Heads up: The study summarizes revelations for The Flash 2021 Anniversary #1, which is available now and written by Jeremy Adams, Fernando Pasarin, Brandon Peterson, and Oclair Albert.
The DC Universe is home to a plethora of speedsters, as evidenced by the current plot arc in The Flash's monthly book. With the plot reaches its dramatic conclusion in The Flash 2021 Annual, one final speedster makes an unexpected appearance: Savitar. The self-proclaimed speed god has been absent from the DCU for several years, but he has recently proven himself to be one of Wally West's most powerful and formidable enemies.
The Speed Force had other plans for Wally, who had recently decided to retire from his superhero life by giving up his talents. The root of the speedsters' abilities drew the troubled Flash on a time travel tour of Flashes past, present, and future.
In each epoch he visited, he and the League thought the speed force was trying to expel something from within itself as he handled strange bursts of speed force energy. In Heroes in Crisis by Tom King and Mitch Gerads, the final stop on the timestream transports Wally to his most haunting moment: the moment he murdered the other patients at Sanctuary.
Savitar was a pilot for a third world country during the Cold War until the aircraft was hit by flashing, which gave him a tremendous speed in his debut at Mark Waid and Oscar Jiminez's 1995 The Flash no. 108. His new skills captivated him, he established his own speed culture and called himself the Hindu God of Speed Savitar. He sought to take another velocity, wanting to be one with the speed force, but he could not disrupt the link Wally had with the force
Rather, Savitar was flown into the prison of the Speed Force, apparently putting an end to his reign of terror.
In Geoff Johns and Ethan Van Sciver, The Flash: Rebirth, Savitar escaped out of his captivity, but that freedom was temporary. The so-called God of speed was destroyed by a single touch of the Barry Allen, at the time unknown to the Negative Speed Force.
The Flash 2021 Annual now shows how drastically exaggerating Savitar's death is again again a menace to all speedsters.
Instead of being dead, in some sort of prison, Savitar was trapped. After years of insistence, he eventually developed a link to the Speed Force.
Once inside, he started to siphon off energy from within it. This led to the loss of power for other speedsters such as Barry Allen. The Speed Force created energy to force Savitar out and led his former enemy Wally West to complete the task.
Wally finally beats Savitar with his overloaded upgrade of the Speed Force and he gets back to its eternal prison, by diminishing its speed. However, this villain might pose a severe threat considering how Savitar has already reached the Speed Force by mere force of will.
Moreover, Savitar is the one responsible for the most sad time in Wally – the killings of Sanctuary – which makes him a personal and powerful threat both to Wally West. While it did not do much in comparison with other Flash Rogues, this crazy boss managed to tamper one of the DCU's integrated forces with many heroes while scarring another emotionally.
When Savitar pulls away again in the Speed Force he can create as much problems as long-last Reverse-Flash or Zoom, together with his special Speed Force understanding. Maybe even more.