Quicksilver may be a superhero, but his super-speed has a devastating impact on the world around him – one he tragically doesn’t even notice.
Quicksilver‘s power hides a dark secret, one that means he is doing tremendous damage to the entire world. Pietro Maximoff proudly considers himself the fastest man alive. According to Avengers: Millennium, by Mike Costa and Carmine Di Giandomenico, he’s able to run at over 1,500 miles per second. His speed was enhanced by the High Evolutionary, meaning he gained the ability to run at hypersonic speeds. Quicksilver has since managed to beat Mach 10, and it’s generally believed he’s yet to reach his top speeds.
One of Quicksilver’s greatest feats, of course, lies in his ability to run across water. He’s able to move so quickly he doesn’t break the surface, allowing him to circumnavigate the entire globe with tremendous ease. This means Quicksilver has been known to watch the news while in Europe, before speeding across the Atlantic Ocean to North America in a matter of seconds. During the Avengers Vs. X-Men event, he was delighted to use this to build up momentum to punch out Magneto.
Quicksilver’s Powers Cause Massive Environmental Damage
Quicksilver’s body is perfectly adapted to his super-speed, but the rest of the world is affected by it. Avengers: Millennium reveals just how destructive he really is when he runs across the surface of the ocean:
“The ocean is largely empty. What life there is lives mostly at the surface. Too bad. The shock waves are felt by everything in a fifty-meter radius. The energy output of 80 kilograms moving at 1,500mps is catastrophic. Pietro Maximoff doesn’t even notice.”
Whenever Quicksilver runs across the sea, he causes irreparable damage to the ecosystem around him. It’s easy to imagine him running past a coral reef, generating a shockwave that leaves it completely destroyed. If he ran through a site of special scientific interest, he could potentially cause mass extinction events. The truly disturbing thing, though, is that Quicksilver – effectively Marve’s God of Speed – is entirely ignorant of the damage he causes. He tends to have a relentless focus, a side-effect of his super-speed, meaning he doesn’t notice anything that happens in the world.
Moving over to DC Comics, the Flash may well have the same effect on the world. The Flash’s top speed exceeds even that of Quicksilver’s, and he tends to do the same trick – running across the seas. He and Superman have even raced across the oceans, likely causing double the destruction. Avengers: Millennium serves as a reminder it’s a good thing superhero powers don’t exist in the real world, because they would basically tear the world apart. Quicksilver, the Flash, and other super-speedsters would be an absolute nightmare, with their speed leaving chaos in its wake.
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