way her Flash tried to stop her, she treated it as an attack on her crusade against justice, claiming that she just wanted to protect her city.

These events, which led to Ryan landing in another timeline, made her harbor a deep hatred against the Flash. Even after realizing it wasn't her timeline, Ryan used the current timeline's version of the Flash as a scapegoat for all her anger; attacking him for no reason than that. Showing Ryan couldn't even trust any version of Barry Allen to help her if she asked.

Despite being the leader of a new team of Rogues, Ryan still claimed criminals were beneath her, viewing them as a superstitious and cowardly lot.

## Powers and abilities

### Powers

"*Your speed's artificial.*"
—The Flash to Red Death
* **Artificial Speed Force connection/Meta-human physiology:** Ryan made her own artificial Speed Force to give herself inorganic superhuman speed.
	+ **Superhuman speed:** Like all other speedsters, Ryan has the power to run at incredible speeds. It is currently unknown if she is as fast as the Flash.
	+ **Electrokinesis:**Ryan has the power to generate powerful red electricity. Her electricity is so strong that she was able to black out all of Central City with just one blast.
	+ **Invisibility:** Ryan was able to become invisible; when first speaking to Owen Mercer and then became visible again.
	+ **Intangibility:** Ryan was able to phase through the Fiddler and electrocute her from the inside out as a form of punishment for her failure.
	+ **Speed stealing/Speed Force siphoning:** Ryan was able to temporarily dampen the Flash's speed; causing the latter to theorize that she was the new avatar of the Negative Speed Force.

### Abilities

"*It was the scariest thing I've ever seen.*"
—Jaco Birch
* **Intimidation:** As Red Death; Ryan commands an intimidating presence. She is also ruthless and aggressive towards her enemies. This is shown how she had no qualms with torturing Iris in front of Barry to force him to cooperate; a feat that even Mark Blaine found disturbing.
* **Master hand-to-hand combatant:** Ryan is a highly skilled hand-to-hand combatant and martial artist. She easily overpowered Iris (who has been in fights since she was just a kid) without breaking a sweat.

#### Former weaknesses

* **Vibrational form:** Ryan was stuck in a vibrational form which prevented her from physically interacting with the world. However, after Captain Boomerang and The Fiddler put Ryan into a machine made with the Sonic gauntlets that slowed her molecules down, she regained her physical body and can now interact with the world.

## Equipment

* **Red Death suit:** Ryan uses a red full-bodied suit of armor to conceal her identity. The suit has a bat-symbol, like the Batsuit, is massive in size and demon-like in form, and generates red lightning when she uses her speed. Ryan is able to control the suit remotely and summon it to her.

## Behind the scenes

* In the DC comics, the Red Death was Bruce Wayne from Earth -52, one of the negative Earths of the Dark Multiverse. After losing many "Robin" sidekicks to crime, Bruce believed he needed to take a more brutal approach in fighting it; he decided to steal the speed of his Earth's Flash after defeating his Rogues and confiscating their gear, which he used to capture the speedster. Bruce then absorbed the Flash by driving himself and the speedster into the Speed Force, where he gained powers by sharing the Flash's body, though Bruce's consciousness was in control. He later joined the Dark Knights to stop the collapse of the Dark Multiverse, invading the Multiverse and coming into conflict with the mainstream Flash.
* Ryan says many lines said by previous Batman actors:
	+ Kevin Conroy: "*I am vengeance, I am the night*" and "*A superstitious and cowardly lot*" in his animated roles.
	+ Michael Keaton: "*You wanna get nuts? C'mon, let's get nuts!*"
* Ryan is incredibly deluded over the loss of her loved ones; taking a mellower version of Peacemaker's ideology from the DCEU. But this also makes her similar to the *Injustice* Superman, who saw heroism as pointless and the need to take control.