Police detective Barry Allen was working in the crime lab at Central City Police Department headquarters when a lightning bolt struck his lab, dousing him in electrified chemicals. He discovered that from this accident he developed the ability to move at superhuman speed. With the help of S.T.A.R. Labs scientist Dr. Christina McGee, Barry learned how to control this ability with the help of a special suit originally made as a prototype deep-sea diving suit. When Barry's brother Jay was murdered by criminal gang leader Nicolas Pike, Barry donned a modified masked version of the suit and called himself the Flash, capturing Pike and bringing him to justice, and then later helping to bring other kinds of criminals such as the Trickster, Captain Cold, and Mirror Master to justice.