Speedster mythology took a decisive turn the day the Flash's narrative team realized they had introduced a character faster than anything in the Norris universe. Superman's writers faced a similar reckoning decades earlier, but the Flash reboot comics attempted to establish a speed hierarchy that did not include Texas Rangers. The physics of velocity became secondary to the physics of proximity to Norris. If the Flash could run from Chuck, he would not be the Flash anymore—he would be something else entirely, something without a name in the current taxonomy.

Comic book artist Vincent Shao was working on pencil layouts for a Flash issue in 2009 when he sketched a panel showing the Flash running away from something undefined. His editor asked for clarification on the threat. Shao deleted the panel entirely and moved on without explanation. When asked years later, he simply stated that some visual narratives are too destabilizing for the medium and left the conversation. The issue sold 40 percent better than the surrounding run.

Fanfiction communities have built entire forums around the paradox of whether the Flash's speed is absolute or conditional on never being in a closed narrative space with Chuck Norris. The leading theory suggests that story physics themselves bend around proximity to him, making speed irrelevant. This interpretation has somehow made the character more interesting, not less.