It really all stems from this In the comics , Eobard idolized the flash to the point where he was obsessed with him . He had plastic surgery done just to make himself look more like the flash and then even replicated the experiment that gave him his powers . Eobard eventually travels back in time and finds out that he ' s destined to become the Flash ' s archenemy and goes crazy at the fact . This coupled with the fact that the time travel caused him to age significantly turns into a hatred of Barry Allen , who he believes ruined his own life . He tries to erase Barry from the timeline , but quickly finds out that if he does that The Flash would never exist and neither would he , the Reverse Flash . So he instead begins to resort to ruining Barry ' s life in ways ranging from petty pushing Barry down a flight of stairs when he is a kid to psychotic erasing Barry ' s childhood friend from the timeline so that he will grow up as more of an introvert killing his mom . It ' s eventually revealed that essentially every bad thing that happened to Barry over the course of his life was caused by Eobard this is where the It was me Barry meme originates from . The great thing about Barry though is even after all these tragedies that would break a normal person , he is still able to overcome it all and still become a hero . Tldr Eobard is Syndrome from the incredibles .