Photo: Katie Yu/The CW -- © 2016 The CW Network, LLC. All rights reserved
Barry “The Flash” Allen (Grant Gustin, left) battled the parallel-Earth villain Zoom (Teddy Sears) in the season 2 finale of The Flash, which resulted in the Scarlet Speedster changing the timeline.
Photo: Katie Yu/The CW -- © 2016 The CW Network, LLC. All rights reserved.
John Wesley Shipp, who played The Flash in the 1990 TV series, was revealed as The Flash of Earth-3 in The Flash. The same actor plays Barry’s father Henry Allen as well.
By Andrew A. Smith
Tribune Content Agency
Could TV’s The Flash be heading for a classic turning point – a “flashpoint” – that changes not only the Scarlet Speedster, but related shows Arrow, Legends of Tomorrow and Supergirl? Probably not, but it’s fun to speculate.
The crux of the issue is the Season 2 finale of The Flash, which aired May 24 on The CW. In that episode, Barry “Flash” Allen (Grant Gustin) used the Speed Force that gives him his powers to go back in time and save the life of his mother Nora, who had been killed by Eobard “Reverse Flash” Thawne (Tom Cavanagh) when Barry was a boy. In previous episodes, Allen had learned that changing time had unpredictable and often disastrous effects, not the least of which is that using the Speed Force to travel through time attracted lethal “Time Wraiths” that would seek the perpetrator throughout the timeline. That lesson was underscored when the chief antagonist of this season, the Earth-2 speedster Zoom (Teddy Sears), was apparently killed by the Wraiths.
(To tell you the truth, it looked like Zoom was transformed into a Time Wraith. But I digress.)
This, as they say, changes everything. If Nora Allen (Michelle Harrison) isn’t killed, then her son has no motivation to become a forensic scientist, or to seek justice. Which in turn might very well mean he wouldn’t be in the right position (standing in front of a bank of chemicals in a police lab when lightning strikes that spot during the particle accelerator explosion) to gain super-speed, or if he did, wouldn’t become a superhero. In fact, when Allen saved the life of his mother, he saw a previous adult version of himself (who had traveled to that time in an earlier episode) fade away. It was like Back to the Future, only with cosplay.
You might well ask: If The Flash never comes to exist, then who saves Nora Allen? The answer’s simple: If Barry Allen never becomes The Flash, then Eobard Thawne never becomes Reverse Flash. Nora Allen doesn’t need to be saved, because her killer never comes to exist.
And if Nora Allen isn’t killed, Barry’s father Henry (John Wesley Shipp) doesn’t go to jail for her murder. So Barry would, presumably, grow up in a nuclear family without trauma, never become The Flash, and the last two seasons of the show would never have happened.
So what will Season 3 of The Flash be about, if the eponymous character doesn’t exist? That’s an exciting question, because Allen has created a new timeline. Almost anything could happen. Someone else might be The Flash, or no one at all. Any of Allen’s friends or family could be dead, or be villains (like many are on Earth-2), or not exist. Central City might be Keystone City (like on Earth-2), or be overrun with criminals like Captain Cold (Wentworth Miller), or have been wiped out in a nuclear war that didn’t happen in the original timeline. Who knows?
Well, actually, we might know. And that’s if the show is adapting a similar scenario from the comics called "Flashpoint." If so, we’re in for a wild ride.
Here’s the dilly-o: Flashpoint was an event in 2011 which splashed over into all of DC’s superhero titles – more than 60 books altogether – over a five-month period. It was kicked off by Barry Allen traveling to the past and saving his mother’s life, even though he knew it was a bad idea. So it begins when Allen wakes up in the new timeline he’s created – and he’s not The Flash any more.
But that’s not the only change. Far from it.
There’s no Superman (baby Kal-El was found by the government, not the Kents, and he’s been locked up in an underground lab his whole life). There’s no Justice League, and Cyborg is the world’s greatest hero. Leonard Snart isn’t Captain Cold – he’s Citizen Cold, the hero of Central City (although he’s not quite as heroic as he seems).
And Bruce Wayne isn’t Batman – his father, Thomas Wayne, is instead. Bruce, you see, was gunned down in an alley by a mugger when he was just a boy.
That’s not the worst of it! In this new world, Themyscira (Paradise Island) is at war with Atlantis. Led by a lethal Princess Diana (Wonder Woman) and a murderous King Arthur (Aquaman), respectively, the Amazons and Atlanteans have sunk most of Western Europe beneath the Atlantic. Their continuing conflict threatens to destroy the entire world.
Spoiler, Barry Allen figures out how to set everything to rights. He recreates the accident that gave him super-speed, and goes back in time to prevent his earlier self from saving his mother. A new timeline – a far more familiar one – formed out of Flashpoint. Called “The New 52” (long story), that timeline has been the basis of the DC Universe for the last five years.
Sound familiar? Still, Flashpoint is a pretty tall order for a TV show, especially one that can’t use Batman. (His rights are unavailable for TV, so Green Arrow usually fills that niche.) Still, I will not be terribly surprised if Barry Allen wakes up in a new world at the beginning of Season 3, one in which he is no longer The Flash.
And if they do go the Flashpoint route, what does that mean for the other DC-based shows on The CW? Arrow, Legends of Tomorrow and Supergirl (which moves to The CW with Season 2) each had their own season-ending cliffhangers, which those shows will want to pursue, instead of having the table turned over by The Flash:
* On Legends of Tomorrow, a man named Rex Tyler showed up at the end with an ominous message. Which sent thousands of fans into delirium.
Who is Tyler? Well, he’s also known as Hourman, a member of the legendary Justice Society of America, which preceded the more famous Justice League in DC Comics by a couple of decades. We’ve seen other hints of the JSA already, such as Hawkman on Legends, who was the original chairman. Other members, or suggestions of members, have already appeared on other DC-based shows, such as the various Black Canaries, Michael Holt (“Mr. Terrific” in the comics) and Ted “Wildcat” Grant on Arrow; the helmet of Dr. Fate and Jim “The Spectre” Corrigan on Constantine; and Jay “Flash” Garrick on The Flash. It’s very possible Legends will introduce the whole team, as well as whatever timeline or parallel world they live in.
* The Season 4 finale of Arrow reversed that of Season 3, with Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) and Felicity Smoak (Emily Bett Rickards) as the only remaining members of Team Arrow – everyone else is taking time off for personal issues, except for Laurel “Black Canary” Lance (Katie Cassidy), who remains dead. Queen has been appointed interim mayor of Star City (reflecting a number of storylines in the comics), which should complicate sneaking off to play vigilante.
* Season 1 of Supergirl ended with a mysterious pod from Krypton, with its occupant unrevealed. Could it be Krypto the Superdog? (Awesome!) Beppo the Super-Monkey? (Yes, that’s a thing.) Streaky the Supercat? (OK, she isn’t from Krypton in the comics.) It could even be Kara herself – a clone, a parallel-world version, a Bizarro. Really, it’s sci-fi, so anything’s possible.
So with all that going on in other shows, it seems unlikely that Flash would pull a Flashpoint that upends them all for what would amount to a season-long, four-show crossover. But the fact that all the pieces exist for such a thing to be possible is exciting all on its own.
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"Flashpoint" art copyright DC Entertainment Inc.
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