So many guest-stars in this episode of “The Flash,” and more crossover with “Arrow.” This week, the Atom and Felicity come visiting Central City for an old-fashioned superhero team-up and come face to face with an old school Silver Age Atom rogue from the comics, updated for TV, called, believe it or not, the Bug-Eyed Bandit! Meet me after the super speed jump for my thoughts on “All-Star Team-Up.”

The Atom

If we’re having a team-up, we need to know who’s teaming up. Over on the “Arrow” side of this DC TV Universe continuity, we’ve been introduced to Ray Palmer, played by former man of steel from Superman Returns, Brandon Routh. As Palmer, Routh is basically doing his Clark Kent from that film, yet acknowledging his smarts and his muscles, and with that super-cool-nerd combo, he has managed to get Felicity into his arms. Although Caitlin’s observation later in the episode that Ray is kinda a mix of both Barry and Oliver both stings and rings, if you know what I mean.

Ray Palmer is also the superhero known as the Atom. In the comics the Atom is one of legacy of heroes (almost like that of the Flash) whose powers revolve around shrinking. White dwarf star material in a belt mechanism allows him to shrink to any size from six inches to subatomic, while retaining his own mass and strength, or becoming lighter than air to fly, or even traveling along telephone signals with electric particles. Yeah, it’s classic Silver Age comics science, but then again, that’s what the Flash is all about too, so it’s all good.

Advanced Technology Operating Mechanism

The bad part is that the showrunners at “Arrow,” and over here at “The Flash” aren’t giving us that Atom. There’s white dwarf star material involved, Ray’s got nanobots that are shrinking computers that saved his life recently, and he’s calling himself the Atom, much to Cisco’s chagrin, but that’s about where the similarities stop. This Ray Palmer AKA the Atom gets his powers – like flight, lasers, and body armor – from a suit, the A.T.O.M. suit.

A.T.O.M. means Advanced Technology Operating Mechanism. Really, can you get much more vague than that? This isn’t the Atom we know from the comics other than barely in color scheme. If we were to recognize this character from the comics, I might say Iron Man from marvel Comics, or X-O Manowar from Valiant Comics. I really have to wonder if this is what the showrunners were shooting for, couldn’t they have found a better match in the DC Comics catalog than the Atom, or couldn’t they just create someone new? Don’t get me wrong, I like the character that Routh is playing, it just ain’t the Atom is all.

The Bug-Eyed Bandit

Other than the omnipresent shadow of Harrison Wells as the Reverse-Flash hanging over the proceedings, the villain our two heroes have teamed up to fight this episode may be an obscure one even for the most hardcore fanboys and fangirls amongst us. One of the more embarrassing members of the Atom’s rogues gallery, and yes, he has one, is Bertram Larvan, also known as the Bug-Eyed Bandit. He was a crooked inventor who built robotic insects to do his bidding.

Writer Marv Wolfman was quoted as saying he could not be involved in a company that had a character called the Bug-Eyed Bandit, and killed him during the Crisis on Infinite Earths. But comic book characters, no matter how lame, always come back. Later writers just called him Larvan to avoid the silly moniker, but that could never help his costume. As bad as he sounds, I always say, there are no bad characters, only bad writers. It’s proven here with Larvan, just like the Rainbow Raider in the first Arrow/Flash crossover.

Joe and Sons

Here’s where we stand at the start. Barry knows Harrison Wells is the Reverse-Flash. And now Eddie knows who the Flash is. As opposed to the current state of the Arrowverse right now, the only person who doesn’t know Barry is the Flash is Iris (as amusingly noted by Eddie this episode), and let’s face it, really she should be the only one who does know. But that’s an argument for another time.

I kinda dig the teamwork between Flash, Joe and Eddie as they clean up the streets. Granted, Eddie doesn’t seem like he’s having fun, but they’re getting the job done. Joe is having a ball doing his job with his two ‘sons,’ and Jesse L. Martin has a great hearty laugh we don’t hear enough. Love it.

Birds and Bees

We then cut to a professor being attacked by bees in her car at the Applied Physics & Robotics department at Hudson University. Old comics readers like me will remember this old Easter egg. Hudson University, located in the comics upstate from Gotham City (North Jersey actually), was where Dick Grayson, also known as Robin and later Nightwing, both attended and dropped out of college. Nice to see it remembered, even if hundreds of miles out of place.

After disagreeing about working with Wells, Joe and Barry decide to go about business as usual, but not letting Cisco and Caitlin in on their secret about Wells. Secrets like this are becoming more and more a part of this show, even though that more a trademark of the visiting “Arrow” cast than this one. Team Flash figures there’s something weird about the bees when suddenly Felicity shows up… with her boyfriend, flying in in full awkward armor. Cisco has the perfect Superman line, “It’s a bird…” etc. Ray needs help with the suit, and let’s face it, Felicity is always welcome on the show.

Bee Careful

Both victims turn out to be former employees of Mercury Labs, home of Dr. Tina McGee. While it’s always nice to see Amanda Pays, it would have been nicer during the ‘old home week’ of “Tricksters.” Has it occurred to anyone else that she would make a good replacement for Harrison Wells once he’s revealed once and for all as the Reverse-Flash? One interesting tidbit we learn here is that the Flash symbol on our hero’s chest is actually a defribulator, cool.

Our villain turns out to be a disgruntled employee, a Brie Larvan, who controls lots of robotic bees. Surprise, surprise it’s Emily Kinney in the role, Beth from “The Walking Dead,” thankfully sans her guitar, but with a rather snazzy super-villain outfit. I was more than a little disappointed by the actual ‘all-star team-up’ of this all-star team-up. The Flash and the Atom don’t even actually team up against the Bug-Eyed Bandit, they just separately chase and get chased by robot bees.

Secrets and Lies

While the binds of distrust get snapped as far as Cisco and Caitlin go, secrets are still wearing on other relationships on the show. Eddie is apparently a terrible secret keeper, or Iris, with her reporter mentality, can see right through the boy. They break up, for who knows how long, but Iris is now back to living at home with Joe and Barry – and in no way is that going to work out well. It was never a comics storyline that I liked, but I wonder if this bad blood between Barry and Eddie might be the start of Cobalt Blue, and the generations long feud between the Allens and the Thawnes? I love me some comics, but that might be leaning too far into soap opera land.

Also, Barry and Joe finally let Cisco and Caitlin in on their suspicions/conclusions about Harrison Wells being the Reverse-Flash. Caitlin seems a bit hesitant to believe it, but Cisco gets another of the weird flashbacks he’s been getting of late, nightmares and waking dreams of another reality, another timeline, where Harrison Well’s reveals himself, and kills Cisco.

Obviously this leads directly into next week’s episode, aptly titled, “Who Is Harrison Wells?”

Who is Harrison Wells? This is the big question and the mystery that has haunted the cast and viewers of “The Flash” since the very beginning. We’ve known he’s the Reverse-Flash for quite some time, known he’s the Eobard Thawne version of the character for a while, and known how he got here and now for just a few weeks. But it’s been a slower process for the characters in the show to realize all this, and now it’s all coming to a climax. Add in a trip to two other comic book cities, and a shape-shifting villain, and we’ve got a full plate this episode. Meet me after the super-speed jump for my review of “Who Is Harrison Wells?.”

Friends and Foes

We open on a fanboy or girl’s dream, an Easter egg that sent many of us into nerdgasms. The Flash, while doing his usual intro monologue about being the fastest man alive, runs to Coast City, passing a sign welcoming him to the city, the “home of Ferris Airlines,” and of course, Green Lantern. During the Silver and Bronze Ages of comics, the Hal Jordan Green Lantern and the Barry Allen Flash were the best of buddies, sort of like how Superman and Batman used to be, upcoming and misinterpretive films notwithstanding.

The Flash was there picking up pizza for a planning meeting with Joe, Eddie, Cisco, and Caitlin regarding Harrison Wells being the Reverse-Flash. Joe and Cisco are headed to Starling City, Arrow’s territory, to find out what they can about the accident that killed Tess Morgan. Caitlin is still unsure of this, and begs out. I’m getting a very bad cold feeling about this. If her loyalties lie with Wells, is it possible that the potential future Killer Frost might just be a pawn in Wells’ game like Grodd?

Everyman

This one is relatively new as far as comics characters go, the villain of this episode is based on Everyman, who first appeared in 2006. His real name is Hannibal Bates, yeah, a combination of exactly who you think it is – Hannibal Lecter and Norman Bates. He is a particularly nasty piece of work, a shapeshifter, who by eating some part of a victim’s body, to obtain their DNA, he can change into an exact duplicate of them. In the comics, this bizarre power set came from experimentation by Lex Luthor, and he has partnered in the past with Cupid, a villainess who has recently plagued Arrow over on his series. His name was even on Arrow’s infamous list of people who had failed his city.

Here on “The Flash” Everyman is played by Martin Novotny, who most recently, and perhaps appropriately, appeared over at “Bates Motel.” The television version is a bit more family friendly, as he only has to touch a victim to take on their form, and utilizes the other actors throughout most of the show. What is most notable about his ‘true form’ is his striking eyeless resemblance to the Inhuman Gordon over on “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” Who would’ve thought that having no eyes would ever become ‘a thing?’

Frenemies

While Joe and Cisco are off in Arrow-land, Eddie and Barry make for difficult partners in tracking the new metahuman in town. The two don’t have the best track record under the best conditions. Nobody bought Caitlin’s ‘lightning psychosis’ explanation, I mean, come on, not even Lois Lane at her dumbest would fall for that. And then there’s the Flash Fact from the comics that the Allens and Thawnes have never gotten along.

Cobalt Blue aside, the two have mutual jealousy regarding Iris, and Eddie’s lying to her has split them up. He could very well spill the whole Flash secret just to get her back. In the meantime, this unlikely duo work together to investigate Hannibal Bates. Their prey’s powers working by touch keeps Barry at bay and from using his speed. It also makes it easy for Bates to kill other cops as Thawne.

Framed

The TV version of Everyman has made a career of framing folks for crimes they didn’t commit since the particle accelerator accident – so notably he’s not an anomaly like Deathbolt. So what’s he’s done to Eddie is nothing new, it’s proving that Eddie is innocent that is the hard part. Thankfully this solidifies Barry and Eddie’s relationship (and even leads to the safe confession to Iris at the end), but then things get worse.

Everyman has already been Eddie, so he’s able to get to Barry and become Barry. When Caitlin shows up, talking like she knows all, Everyman follows her back to STAR Labs as Barry. Fun with cast members, as well as juicy fodder for coming soon reels, continues when faux-Barry kisses Caitlin, and Wells zaps faux-Barry. More shenanigans of the like fills the slow spots of the rest of the episode, because, let’s get real, we don’t care about Everyman, we care about the Reverse-Flash and the mystery of Dr. Harrison Wells.

Crossover

Seeing Joe and Cisco interact with Quentin Lance and Laurel Lance AKA the Black Canary is actually just the kind of thing one would have expected and liked to have seen during that first official crossover. I loved that Cisco improved, and named, the Canary Cry. This is fun, almost as fun as seeing Starling City in the daylight. One has to wonder however after last week and this week, does “Arrow” need a ratings boost from all this Flash attention? It has not been the best of seasons for “Arrow” as far as I’m concerned…

Joe and Quentin get on well, and that’s good to see, and wish we could see more of it. At the site of the Morgan/Wells accident, Lance’s coffee rises out of his cup, like when Barry’s mother was murdered, and just before Barry was struck by lightning. Cisco says it’s from tachyons – from time travel. I guess that’s another clue toward the idea that the lightning bolt is Barry, traveling back through time after being killed in the Crisis.

What the Frak?

Speaking of the Crisis… this show, and “Arrow” for that matter, is beginning to get like Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings with its multiple endings. One of them is shocking, but let’s do the not-so-exciting ones first. Joe and Cisco find a body in Starling City, a perfect DNA match for Harrison Wells, meaning when Tina McGee said Wells was a completely different person, he was a completely different person. This also convinces Caitlin, warding off a possible chill.

Later, while Wells is at police headquarters, subtly threatening Joe in that wink-wink-nudge-nudge way he has, the rest of Team Flash have found a secret room at STAR Labs… the Braille room. Not only is it full of tachyons, but Barry’s speed touch opens its doors. The first thing they see is the costume of the Reverse-Flash, and then the second thing they see is the holographic newspaper from 2024, about the Flash vanishing after the Crisis. Now what?

Next: “The Trap!”

With the discovery of the Braille room at the end of the last episode of “The Flash,” the cards are pretty much on the table as far as everyone knowing Dr. Harrison Wells is the Reverse-Flash. But does he know they know? And what will he do when he finds out they know? Things are getting fast and furious, meet me after the jump for my review of “The Trap.”

Revelations

We open on the scene in the Braille room just seconds after the end of “Who Is Harrison Wells?” Barry, Cisco, and Caitlin have seen the Reverse-Flash’s costume and have turned their attention to the holographic newspaper from the future. We’ve seen the headline before, we know the date, but this time we get even more details as they read on.

The article written by Iris West-Allen in 2024 describes a street battle between the Flash and the Reverse-Flash that ended with our hero vanishing in an explosion of light. It also says Starling City’s Green Arrow, Atom, and Hawkgirl (recently cast for the still untitled spin-off, but a character never before mentioned on either CW DC series) were helping him.

Gideon

And while Cisco is still pondering a brighter red Flash costume with a white chest symbol as in the future newspaper photo, he inadvertently activates Wells’ artificial intelligence, Gideon. The A.I. recognizes Barry at once, describing him as director of Central City Police, CSI division – and a founding member of… wait, was she about to say ‘the Justice League’ before being interrupted?

As Wells enters the building and time ticks away to get answers to questions, the trio find out the Reverse-Flash is here to kill Barry, he killed Nora Allen because he was angry at Barry escaping, Wells needs Barry to be the Flash, and that da da dum, Barry Allen created Gideon. Therefore she won’t tell Wells they were there. Whoa, that’s a lot in the first five minutes of the episode.

Engagements

Did I mention Eddie also asked Joe for his blessing to ask Iris to marry him? And Joe said no? Yeah, all in five minutes. Later Eddie, excited, shows the ring to Barry and asks him to ask Joe why he denied him when he asked for the blessing. Yeah, after seeing that future newspaper byline, Barry is more than freaked out.

Joe confesses to Barry that he knows Eddie isn’t the right man for Iris, that he knows Barry is. There’s also a weird subplot undercurrent with Captain Singh’s upcoming wedding. I can’t help but wonder if his fiancée Rob is doomed because in the comics, Singh eventually ends up with the Pied Piper? There’s a close call with that fire – maybe just the showrunners teasing the fanboys and fangirls.

The Dreaming

After the Braille room encounter, Team Flash, sans Wells obviously, tries to put the pieces together. Barry confesses to his time travel experience, and they determine Cisco’s dreams must be what happened in that temporally prevented day. What Caitlin comes up with a plan to enter Cisco’s dreams to find out what really happened in the alternate timeline.

With Wells’ unknowing and unexpected help, they find a way to talk to Cisco while he’s dreaming, giving details of Wells’ confession to his real identity and the murder of Nora Allen. Thankfully they managed to wake him before Wells kills Cisco again. This would have been a great place to throw a Doctor Destiny Easter egg our way, but it didn’t happen. There is a great commercial break cliffhanger however when Wells calls Barry right after Cisco comes to, and asks where he is.

The Trap

To get the confession they need, Team Flash prepares to duplicate the circumstances of the time aborted night when Cisco was murdered. This time however our man has set a force field trap to hold speedsters. There is the same amount of suspense here as there was the first time Cisco was killed. After we return from commercial with Wells walking toward Cisco the tension is thick with dread.

And then it all goes wrong. It was a trap all right, one of the Reverse-Flash’s making. The man Joe shoots dead isn’t Wells, it’s Everyman from the last episode. Wells is on the loose, finally revealed and free to do as he pleases. And when Barry checks the Braille room, he finds it empty, except for surveillance of all of them, including Iris. Wells has been watching, and has presumably known all along.

The Thawnes

While the Flash runs off to find Iris and make sure she’s okay, the big moment of truth for Eddie is just about to happen. He’s about to propose. The Reverse-Flash gets there first, and the derision with which he treats the engagement ring says volumes about who Iris eventually ends up wedded to. As the Flash arrives, it seems obvious that Iris was in fact, not the target, Eddie was. Wells sweeps him off to an untold location and calls Eddie his insurance. Eventually, once proper introductions are made, Eddie realizes he’s the villain’s ancestor.

Meanwhile the Flash promises to find Eddie, touching Iris and leaving a short burst of electricity on her skin. Epiphany. During the episode we had been treated to “Arrow“-like flashbacks to Barry’s time in a coma. In some, we see why Joe feels guilty for all of this, because he let Wells take Barry to S.T.A.R. Labs, but in another, we see Iris witness that electric touch while Barry was comatose. Yeah, baby, now she knows…

Next: The one we’ve been waiting for… “Grodd Lives!”

We have been hoping and waiting for this since we first saw his wrecked cage in the pilot for “The Flash,” and now it’s here, no, now he is here… Grodd. Find a place to hide, guard your mind, and meet me after the jump for my review of “Grodd Lives!”

Super Gorilla Grodd

In the comics, Grodd is perhaps the most powerful creature born on this planet. He has fought the Justice League of America more than once, he’s gone toe to toe with Superman, and engaged in hand to hand combat with Kalibak, son of Darkseid. Dangerous and formidable, even without his super powers, he is still a larger than normal gorilla who could tear an opponent apart or literally bite their face off. And he has a very special hatred for the Barry Allen Flash.

Born deep in the jungles of Africa in a shielded and advanced city of super-intelligent apes, Grodd was the black sheep, the rebel child. He wanted nothing more than to unseat Solovar, the peaceful leader of the apes and rule Gorilla City as its absolute ruler. Then when he saw the vast world of mankind outside he wanted to rule that too. I am simplifying things quite a bit, but there you go, how much simpler can you get than a super-intelligent gorilla with telepathy, telekinesis, and the power to dominate minds. He is along with the Reverse-Flash, one of the few recurring Flash villains not to be a member of Flash’s Rogues Gallery. He does not play well with others.

Iris

We open with our usual voiceover intro by Grant Gustin as Barry Allen, but quickly it’s followed by one by Candice Patton as Iris West. Her dynamic as an actress and character in the show has changed completely between last episode and this one. Although teased more than once, she now knows that Barry is The Flash. As with all situations like this, it’s a matter of trust, and protecting loved ones from danger, but let’s face it, folks, in the real world, when you have a secret identity, you’re living a double life, and somewhere along the way, you are a liar.

Iris takes this kinda hard, and not just because it’s Barry who’s been lying to her, but because pretty much, everyone she knows has been lying to her. It is like the worst kind of being cheated on – when you are the last person to know it’s going on. We’re talking about one of those cases where it’s not paranoid when everyone is out to get you. It may take a long time for Iris to trust any of these people again. Patton steps up easily to this new role, where she should have been since the beginning, in my opinion.

Golden Distraction

Before Iris makes her dramatic appearance at S.T.A.R. Labs to confront Barry that she knows he’s the Flash, the team is being confounded by a new problem while they search for the Reverse-Flash and the kidnapped Eddie. There’s a new costumed menace in town, this one wearing some sort of golden facemask and enacting gold robberies. Comics fanboys and fangirls all start pondering who it could be based on the appearance of said villain and the type of crimes being committed. It’s a fun guessing game.

Could it be Goldface, maybe Mr. Element, or even Doctor Alchemy? And let’s not mention for simplicity’s sake that those last two are the same person. When the Flash arrives to foil one of the robberies he’s affected by some sort of mental attack, something inducing fear. Once apprehended and placed in the Pipeline, Team Flash and viewers alike are treated to a surprise (unless of course you saw his name in the opening credits), it’s Clancy Brown’s General Eiling, battered, but still alive.

Grodd Hate Banana

Now is where it gets kinda creepy, and the showrunners makes innovative live action use of Grodd’s powers. Grodd is speaking through Eiling, like Regan MacNeil in The Exorcist, just without the pea soup, a frightening effect, as if a nine foot tall gorilla stalking the sewers of the city wasn’t scary enough. At least Grodd knows who he should be loyal to, a leftover from his time in a cage at S.T.A.R., but he also remembers how he was tortured by Eiling – these are the images he inflicts on victims via his mental attacks.

A disastrous trip into the sewers, with a slight “Doctor Who” vibe that had me thinking of being hunted by Yeti in the London Underground in “Web of Fear,” comes next in which Joe is captured by Grodd. The special effects for Grodd are impressive, and everything I would have hoped for. I remember the 1990s “Flash” series where Grodd was re-imagined offscreen as a 1950s gangster because the special effects of the time could not manage anything better than a guy in a gorilla suit. I am so happy it’s 2015, and Grodd lives on my TV set, just as I imagined him.

Suds

The soap opera is strong in this episode, what with all of the Iris stuff, but I think it’s worth it. She is an excellent addition to Team Flash as I mentioned above. In fact, it is Iris who pulls Barry out of Grodd’s thrall to let a train whack the big gorilla. She did what neither Cisco nor Caitlin could do – their love is one that transcends time and space, life and death, after all. Iris also has it out with her father as well over trust, and is glad to have him back at the end. Some trust is won easier than others.

Barry and Iris may not mend as easily. The McGuffin is of course Eddie’s safety. If Flash saves Eddie, she goes back to him, and if he doesn’t save him, Iris will probably never speak to Barry again. A frightening thought occurred to me while Wells taunted Eddie this episode, what if Team Flash sacrificed Eddie to ensure the Thawne bloodline never happens, and Eobbard Thawne is never born? It may be a way out and a very desperate measure… and one I’m not sure Iris would ever survive…

Next: The Flash, The Arrow, and Firestorm vs. the Reverse-Flash? But whose side are the Rogues on?

The Flash is looking for a little help from his friends (and enemies) to fight the Reverse-Flash. He not only recruits Arrow and Firestorm (why not the Atom?), but also Captain Cold and his evil kid sister. Yeah, he’s that desperate, but can he trust these Rogues to be loyal when it comes down to it? And what about all the other villains out there, and imprisoned in The Pipeline? This is just one of the only two episodes of “The Flash” left, so the final battle is coming. Meet me after the treacherous super-speed jump for my thoughts on “Rogue Air.”

Culinary Secrets of The Pipeline

For a long time we have wondered about the feeding and care of the super-villains who have been imprisoned in The Pipeline beneath the Particle Accelerator at S.T.A.R. Labs, now it seems we might have at least a couple answers. Below in a deleted scene from last week’s episode, “Grodd Lives,” we learn a little about both the prisoners, and their varied culinary tastes. My question is – who’s paying for all that take-out? And let’s not even discuss the plumbing involved after that…

So, who all do they have locked up in The Pipeline now, sans trial and civil rights? There’s the Weather Wizard, Peekaboo, The Mist, the Rainbow Raider, and Deathbolt. Am I forgetting anyone? At large we have Captain Cold, Heat Wave, the Golden Glider, the Pied Piper, and Super Gorilla Grodd. Things could get very bad if something went wrong at The Pipeline, or if all these baddies got together… now that would be the worst that could happen…

Promises, Promises

After the Flash’s opening monologue, always made fresh with each episode by including new footage from previous weeks, Harrison Wells gives his own ominous one, directly to Eddie. It’s both menacing promise and threat, as we see the show’s cast, and Wells talks of losing everyone close to him, and what he’d do to get them back. And he will get them back. Cue sinister villain laugh track.

The next scene has another man making promises that he probably can’t keep either – Grant Gustin’s Barry Allen talking to Candice Patton’s Iris West. She’s a mess, conflicted by the events of the last couple episodes, and doubting (as are we) that the Flash is ever going to find Eddie. Let’s face it, if the Flash has looked ‘everywhere,’ where else could Eddie be? The answer is obvious, right under his nose.

Reactivation and Relocation

The Reverse-Flash has been hiding inside S.T.A.R. Labs, inside the particle accelerator itself. Not only that, he’s using future tech to reactivate the accelerator. While Team Flash finds Eddie, they lose Wells, and realize he has pretty complete control over things there. To distract them, he releases Peekaboo, who is much more vicious than her comics counterpart. It’s not a nice encounter.

If the accelerator reactivates, the prisoners in The Pipeline become toast, so a plan is put together via Lyla over in Starling City to transport the prisoners to Lian Yu, the notorious Flashback Island prison where Captain Boomerang and Deathstroke are held. Joe tries to go through legal channels but it ain’t happening. Barry, obviously inspired by the Arrow, decides that he needs to save lives, at any cost.

Saints and Sinners

As Foreigner’s “Cold as Ice” plays in the background, Barry meets with Captain Cold at a bar called appropriately enough Saints and Sinners. He needs help transporting the prisoners, thinking that freezing them while they are on the way to the airport would be the way to go. Cold’s deal is that Barry deletes all records, traces, etc. of Leonard Snart from police and public records, and he’ll help. Barry explains that the prisoners pose a danger to the city Snart loves, and you know, better the devil you know than the one you don’t. Against Joe’s wishes, the deal is struck. My question is – didn’t Cisco originally create the cold gun? So why does Barry need Snart?

Prisoners the Mist, the Rainbow Raider, Peekaboo, Deathbolt, and the Weather Wizard are frozen, loaded into the back of a truck and driven to an abandoned Ferris Air landing strip outside the city. Cold notes that he heard that Ferris Air got shut down to which the Flash responds, “It did, one of their test pilots disappeared.” Great reference to Hal Jordan AKA Green Lantern there, I wonder if we’ll be seeing more of this Easter egg next season? Lisa Snart also makes Cisco give her a name finally… you guessed it, “the Golden Glider.” And then… the worst thing that can happen, happens…

The Future

Since being released, Eddie’s been avoiding Iris and when she confronts him, with questions why, and her knowledge he was going to propose to her – he hits back with the truth, the future. They don’t get married, as the Reverse-Flash told him, Barry and Iris get married. Now as a Back to the Future fan, I have to wonder, do they not get married because Wells told him that, or because they don’t get married?

This is like when Cisco first sees the brighter Flash costume in the future newspaper in the Braille Room back in “The Trap” – why does Cisco change the costume? Because it’s a cooler mix of colors or because seeing the image gave him the idea to change it. Chicken or the egg, Eddie or Barry? And now that Eddie has given up and broken up with Iris, will the future happen as it is supposed to, or because those involved have been told it’s supposed to…?

The Worst That Can Happen

Barry is not the Arrow, the Flash is a completely different kind of hero, and he just can’t play the game like the Arrow does. Unfortunately, Barry learns this lesson the hard way. Much like the tale of the scorpion and the frog, Captain Cold is a liar and a criminal. He cannot overcome his nature, and sabotages the truck, so the prisoners recover early, and are ready when they arrive at Ferris. They break out and Team Flash is under siege by evil metahumans.

I thought the conflict would come out differently with the villains attacking each other inside the truck, but once the doors open and they see the Flash, for the most part they present a unified front. Don’t think for a second that Captain Cold doesn’t see this. He is taking the notion of an organized Rogues Gallery very seriously at the moment. With the Flash wounded, Cold allows the villains to escape, making sure they know they owe him. Next season (or maybe next episode!) will be very interesting…

The Payoff

My wife has a favorite line that she likes to say while watching many of the TV programs and movies I like. “Is it time for the good guys to win yet?” When the Rogues get away and Cold and the Glider ride away triumphantly, she said it, obviously discouraged by what is usually a bright spot in superhero television of late. Luckily, the showrunners did not leave us on such a sour note, there was more to come.

With the particle accelerator finally online (I’m guessing this will open a path through time for the Reverse-Flash to return home), Wells returns to S.T.A.R. Labs. The Flash is now ready for him, having contacted friends Firestorm (and how did he do that?) and the Arrow (pulled him out of Nanda Parbat from R’as Al Ghul’s clutches??), he has help.

This seeming fight to the finish begins when Wells points his lightning bolt ring at them and his costume comes out of it. This is exactly how Barry Allen changes into the Flash in the comics, his ring compressed into a tiny compartment in his ring and expanding on contact with the air. Yeah, I nerdgasmed. My only problem is that Ray Palmer is mentioned, but where was the Atom? The fight was awesome, well worth the wait, and giving my wife the happy ending she wanted.

Next: The Season Finale – will Barry be “Fast Enough?”

This is it, the first season finale of what is, so far, in my opinion, the best comic book superhero television series ever done – “The Flash.” The villain of the season, Harrison Wells AKA Eobard Thawne AKA the Reverse-Flash has been captured, and now muct answer for his crimes. Why does he hate the Flash so much? Why did he kill Barry’s mother? And can Barry save her by traveling back in time? Will he be “Fast Enough”? Meet me after the time jump and find out.

Confrontation

First things first, with Harrison Wells imprisoned in The Pipeline, and the Flash all done helping out Arrow with his season finale, it’s time for the two speedsters to have a little chat. Wells/Thawne/Reverse-Flash lays it out for Barry. He comes from 136 years in the future (as opposed to the 25th century in the comics), and they have always hated each other, why doesn’t matter, but once Thawne found out Barry’s name, he sought to eliminate him completely by going back in time and killing him as a child.

I found it interesting that no matter how much Barry hates Wells, or Wells expresses anger for Barry, there is still a bond. Wells is still the mentor, and still looks on Barry, and later Cisco, as sons. He has grown against his will fond of his archenemy. All along the way in this episode, even though they all know he is the Reverse-Flash, and know the horrors he has committed, he is still the man who has helped and guided them for years. At one point, Wells even chastises team Flash about how they have worked side by side for so long fighting super-villains.

Into the Past

The Reverse-Flash goes back in time, the Flash follows, they fight, and Barry manages to save his younger self by getting him out of the house as we saw inexplicably (at the time) in the series pilot. The Reverse-Flash is so angry that his enemy has foiled his plan, he decides that a tragedy is just as good as the murder of his foe, so he murders Nora Allen in a fit of rage. It’s then however, as we saw in “Tricksters,” that Thawne learns he can no longer access the speed force, and is trapped in that time.

Eobard Thawne has no choice but to create the Flash so he can get home. From there he kills and becomes Harrison Wells, and begins work on the particle accelerator. With all the backstory out of the way, the real negotiation begins. Thawne offers Barry a deal – get him home, and he’ll show Barry how to save his mom. With no Wells to consult with, Team Flash gets Prof. Stein and Ronnie Raymond. After a pep talk on alternate timelines and dangerous paradoxes, Barry is still conflicted over whether to save his mom. Joe tells him, “This is why you became the Flash.” Barry’s dad is against it. He doesn’t want him to change the way things are, his son, the natural order of things.

Love and Loss

Ronnie tells Caitlin he’s back for good. So they finally get married, which is long overdue, by Stein who apparently and conveniently is also a rabbi. Her wedding dress is quite close to the outfit worn by the original Killer Frost in 1978’s Firestorm #3, right down to the pearls. Rumors do have Caitlin making that transformation quite soon. I hear they already have the costume… or perhaps it’s just the wedding gown?

But that’s not the real decision at stake here. Barry seeks the advice of Iris. They talk a lot of what ifs, and Iris doesn’t really seem all that upset at the possibility of being Iris West-Allen, hyphen or not. She even suggests that it’s their living together as ‘brother and sister’ that kept Barry from revealing his feelings to her.

What if this was the showrunners’ intentions all along to erase this first season via time travel, and reset everything as it is (or at least closer to) in the comics? It’s not like it hasn’t been done before. “Dallas” did it decades ago by dismissing an entire season as a dream. They did it badly, but they did it. Would the folks at “The Flash” dare try such a thing… or would it just be… a flashpoint?

The Secret Origin of the Reverse-Flash

Time travel is a big part of the Flash mythos in the comics, and the folks behind the scenes are implanting that into the TV show as well. I’ve talked before about the Cosmic Treadmill, a machine that the Flash built to help travel not just through time, but also across dimensions. This machine is also a big part of the secret origin of the Reverse-Flash as well. In the 25th century, Eobard Thawne is the Flash’s biggest fan, so much so that he has his face altered to look like Barry Allen. He also recreates the electro-chemical accident that gave the Flash his powers and treats an old Flash costume with it, reversing its colors, giving him super speed when in contact with it. And he finally uses the ancient relic the Cosmic Treadmill to travel back in time to meet his idol.

The Treadmill is almost five hundred years old and faulty, transporting Thawne to a Central City years after Barry Allen has died saving the universe (the multiverse really) in the great Crisis. Wandering through the Flash Museum, a tribute to his hero, he finds that he is featured in a display… as not only the Flash’s most dangerous enemy, and an evil insane super-villain, but also as a man Barry Allen murdered in self-defense. Thawne’s mind snaps.

After some time thinking he is Barry Allen, he is confronted by Wally West, Barry’s protégé and the next Flash, who further reveals Thawne’s future crimes to him and hands him his first defeat as the Reverse-Flash. Once back in his own time, the now deranged Reverse-Flash dedicates himself to fulfilling his destiny and planning the Flash’s destruction – so he won’t die at his former hero’s hands. So yeah, time travel is also a bad thing in Flash comics.

The Perils of Time Travel

If Barry tries to go back and save his mother, he has to be careful. As we saw in “Rogue Time,” the showrunners are fans of Back to the Future style time travel, where any changes made in the past can affect the present day in crazy ways. We’ve seen this before in other science fiction examples like Ray Bradbury’s classic “A Sound of Thunder” all the way to The Butterfly Effect, which it inspired, to Flashpoint in the comic books themselves. And Flashpoint is exactly why Barry shouldn’t save his mother…

Flashpoint is the event that changed the DC Comics universe forever from its old continuity to the New 52. There’s even an animated feature about it. Long story short, the Reverse-Flash goes back in time and kills Barry’s mother, so Barry goes back and saves her. When he returns to the present, the world is in danger as a war between Atlanteans and the Amazons threatens to destroy the planet. Barry has no super speed. And while Nora Allen is alive, Henry Allen has passed away. There is no Superman, there is no Justice League, and Bruce Wayne is dead – his parents so affected by his death they became the new present’s Batman and Joker. To save the world, to save the present, Nora Allen must die. Time is not to be tampered with.

Coincidences

Vibe, yeah, baby, Vibe. The reason Cisco could remember the alternate timeline is that he was affected by the particle accelerator accident too. He is possibly on his way to becoming something, someone very special – Vibe. Wells is shocked at first to learn that Cisco remembers what happened, and then realizes why. It’s part of that charm we spoke about earlier. Wells is still connected to Team Flash, hell, at times in this episode, he is still a part of Team Flash.

While the particle accelerator is being readied, and Wells’ time machine being built, there’s lots of downtime, and so a lot of talking. The best bit is the pep talk Professor Stein gives Eddie. The detective is feeling low obviously, and says that he doesn’t matter. While being held prisoner by Wells, he saw the newspaper that said he was nothing. Stein’s comeback was priceless. Oh yeah, he has a coffee mug that says he’s the ‘world’s best boss,’ but it doesn’t make it true. Eddie is the one thing science cannot explain – a coincidence.

Wells needs a time machine to get home so he has Cisco and Ronnie build him a time sphere, yeah, like in the comics of the Legion of Super-Heroes and Rip Hunter. The latter even gets namedropped. Don’t think this isn’t a coincidence because the new “Arrow”/”Flash” spin-off, “Legends of Tomorrow,” features the character of Rip Hunter, ironically played by Arthur Darvill, no stranger to time travel as a former “Doctor Who” companion.

Run, Barry, Run

Decision made to save his mother, no matter what the cost – whether it means alternate timelines, or Team Flash never knowing each other, or possibly losing (or gaining) Iris, Barry is doing it. Oh and yeah, when Barry first accesses the speed force, and sees images from his past and future, don’t blink, because that is Killer Frost!  And the Flash Museum.  When Barry gets back to the scene of his mother’s murder, there’s a surprise waiting for him – himself. As he waits for his future self, dressed in the bright red costume with the white chest symbol (when will our Barry get this outfit? Cisco, I’m looking at you), to save his younger self, so he can save his mom – some thing happens. Future Flash looks at him, holds up a hand, and shakes his head no. Don’t do it.

Future Barry knows something, whether it’s Flashpoint or something else we’ll find out later. Present day Barry stays hidden while the deed is done, and once the Reverse-Flash leaves, he shares the last moments with his mother. Bittersweet doesn’t cover it, but I think we were all tearing up as Barry holds and talks with his dying mother. It’s something, not what he wanted, but something. Barry is on the clock however and must rush back to the present.

Heroes

While Barry makes his way into and out the past, Team Flash readies Wells’ time sphere for his trip home. As the machine warms up, a metal hat, like that of the god Mercury materializes. Someone asks what it is, and Wells answers that it’s his cue to leave. Comics readers will recognize the helmet immediately (and I was so happy and proud The Bride knew) as that of the Golden Age Flash, Jay Garrick. This was obviously an Easter egg for the comics folks, and possibly a mystery for next season (maybe from a parallel dimension?), but we don’t have too much time to ponder the question as Barry comes crashing into the time sphere.

With his way home once again destroyed, the Reverse-Flash is enraged and the super speed battle begins anew, lightning and fast punches flying everywhere. Suddenly a gunshot rings out. It’s Eddie. He’s shot himself in the chest, and I feel the lump in my throat as I realize what has happened, what he’s trying to do. No Eddie, no bloodline, no Reverse-Flash. By killing himself, he has assured that Eobard Thawne will cease to exist. His dying words in Iris’ arms are that he wanted to be a hero, her hero. …and is that the Flash ring around Eddie’s neck??

The Future

As the Reverse-Flash fades from existence, the wormhole opened for these little time trips has gone unstable, and has become a black hole. It’s not just Central City in danger, but the entire world. With nice cameos of many of the lesser supporting cast members looking up into their doom, the Flash doesn’t waste any time to rush to the rescue. His plan, the run the damned thing backward just as he did to Clyde Mardon’s tornado back in the pilot.

As the Flash runs up buildings and across debris to begin his reverse whirlwind, the credits roll. It’s not so much a cliffhanger as it is a full circle. We know he’ll do it, and he’ll be the hero. That’s what this show has always been about, and that’s why I love it. I cannot wait for the second season. I stand by my opening statement that “The Flash” is the best comic book superhero show, so far. Great cast, great writing, great effects, and my favorite superhero… I have no complaints. What did you folks think?

While it was quite easily the best season finale of this television season, and of the best comic book superhero television series ever, in my opinion, – the “Fast Enough” episode of “The Flash” left perhaps more unanswered questions than the questions that it in fact answered. And although, sneak peeks and trailers aside, it will be between five to six months before we even have a hint to those questions, we can have some fun guessing. Meet me after the jump, and let the speculation begin!

Time Travel

In the comics, the Flash has always been about time travel. The Cosmic Treadmill, a time travel (and dimensional travel) device is centric to many stories as well as the Flash’s own power to break the time barrier. Enemies the Reverse-Flash and Abra Kadabra were from the future, the 25th and 64th centuries respectively, Iris West herself was born in the early pre-Legion 30th century, and it has theorized that Barry Allen himself was the lightning bolt that gave him his powers, traveling from the future to do it.

Therefore, it shouldn’t be a surprise that the television series should follow suit immersing itself in the minutiae of time travel storytelling. The basis and the big bad of the first season were steeped in it, and his end was brought about by it. Eobard Thawne, AKA Harrison Wells, AKA the Reverse-Flash, was from an unspecified point in the future (he gave different answers at different times, he is a liar), and ceased to exist when his ancestor Eddie took his own life before procreating.

Back to the Future

The showrunners have made no secret of their love of the Back to the Future film trilogy, so one might assume, along with the many in-jokes and references from the movies, they might also be playing by the Back to the Future time travel rules as well, right? If this is the case, when there are alternate timelines, only the actual time travelers (Cisco being the exception because he has the power to see alternate timelines) should be able to remember what was, and what has been changed.

If you remember the movies, only Marty, and at some points Doc, remembered how things were, and what they became. It was never explored in the films, but one has to wonder if, and for how long, they retained memories of the various timelines. Or, more importantly if they had memories of new timelines they created while changing the past. Now let’s use these Back to the Future rules to figure out what may have happened on “The Flash.”

Good (and Bad) Vibrations

As stated, Cisco Ramon, who in the comics is the superhero Vibe, will remember the timelines that have been erased. Vibe has not just the power to see other timelines, but to enter other dimensions (more on this later), and also more conventionally, generate waves of concussive force, a sort of vibrational attack. While I think a spandex costume, a superhero name, and a Justice League membership are not in his immediate future on television, I think we will definitely see Cisco as our (and the cast’s) guide to these alternate timelines. Even if folks don’t remember Eddie or the Reverse-Flash, Cisco could easily tell them about them.

In this way, Cisco will be our reality check from the first season if everyone else remembers it differently. I hope that won’t be the case. I suspect that everyone who was there at the end, when Eddie sacrificed himself to stop the Reverse-Flash, will remember the timeline as it existed – although the rest of the world might not. There is a distinct possibility that everyone else on Earth remembers everything happening slightly (or maybe drastically) differently.

Reversing the Reverse-Flash

Time travel makes my head hurt sometimes. You might ask, that if the Reverse-Flash never existed, why did Eddie sacrifice himself? And who killed Barry’s mother? Well, the obviously answer is that it is a paradox, and just leave it at that, because, as I said, time travel makes my head hurt. Perhaps the world will remember Eddie dying while stopping some other threat? The Reverse-Flash maybe?

In the comics, Eobard Thawne was not the only Reverse-Flash. He was preceded in the Golden Age (just wait) by Dr. Clariss who also called himself the Rival, and a speedster named simply Zoom took on the title some time after Thawne died in the comics. Zoom was especially nasty as he was former police profiler Hunter Zolomon who specialized in the Rogues Gallery. He was deranged in a most unique way, trying to teach the Flash to be a better hero by living through tragedy. Zoom also moved physically through time rather than having actually super speed. Perhaps it is one of these Reverse-Flashes the world remembers instead?

The Real Harrison Wells

Let’s approach this from another direction. If there’s no Reverse-Flash, the real Harrison Wells doesn’t die, and he’s right on track building the particle accelerator with Tess Morgan. But… without the Reverse-Flash’s interference and help, it won’t be finished until 2020. Sooo… maybe the Flash got his powers some other way… maybe a lightning bolt from the future? And how did the Rogues, and Cisco, get their powers? Showrunners Greg Berlanti and Andrew Kreisberg have suggested that there’s a new way for villains to get their powers, maybe for the speedsters too?

Also, seeing how actor Tom Cavanaugh, who portrayed Wells/Thawne/Reverse-Flash, will also be a regular cast member in season two, I’m betting on the real Harrison Wells still being alive, and villainy aside, performing much the same mentor function he held in season one. The trick will of course be the rest of Team Flash trusting him after what they went through with someone who looks just like him in the first season. And while we’re talking cast, Rick Cosnett, the actor who played Eddie Thawne, will make a few appearances in season two as well. I’m guessing either flashback, or parallel dimension counterpart.

The Golden Age Flash

That’s right, parallel dimensions. In the comics, the Flash was not just a pioneer in time travel, but also in crossing over to other dimensions. It was Barry Allen who discovered Earth-Two, and the Golden Age Flash. As I’ve said before, there have been more than a few Flashes, but mainly three big ones. Barry Allen was the Flash from 1956-1985, returning from beyond in 2008; Wally West, the former Kid Flash took on the mantle in 1985 after Barry died in Crisis on Infinite Earths, and was the Flash until 2011, and then there’s Jay Garrick, the original Flash of the Golden Age of comics.

Jay Garrick gained super-speed in a hard water experiment in 1940 and began fighting crime as the Flash in a red and blue uniform and silver Mercury-like helmet. Yep, the same helmet that was thrown from the wormhole in “Fast Enough.” Originally Jay Garrick existed on a parallel Earth designated ‘Earth-Two,’ where a generation of heroes began their careers in the shadow of World War II. Jay and Barry became fast friends and visited each other often. And in case you’re wondering, the Speed Force, among other things, kept Jay young, and aging at a slower rate than normal humans.

The Multiverse

This may be how Barry and company meet the Golden Age Flash, and alternate Eddie Thawnes as well, and any number of parallel dopplegangers. There are a few things which describe the mythology of the Flash. There’s the Rogues Gallery, Flash Facts, time travel, the Speed Force, legacy… and the Multiverse. Here’s a tricky secret for you all – Barry knew all about Jay Garrick before they ever met, because he read about him in comic books as a kid, comic books that chronicled the adventures of the Golden Age Flash as they happened. Flash Fact: Barry even named his superheroic identity after Jay’s, the Flash.

The Flash was one of the primary explorers of parallel Earths, and along with the Justice League, discovered more than a few. The scientific thinking on the Flash’s world was that there was an infinite number of other-dimensional Earths and universes. Until 1985, when a crossover event called the Crisis on Infinite Earths destroyed them all except one, the one that Barry Allen died saving. This is highly speculated to be the ‘crisis’ referenced in the Reverse-Flash’s holographic future newspaper. If the Flash doesn’t exist, Thawne has no future to return to.

Speculation

So I think it’s a definite that we will see both Jay Garrick and the real Harrison Wells. There has been talk of other speedsters, so perhaps we will also see Wally West as well, maybe as Kid Flash. Grodd and Pied Piper are still on the loose, as are the rest of the Rogues who owe Captain Cold. Seeing the gathered Rogues against the Flash should be a treat. Considering how successful they were, we will definitely be seeing more crossover with “Arrow,” and I am sure there will be crossover with “Legends of Tomorrow” as well. If there will be the same with CBS’ “Supergirl,” we’ll just have to wait and see.

From the Flash’s journey through the Speed Force, we know that eventually we’ll see the Flash Museum from the comics, and that our hero will end up in jail at some point, and that Caitlin will become Killer Frost finally. Or will she? That could be an other Earth doppelganger. As I talked about on a recent episode of The GAR! Podcast, I’d like to see Doctor Alchemy and Mr. Element make an appearance, I’d like to see more of the Saints and Sinners bar, or maybe hear more about that missing Ferris Aircraft pilot who may or may not be Hal (Green Lantern) Jordan. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

What did you think of my theories? And what would you like to see in season two? The new season just can’t get here ‘fast enough.’

You enjoyed “The Flash” this season, can’t wait for the second season to premiere, and have been following my reviews here at Biff Bam Pop!, but how well do you know the Flash from the comics? Comics can jump the shark and get out of control sometimes far worse that television shows, and the Flash is no exception. Meet me after the jump for my top ten most outrageous Flash facts. It gets wild, and weird, you’ve been warned.

Flash Facts

When the Barry Allen first appeared in the 1950s, comics were struggling to be good after a close call with Congress and the mad psychiatrist Fredric Wertham tried to shut them down for supposedly promoting juvenile delinquency among other horrors. So as a stop gate to that kind of reputation, comics tried to do their small part to educate. In the Flash comics of the Silver Age, caption boxes with pointer fingers contained ‘Flash Facts,’ which were mini-science lessons about what was going on the story – like for instance, how the Flash could run on clouds or vibrate his molecules through walls.

10. Abra Kadabra

Eobard Thawne, the Reverse-Flash from the 25th century is not the Flash’s only enemy from the future. There’s also Abra Kadabra, the aptly and ironically named magician from the 64th century. Of course, he’s not really a magician, or even named Abra Kadabra. Citizen Abra came from a time where science is so advanced that to someone in our time it would seem like magic, so wanting to become a stage magician, and being catastrophically obsessed with approving applause – he came to the 20th century.

Of course, with his ‘magic’ making things it so easy, he was quickly corrupted to become a super-villain in our time, and so crossing paths with the Flash. In their battles, Abra most notably turned our hero into a living puppet, and made him believe that his career as the Flash was just a fantasy as he lay in a hospital bed crippled by the accident that supposedly gave him super speed. Later he interfered with the Flash’s trial for the murder of Thawne, and was disfigured by an explosion, making him even more deranged. He remains one of the Flash’s more dangerous foes.

9. Gorilla City

We got to see Super Gorilla Grodd toward the end of the first season, and seeing how he escaped at the end, I’m sure he will be back next season. In the television series, Grodd is a gorilla who was affected by the particle accelerator as well as being experimented on before that by the government – both resulting in his advanced strength, size, intelligence, and telepathic and telekinetic powers. In the comics, things are a little different, Grodd is just one of a race of super intelligent apes that live in a hidden city in Africa.

Grodd is the black sheep, the evil rebel son of a society of gorillas who were affected by the radiation of a crashed alien ship. These gorillas became super-intelligent and telepathic, and built themselves a city of advanced technology, hidden from the civilization of man. Led by their king Solovar, and later his son, Gorilla City has become less isolationist, even joining the United Nations. Believe it or not.

8. The Dude

We’ve talked about Flash’s Rogues Gallery before, but did you know that the Flash is not only their enemy and prime target, but also a member? At one point, the Flash knew that the villains were getting together for a convention, and to find out what they were up to, he concocted a new identity, that of a new Rogue using a variety of weapons and gimmicks derived from turn of the century old timey stuff. He called himself The Dude, and no, not Jeff Bridges from The Big Lebowski.

This knock-off of a barbershop quartet wannabe not only claimed to have fought the Flash, but to have also defeated him. The Dude even engaged the hero in combat at the villain convention personally, using speed so fast he could be in two places at once, similar to what Harrison Wells did the first time Team Flash met the Reverse-Flash. The Dude successfully infiltrated the Rogues, and also apprehended all the convention attendees as the Flash in the probably best forgotten tale in Flash #231.

7. The Secret Origin of Iris West

You think you know everything there is to know about Iris West, don’t you? On the show, she grew up in the same house with adoring Barry and her dad is Detective Joe West. The comics are a bit different. The caucasian Iris West-Allen was born in the early 30th century on an Earth divided into East and West and was in a state of civil war. The analogy was extended farther by an android Abraham Lincoln who tried to negotiate a peace between East and West. It gets crazier as he was assassinated by an android John Wilkes Booth. Did I mention that Central City in the future is all inside one gigantic building?

After Iris was murdered by the Reverse-Flash, she was revived in the 30th century by her parents, and later Barry joined her there, and for a time, they lived happily ever after. They had twins, which run in the family (more on that later) and a grandchild who would become Impulse, a young speedster who would be sent back to the 20th century for Wally West, who then the Flash, to train. It was from this time that Barry Allen returned to his own time to sacrifice himself to save the universe in the Crisis on Infinite Earths.

6. Comic Book Continuity

Barry Allen is a big comic book nerd. I think they may have even touched on this fact in the television series. We know he’s a bit of a geek, but he’s also into the comics. In the comics, his favorite superhero is Jay Garrick, the Golden Age Flash, and yeah, when Barry gains super speed, that’s why and who he names himself after – his hero from the comics, the Flash.

What’s really weird is that later Barry actually meets Jay Garrick on the parallel world called Earth-Two. There he learns that the adventures he read about in the comics actually happened to Jay, and that it was theorized that the writer of those stories tuned in psychically in his dreams to the real life adventures of the Flash and made comics of them. It gets weirder. Barry later discovered Earth-Prime, where both Barry and Jay were comic book characters.

5. Earth-Prime

So Barry is on Earth-One, Jay is on Earth-Two, there’s an Earth-Three with an evil version of the Flash, and even an Earth-X where Germany won World War II, but then there’s Earth-Prime… that’s where we live. That’s where comic book writers psychically tune in to those other parallel Earths and publish those adventures as if they’re fictional comic book superheroes. Have a headache yet? I don’t, I think the multiverse is fun.

One time the Flash was stranded on Earth-Prime and had to build a makeshift Cosmic Treadmill to return home, which he did, leaving that device in editor Julie Schwartz’ office at DC Comics. A few years later, two writers accidentally activated the Treadmill and journeyed to both Earths-One and -Two, causing all sorts of trouble with what was on those worlds, the power to alter reality. I wonder if DC still has that Treadmill?

4. The Origin of Kid Flash

Coincidence is a fickle and strange creature, not only that, sometimes lightning does strikes twice. Case in point, Wally West was Iris West’s young nephew, and he hero-worshipped the Flash. On a visit to Central City, Barry promises to introduce Wally to the Flash, which he does at Barry’s lab. While standing in front of a chemical cabinet just like the one the night he became the Flash, the hero tells Wally how he got his powers. Just then, a lightning bolt smashes through the window and bathes Wally in electrified chemicals. Guess he gains super speed?

One in a gazillion chance, right? Right. Still, that’s what happened. You could get away with that kind of stuff back then. Readers were easy and we didn’t mind, besides, now we had Kid Flash. Wally fought crime with his Uncle Barry for years before eventually becoming the first sidekick to take on the mantle of his mentor. After the Crisis on Infinite Earths, Wally West became the new Flash. Rumors persist that we will see Wally in the second season.

3. The Lightning Bolt

I’ve mentioned the Crisis on Infinite Earths many times before. It was a crisis event of multiversal proportions, with the Anti-Monitor, a cosmic villain from the anti-matter universe of Qward seeking to destroy all other universes. It was the first of the major crossover events that took place over the entire title line of a comics company. Characters died, were born, and entire universes were wiped out. It was the first, and it was a big deal, and among the heroes who died in the conflict were Supergirl, and the Flash.

The Flash ran faster than he had ever run before to destroy a machine the Anti-Monitor devised to destroy the final few universes left. Our hero succeeded but in the process he crossed the barrier from matter to energy, transforming into living lightning, and traveling backward through time to become the very same lightning bolt that strikes the chemical cabinet and gives Barry Allen his super powers.

2. Cobalt Blue

Take a deep breath, because this one is going to get wacky. Barry Allen is a twin. And his twin brother was switched at birth and given to a family named Thawne, whose child born at the same time had died. Yes, the very same Thawne lineage that eventually births Eobard Thawne, the Reverse-Flash. The child, named Malcolm Thawne, was raised by a family of con artists and criminals who also possessed a power called the blue fire.

When Malcolm learned who he really was, he became obsessed with Barry Allen, spying on him from afar, eventually becoming a janitor at the police station where Barry worked, and witnessing the accident that gave him super speed. Jealous, he became the villain Cobalt Blue, and endeavored to steal the Flash’s speed. The rivalry between the Thawnes and the Allens lasts until the 30th century when one of Barry and Iris’ children marry a Thawne.

1. Mopee

Back in the day, all of the big DC superheroes had their own pests from the Fifth Dimension, impish creatures of untold arcane power who dedicated themselves to the hero worship or mischief of their chosen targets. The most famous of these was Mr. Mxyzptlk who pestered Superman every ninety days, and then there was Bat-Mite who worshipped Batman and tried to help him as much as possible, the results ending in disaster more often than not. Aquaman had Quisp (no, not the cereal or its mascot namesake) and Wonder Woman had Leprechauns, and the Flash, well, he had Mopee.

Mopee looked as if he was a middle aged Harry Potter who never grew up, bald patch, wonky glasses, a wizard complex, and one very specific claim to fame. Mopee said he was responsible for the creation of the Flash. Eleven years after Barry Allen was imbued with super speed by chemicals electrified by a lightning strike, Mopee returned to Earth to remove those powers. A loophole insisted that Flash couldn’t keep the speed given when Mopee sent that lightning bolt. Thankfully, Flash got to keep his speed and Mopee has vanished into obscurity.

Yeah, the comics are really good, but the comics are, at times, absolutely insane too. What are your favorite outrageous Flash Facts? And do you want to see any make the jump to television?

If you were a regular viewer of “The Flash” television series last season, or just a reader of my episode-by-episode reviews of that series, you have heard the word “Crisis,” usually mentioned with more than a bit of dread. You’ve seen that holographic newspaper from the future in the Reverse-Flash’s Braille room, that also talked about a “Crisis” and red skies. Crises in the comics are usually bad news for Flashes. Meet me after the jump and I’ll try to enlighten you on the legendary Crisis on Infinite Earths.

The Golden Age Flash

Most of you out there, even if you aren’t comics historians, know that Barry Allen is not the first person to go by the name the Flash. The super-speed hero was first created back in 1940 by Gardner Fox and Harry Lampert in a comic book titled appropriately enough Flash Comics #1. This speedster, who wore a facsimile of the god Mercury’s winged helmet, was named Jay Garrick – and before you ask, yes, he’ll be appearing in the second season of the TV series.

Jay, who since then has become known as the Golden Age Flash (because of the era of comics he appeared in) and also the Earth-Two Flash (for reasons I’ll get to momentarily), was wildly popular. He not only had stories in Flash Comics, which was an anthology title featuring a handful of other characters, but he spun-off into his own title, All-Flash, with stories just about him, but was also a founding member of the Justice Society of America, participating in a majority of the team’s cases. As the 1950s began however, for a number of reasons, superheroes became passé, and the Flash vanished. For a while.

New Flash for a New Age

Whereas the period of roughly 1935-1951 was considered the Golden Age of Comics, it did not take long for a Silver Age to dawn, and Barry Allen was at the forefront. In 1956, the powers that be at DC Comics felt the time was right for the superheroes to return. Editor Julius Schwartz decided they should bring back the Flash, but he didn’t think readers would remember the original Flash, at least not in this time before the internet – he was wrong, as we’ll see. This new Flash, since they had a chance to create one for this new atomic age of science, was much different from the original, while still being the hero with super speed.

And so Barry Allen was a whole new character from Jay Garrick, with one little nostalgic nod in the mix. Barry himself was a comic book reader, and loved the Flash, so when he suddenly gained super speed, he naturally took his inspiration from this comic book version of the Flash who was portrayed as Jay Garrick. The problem was that readers did remembered the Golden Age Flash, and now that they had a new hero, and one who loved the original as much as they did – they clamored for an appearance by Jay Garrick.

Flash of Two Worlds

Gardner Fox, who had had experience writing both Flashes at different times concocted a tale in which the two speedsters met. “Flash of Two Worlds,” one of the most iconic stories in DC Comics history, appeared in 1961’s Flash #123. Barry Allen accidentally discovers a new power, the ability to traverse other dimensions, and journeys to a world that would soon be designated as Earth-Two, with Barry’s home world being Earth-One. Once he realizes he’s in Keystone City (Jay’s fictional comics hometown), not Central City, he tries to find his idol.

Barry soon finds that everything he had read in his favorite comics was real in this world. A later theory suggested that Gardner Fox had tuned into events on both Earth-Two and One in his dreams to write the adventures of both Flashes. Anyway, Barry makes fast friends with Jay, and together they battle three of the older Flash’s super-villains who had been on a crime spree to bring their enemy out of retirement. The plan works, along with Barry’s urging, and Jay becomes active again, protecting Keystone City once more as the Flash.

Earth Escalation

The Silver Age, as I had mentioned was based in science. Other characters from the Golden Age who had been revived – like Green Lantern, Hawkman, and the Atom – all had new incarnations with scientifically based origins. Earth-One became very populated with heroes quite quickly. And just as the Flashes began to interact across the dimensional barrier and team-up more often, so did the Green Lanterns, the Atoms, and even the modern day Justice League and the Golden Age Justice Society began to meet. These last meetings became an annual tradition, these stories always being referred to with titles including the word “Crisis.”

Earth-One and Two, and the concept of parallel universes became commonplace in the DC Universe. But that wasn’t enough. Soon an Earth-Three was discovered, a world ruled by super-villains. Then the world where Gardner Fox wrote comics about those other earths, our world, was designated Earth-Prime. There was Earth-X, where the Nazis won World War II and heroes from Quality Comics continued the fight; Earth-S, where the heroes of Shazam from Fawcett Comics lived; and Earth-Four, home of the Charlton Comics heroes. Every time DC acquired another out-of-business comics company, they were deposited on a new parallel Earth.

Confusion and Solution

While it never confused me – I understood the multiverse at six years old – there were some folks writing comics at DC who could not keep up. Or more accurately, they couldn’t be bothered to do a little research, and let’s face it, when I say do a little research, I really mean read a few comics. And if you’re a comic book writer, and reading a few comics to research what you’re writing about is too hard, well… I really don’t know what to say about that. Either way, in the summer of 1985, a Crisis was coming, a decidedly final one for the Multiverse.

A plan was underway to end the confusion. What may have started as a history of the DC Multiverse started to transform into the bullet to destroy it, and thus the Crisis on Infinite Earths was born. The story, a 12-issue maxi-series, written by Marv Wolfman and mostly penciled by George Perez, with a little help from Jerry Ordway and others, depicted a villain called the Anti-Monitor destroying the universes one by one with a wave of anti-matter. Only one Earth would remain in the end, an amalgam of five of the main Earths, and in the process, heroes would die.

The Event

This would be the ultimate story told in the DC Universe at that time. Every character supposedly be involved or at least appear, from all through time – past, present, and future – outer space, the old west, World War II, and every iteration of parallel worlds. This event would appear in every DC comic as well, the first crossover event of its type. Whether it was actual story details or just red skies (a symptom of the destructive anti-matter wave), the Crisis would be felt everywhere.

What would make this event resonate as important and final to readers, the powers that be wondered? They would kill some of their characters in this epic battle – major characters. They talked of characters who might be redundant in a post-Crisis world, some created characters to die in the story, some suggested they off those whose continuity might be hard to reconcile with only one universe, and some characters were killed off because they just didn’t know what to do with them any more. In that last category was the Flash.

The Victim

At the time that the Crisis on Infinite Earths series was being planned, the Flash was not in good shape. In just a few years, Barry Allen’s life had been turned upside down. His wife, Iris West Allen had been murdered by the Reverse-Flash, who had in turn been apparently killed by Barry. His face had been surgically reconstructed after a particular nasty combat. There was an aborted wedding and an angel dust freak out as well, not to mention the comic’s flagging sales. The Flash was a mess.

There was more to it though, in my estimation. For over a decade The Flash had been written by Cary Bates. It was his suburban married Flash that I grew up with and loved. Editorial interference brought on the death of Iris, and ongoing stories that never seemed to end – especially the “Trial of the Flash” for the murder of the Reverse-Flash. Bates had gotten stale, and didn’t know what to do with the character, why not kill him off, right? And of course, because he was at the core of the Multiverse in the beginning, he was the perfect martyr in destroying said Multiverse.

Savior of the Universe

Before pulling the trigger on everyone’s favorite scarlet speedster, at least Bates and Wolfman attempted to give Barry Allen somewhat of a happy ending. Iris had been restored to life in 30th century where she’d come from originally, and Barry joined her there, the future technology fixing his face as well. They lived for a time there (or is that then?), had twin children, and not one, but at least two grandchildren.

Happily ever after, yes, until he was pulled back in time to our present and captured by the Anti-Monitor. Barry, before burning himself out and reputedly becoming part of the Speed Force, destroyed the machine the Anti-Monitor was using to destroy universes. In the aftermath of a battle that also killed Supergirl (offed for similar bad writing reasons), Wally West, then called Kid Flash, took on Barry’s superhero name and became the new Flash, the first superhero sidekick to take their mentor’s place.

Aftermath

In the intervening decades, string theory made multiversal thinking real science, and eventually the post-Crisis DC Universe slowly became once again the DC Multiverse. Barry Allen returned from the dead, because comics, and we all know that comic book death is never permanent. He’s the Flash we see in the comics today, as well as the one on both the small screen and the future big screen.

Previews of the upcoming second season of “The Flash” suggest we’ll be seeing Jay Garrick, parallel Earths, and even Wally West. How their television counterparts differ or resemble their comics incarnations is still up in the air. We’ll just have wait and see. Perhaps the Crisis on TV has been averted, or perhaps it’s just starting… time will tell…

I don’t think I’ve have been this excited about a season premiere of a television show since the series premiere of “The Flash” last year. You see, the Flash isn’t just my favorite superhero, but Jay Garrick is my favorite Flash. To see him brought to life on the small screen is just pure nerdgasm. Meet me after the super speed jump for my thoughts on “The Man Who Saved Central City.”

Atom-Smasher

Now the problem is that Jay Garrick is in this episode precious little, but someone else from Earth-Two is in it, although in slightly different form. In the comics, Atom Smasher has been around in one form or another since the 1980s. As I mentioned in my article on the Crisis on Infinite Earths, the inhabitants of Earth-Two were older than those of our regular Earth, so stay with me, Atom Smasher is the godson of the Atom of Earth-Two, who was part of a second generation superhero team called Infinity Inc., composed of sons and daughters of that world’s Justice Society.

At the time Albert Rothstein was called Nuklon, and over the years has had a variety of powers, the most used and dangerous being the ability to grow to giant-size. His latest name comes from the possible future of Kingdom Come, the highly acclaimed end of the world epic by Mark Waid and Alex Ross. And if you think you’ve heard his civilian name before on “The Flash,” you have. He was listed by Dr. Wells as a victim of the particle accelerator explosion way back in “Power Outage,” along with a handful of other superhero real names. And yeah, for the record, in the comics, Atom Smasher is a good guy.

Lone Wolf

We open the way the best of any Flash story could. Our hero is fighting the team of Captain Cold and Heat Wave, and winning, not really needing the last minute helping hand of Firestorm. He returns to S.T.A.R. Labs, where everyone congratulates him, and then it gets weird. Iris is there, in a lab coat, and so is Eddie, and Harrison Wells who gets up out of his wheelchair to tell Barry that he’s ready to do this on his own.

Weird. A dream? A memory? Then Barry is alone at S.T.A.R. It’s six moths later from the singularity incident. The Flash is acting alone, as it’s the only way to keep those he loves safe. Somehow I suspect he’s the only one who feels that way. Still he appears to be on his way to a Flash Day celebration, for ‘the man who saved Central City,’ even if forced by Joe, or Iris. Hell, the whole city wants him there.

Catching Up

As a stranger (Teddy Sears as Jay Garrick) stalks Barry taking pictures, the murder of nuclear plant worker Al Rothstein is investigated. Our TV Atom Smasher, as well as the seemingly dead body, is played by the wrestler called Edge, also known as Adam Copeland. He appears to be strangled, and Joe is relieved when Barry tells him it wasn’t Grodd. Am I the only one who wondered how Barry knew that? Grodd is still on the loose, right?

We also find that Cisco is now working with the police as the scientific advisor to their Anti-Metahuman Task Force. Apparently they’re not completely dependent on the Flash. Caitlin is working with Mercury Labs with Tina Magee. And Iris is still missing Eddie. Six months is both a long time ago, and not long at all.

The Singularity

When last we saw our hero, he was racing directly into a black hole that was about to swallow Central City. While our hero is racing around the city, rebuilding businesses under the cover of night (like a real hero would, pay attention, Superman from Man of Steel), a flashback tells us what happened with the singularity. It was Firestorm, not the Flash who saved Central City, and Barry was only able to save Prof. Stein, not Ronnie Raymond… okay, now it makes sense.

It’s guilt that is powering this isolation complex Barry is pushing everyone away. This goes on for much of the episode, and it’s aggravating when we know, we know for a fact after twenty-three episodes last season, that Team Flash is the way to go, that our hero works better with a back-up team. Still, wasn’t it cool watching the Flash climbing up the debris to get to the singularity? Not all super speed stunts look good live action however, as evidenced by his windmill arms attacks later on.

Hooray, It’s Flash Day

One of the things that always annoyed me about current day television and film incarnations of superheroes is the idea that they either don’t exist or they are shadowy vigilantes wanted by the police. Some characters this does work for, but when we’re talking the Flash, nope, it doesn’t. Part of the character’s mythos includes the public’s love for him. The Flash Museum alone is proof of that. Of course I have logic problems with the idea of a place that houses the weaponry of the Rogues Gallery in it behind glass, I still love the idea of the Flash Museum.

Still, no museum yet, but we do have a Flash Day, and later, groaningly, a Flash-Signal. As I mentioned above, some ideas work, and others just do not. Please, no more Flash-Signal. When the Flash, at Iris’ urging shows up to accept the key to the city, our Atom Smasher shows up ready to fight, with no apparent motivation other than to rumble. The fight sequence is brief but the special effects impressed. He is however unmasked as Al Rothstein momentarily, adding to the mystery.

The Last Will and Testament of Harrison Wells

The weirdness is that records indicate Rothstein is still in the morgue, and that he was in Hawaii when the particle accelerator exploded. So what was Wells babbling about in episode seven? And speaking of Wells, apparently he left STAR Labs to Barry. Or at least a video flashdrive for Barry to watch. And I love the law firm who delivers it, see below.

I found Barry’s stubbornness ridiculous and annoying, but to see him mend bridges, especially with Caitlin makes it worthwhile. For just a few minutes, in a science fiction superhero action show, we got to see the range of actors Grant Gustin and Danielle Panabaker. Well worth it. What follows is, via flashdrive, what Barry has always wanted – Wells’ confession to the murder of Nora Allen.

Lord of the Rings

Like the third installment of the lord of the Rings films, this episode had multiple endings after the final fight and defeat of Atom Smasher. But first, did they kill him? That was a little unclear. First there was the release of Henry Allen from prison, followed by his need to get away. I call BS on Henry’s reasons for leaving. Does John Wesley Shipp have another gig, or do the producers just not like him?

Then there were Atom Smasher’s last words (?) when asked why he attacked the Flash. He said that if he killed our hero, he would take him home. Who’s he? “Zoom.” Yeah, it’s a name to chill readers of the Flash comics. Not only was Professor Zoom the Reverse-Flash’s nickname for decades, but it was the name taken on by the Reverse-Flash that next went by that name. This one was originally Hunter Zolomon, a Rogue profiler who went a bit mad, and constantly trying to make the Flash ‘better’ by fighting him. He’s a real creepy piece of work I am sure we will have lots more time to discuss in the future.

And then there’s Jay Garrick, who finally shows up and talks in the last few moments of the episode. We know he’s from Earth-Two, and we know he is his world’s Flash – it just hasn’t been said so yet on the TV series. Based on that however, here’s my Atom Smasher theory. This is not the Al Rothstein of our world, but of Jay Garrick’s world, where Zoom promised to send him after he killed the Flash. Who wants to bet?

Flash Facts

The letters in the opening scene are from Weathersby & Stone, the law firm from “Eli Stone,” where actor Victor Garber, who stars here as Professor Martin Stein, was a partner. Vito D’Ambrosio reprises his role as Mayor Tony Bellows. Fans of the 1990s “Flash” series might remember him as Officer Tony Bellows.

Cisco saying “Sweet Sarek” in exclamation may be the both the coolest and geekiest thing I have heard in a long time. For the uninitiated, Sarek is Spock’s father from “Star Trek.” The only good part of the Flash-Signal was that Cisco thinks he saw it in a comic book. Also did you see the Picture News van during Flash Day? All this and a new comics-close costume too! Until next time, kadima.

Next: Flash of Two Worlds!

If there was one comics story I would never have thought would be brought to the screen, small or silver, or even adapted, it would be “Flash of Two Worlds,” one of the most pivotal tales in the history of the DC Comics Universe. I had been asked in the 102nd episode of The GAR! Podcast what I wanted to see in “The Flash” this season, and never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined this. I am in nerd heaven. Meet me after the double super-speed jump for my thoughts on “Flash of Two Worlds!”

The Older Flash

Now I’ve talked about Jay Garrick, the original Golden Age Flash before, here and here, and drooled a little at his cameo at the end of the last episode. And yeah, that was his helmet that came through Harrison Wells’ time sphere last season in “Fast Enough.” Now he’s revealed himself as being from another world, just like in the comics.

Right up there with the excitement of having a live-action “Flash of Two Worlds” happening is seeing the live action Jay Garrick. This is a dream come true, my favorite superhero on TV. Teddy Sears is a perfect choice for a character, that had you asked me last year, I would have offered John Slattery from “Mad Men” as a possible perfect cast, but in hindsight, why does Jay Garrick have to be old? He only needs to be older, and having him be the Flash of his world for two years versus Barry’s one still gives him age and experience. I’m not just happy, I’m satisfied. I get Jay, not with the weakness of age, but with the strength of it.

Zoom

In the comics, Zoom is a crazy nasty piece of work, and third Reverse-Flash. He’s Hunter Zolomon, former Rogue profiler, who was crippled during a battle where the Flash was involved. When the Flash would not go back in time to save him from his paralysis, Zolomon went a bit mad, and later became the villain Zoom. Not technically a speedster, but more a time teleporter who appears to move a super speed. His maniacal goal was to challenge the Flash in order to ‘make him better, with these ‘challenges’ often involving killing the Flash’s loved ones or destroying his city.

The TV counterpart of this villain is a speedster who resembles a bluish Black Flash – itself a speedster whose touch means death, but that’s a whole different story. Zoom is a villain who seeks out other speedsters to destroy them so he is the fastest, and ultimately the only speedster, chillingly voiced by Candyman‘s Tony Todd. Zoom was trying to wipe out Jay Garrick, who we get to see in full red leathery costume in flashback, when suddenly the singularity from “Fast Enough” appeared in the ‘Earth-Two’ sky and whisked Jay away, helmet first, to ‘Earth-One.’

Earth-Two

There’s that multiverse thing again. The singularity pulled Jay from his world to our world, removing his speed in the process. And when Caitlin asks where he originally got his speed, he references the comics flawlessly – he’s a research scientist, an independent contractor, who was dropped into a coma by an experiment with hard water fumes. The fanboy in me was loving this. Jay also brought up that Atom Smasher was from his Earth, explaining last episode‘s mystery of the two Albert Rothsteins.

Speaking of explaining things, and this is for all those writers for pre-Crisis DC Comics who had trouble understanding the DC Multiverse, Victor Garber’s Professor Stein does it in under a minute here. He breaks the whole parallel universes thing down in just under a minute. Easy-peasy. Really, what’s not to get? I understood it all at six years old, but I guess I’m just special. The main thrust however is that Zoom is using folks from Earth-Two to kill our Flash, in exchange for transit back home. Does Zoom have access and control of the singularity?

Patty Spivot

We also have another new character/cast member this week, played by Shantel VanSanten, formerly of “One Tree Hill,” Patty Spivot will be Joe West’s new partner who wants in on the Anti-Metahuman Task Force. She is very determined and enthusiastic, a police officer rather than a police scientist, and graduated from Hudson University, alma mater of both Robin and the Bug-Eyed Bandit. She also has motive to be on the Task Force, the pre-Weather Wizard Mark Mardon killed her father. I like her, but she’s not Patty Spivot like the way Teddy Sears is Jay Garrick.

Patty is a Barry Allen fangirl, which is kind of refreshing, and also really wants to work with Joe. I wasn’t really happy that in her first outing she ends up a damsel in distress. There are also rumors of some romantic sparks with Barry Allen, as there have been in the comics of recent memory. Patty Spivot might be known to folks who follow the current New 52 version of The Flash in DC Comics the last few years, but I remember her a bit differently.

Ms. Flash

Patty Spivot’s first appearance in the comics was many, many years ago. Way back in the summer of 1977, in a one-shot comic called Five-Star Super-Hero Spectacular, which featured stories using heroes differently than how they were seen at that moment in 1977. We saw a Time Pool story of the Atom, space opera Green Lantern without then-partner Green Arrow, Aquaman fighting a fire-based foe in a desert, Batman’s first encounter with the master villain Kobra, and the ‘science-based’ origin of Ms. Flash.

This was a very different Flash story. While giving his new lab assistant Patty Spivot a tour of his lab, Barry Allen is witness to a metahuman hat trick. Lightning crashes through the window, electrifies a cabinet of chemicals, that then fall onto Patty. The same accident that happened to Barry, and his nephew Wally (Kid Flash) West, giving them both super speed, has happened again, but this time with a deadly difference. Her speed is causing disastrous side effects, so the Flash, demonstrating a brand new power – seeing the potential future in his mind, this entire story, in an instant – thinks at super speed and saves Patty from being affected by the explosion. No super speed, no Ms. Flash, no disaster.

Sand Demons

It’s not often I am stumped by a comics-to-television reference, but I have to say, this time they got me. In my defense, it was a character who appeared after I stopped reading comics for a while – doing more constructive things like dating and partying – ah, foolish youth. When I heard the name ‘Sand Demon,’ and in relation to a Flash, my first thought was a rare Golden Age story called “The City of Shifting Sand” from All-Flash #22 in 1946. The Superman foe Quarmer also came to mind, a creature made of sand that was at one time responsible for removing half of the hero’s power for a while.

The character in question is of course simply named Sand Demon, and is yet another Firestorm villain. First appearing in Firestorm #51, Eddie Slick was, believe it or not, a Professor Martin Stein lookalike and criminal who developed sand manipulation powers very much like Spider-Man’s foe, the Sandman. Here, Eddie Slick’s played by actor Kett Turton, and is decidedly not a Stein lookalike.

Team Flash

The new Team Flash works pretty well. Professor Stein is a good fit to substitute for Harrison Wells, and what he doesn’t have, Cisco and Caitlin have stepped up and filled in rather well. Even Jay, when Barry finally trusts him, is a good addition. But what is Iris doing? Her standing around seems a bit false, like when it finally occurs to you why is McCoy always on the bridge of the Enterprise? Barry even calls her out on it for not being a scientist.

This prompts a talk between Iris and Barry on why Barry has been a pain in the butt so far this season. He’s still feels guilt over the deaths of Eddie Thawn last season, and of course, Ronnie/Firestorm, the real ‘man who saved Central City.’ Candice Patton’s Iris comes out of her McCoy shell here, proving she’s moral glue that holds the team together, much like Katharine McPhee on “Scorpion.”

Flash Facts

Here are just a few of the bits and pieces that comprise Easter eggs for this episode, little factoids, Crackerjack prizes for those who follow the comics. When Stein explains the multiverse to Joe, he speculates that the Joe West of Earth-Two might be a prize-winning scientist, sort of like Ira West, Iris’ father (step, actually) really is. The Earth-One Eddie Slick served at Blackgate Penitentiary, which is in Gotham City, and where are the non-Arkham Asylum, non-insane, super-criminals that fight Batman are restrained.

Like a couple nerds, Barry and Patty easily bond over Monty Python and the Holy Grail references. In a crossover bit from last week’s episode of “Arrow” Team Flash watches Green Arrow’s broadcast. Cicso notes that he hates when “they stick a color in their name,” perhaps foreshadowing the hints of Hal Jordan and Ted Kord becoming Green Lantern and Blue Beetle in this TV continuity.

Flash of Two Worlds?

Now, in the end, this wasn’t really a television version of the classic comics story “Flash of Two Worlds,” but it was an exciting tale of Barry Allen and Jay Garrick teaming up against the forces of evil. I loved the way Jay called Barry “kid,” and was showing him new ways to use his speed, and man oh man, seeing Golden Age Flash in live action, super speed or not. And yes, as corny as it seemed to fans and non-fans alike, the re-enactment of the cover of Flash #123 was amazing. This was not only the best episode of the season, but maybe the series.

In the multiple endings tradition of Lord of the Rings, this episode does set up much for the future. There’s the appearance of Vanessa Williams (also from Candyman) as Iris’ mother, Cisco’s developing powers and his admission of them to Professor Stein, Stein’s collapse while explaining there are 52 (hello?) dimensional breaches in Central City, and the brief glimpse into the Tomorrowland-like S.T.A.R. Labs of an alternate Earth with Harrison Wells as its founder and savior… so much to munch on until next week…

Next: Colonel Cold and the family that slays together… “Family of Rogues!”

In the comics, it’s usually the heroes who have complicated backstories and casts of characters. All you need to know about the bad guys is that they are, well, bad. Some villains do have that background, and some have families, loved ones, origins, backgrounds, and motivations. Captain Cold is a good example. He has friends and family. In this week’s episode of “The Flash,” we learn a bit more about Cold. We’ve met his partner, his sister, and now, his father. Join me after the super speed jump for my thoughts on “Family of Rogues.”

Windows and Doors

We open, just as we did with the season premiere, on good old fashioned Flash super speed action, the type of which makes old fanboy’s like me swoon. In the pursuit of a story, Iris is being shot at in a high rise. She calls Barry, who tells her to jump out a window. After a couple ‘do you trust mes,’ the Flash runs up the side of the building and saves the day. Cue credit sequence. Love it.

Cut to later when Team Flash, including Jay Garrick, is examining the biggest of the 52 singularities in Central City, the one conveniently in the basement of S.T.A.R. Labs. They theorize that this wormhole could be developed into a ‘speed tunnel’ and used to get Jay home. But could it also be used by Zoom to attack our heroes in their home base? And again I am struck by the similarity of these science geeks to the “Scorpion” crew with Iris as their Katharine McPhee.

Family Crises

While Joe deals with the return of his wife Francine, who as far as anyone knows is dead, Team Flash in its civilian mode runs into the Golden Glider. No combat, just flirtation over lattes called Flashes, but she’s asking for help. Apparently her brother Captain Cold has been kidnapped. Heat Wave ran off, perhaps giving actor Dominic Purcell time for Gridlocked, but she’s on her own, and desperate for help.

Cisco has decidedly gone from scared of Lisa Snart to smitten, showing just how naive he is and how little he’s learned. I found it odd they bring her to S.T.A.R. Labs, so she could see them in action, know how they track Cold, etc. Talk about bad idea theater. When Flash goes to find Cold, he’s not being held or forced, he’s pulling a job with dear old dad, and freezes our hero. Lucky Cisco had the new suit built for such a circumstance. It’s one step away from Bat-Thermal Underwear, I almost laughed out loud.

Colonel Cold

Though unnamed in the comics, the father of Lisa and Leonard Snart was a complete bastard – abusive, alcoholic, and if memory serves, a disgraced cop. Here on the TV series, Lewis Snart, aptly played by perennial bad guy actor Michael Ironside, is a career criminal with much the same disposition as his comic book counterpart. Alone with Cisco, Lisa practically begs the good guys to save her brother, because if he’s with her dad, he’s in big trouble.

Now Cold and Glider may be sociopaths in their own specific ways, but Lewis makes them look like the good guys. Here’s the kind of monster Lewis Snart is – he put explosives in his daughter to get his son to do what he wanted. Now that‘s cold.

The Soap

Paralleling the bad guys’ family problems, Joe tells Iris the truth about her mother. She’s not dead, and worse than that, she’s not perfect. He tells her a sordid tale of a drug addict mother who left a little girl in a house filled with gas and an open flame. The suds are poured on so heavy, it makes things like super speed and multiverses more believable.

Iris of course understands. But, on that front, she hasn’t met her mom yet. Or at least not in years. Barry and Patty get closer, Cisco and Lisa (who leaves on a cool gold motorcycle) get closer, and even Jay and Caitlin get closer (I guess Jay hasn’t met future wife Joan yet over on Earth-Two?). It’s never a good idea when couples pair up on the CW. Something bad will happen sooner or later.

Barry and the Snarts

In order to save Lisa, Barry takes on the identity of Sam and joins Lewis’ crew as their new security expert. In a short sequence with a hot heist vibe, Lewis shoots Barry once the security system is bypassed. That said, this fanboy loved when Barry saved himself with Jay’s signature trick from the Golden Age comics – he caught the bullet with his bare hand.

Despite Captain Cold’s incarceration in Iron Heights for, yeah, the murder of his monster of a father, it seems that Barry and Len are developing a true friendship over and above any deals or codes or words. They care about each other. Perhaps this is what leads to Cold’s possible turn toward good in the upcoming “Legends of Tomorrow” series in 2016. I am stunned that the showrunners have actually made a bromance between the Flash and Captain Cold work. And work so much more believably than the mama drama going on with the Wests,

Flash Facts

Here are just a few of the bits and pieces that comprise Easter eggs for this episode, little factoids, Crackerjack prizes for those who follow the comics. It was nice to see Linda Park again, and the villain bar Saints and Sinners, where Barry treats Cold to some unluckily salty French fries. Speaking of fast food, I loved Jay’s comment about no matter what Earth one goes to, there’s always a Big Belly Burger. Well, except for, ahem, Earth-Prime…

There’s a callback to Captain Cold’s attempted heist of the Kahndaq Dynasty Diamond, and mention of the Central City Diamonds getting beat by the Salamanders of Keystone City in baseball. That last bit is interesting because Keystone is Jay’s hometown on Earth-Two, supposedly on the same site as Central City.

Cliffhangers

With the speed tunnel finished, Jay can return whenever he wants, but agrees to stay until the threat of Zoom has been vanquished. Professor Stein, whose health has been wavering, the blame being high blood pressure, dropped to the floor and started the Firestorm transformation. The problem is that the fire is blue, and there’s no Ronnie to merge with. What is that about? And if that’s not bad enough, that Harrison Wells from the end of the last episode (or is it?) is coming through the speed tunnel…

Next: A new Firestorm??

I’ve talked about this before, the name of the show is “The Flash,” but it, and the show it spun off from, “Arrow,” are wrapped in the mythos of another DC Comics superhero – Firestorm. Besides sharing his cast of characters, last season on “The Flash,” we even had the origin and appearances by the Nuclear Man, but in our season premiere, Firestorm gave his life (or half of it) to save Central City. Now a new Firestorm must be found, or his remaining half will die. Meet me after the super speed jump for my thoughts on “The Fury of Firestorm.”

Firestorm Frenzy

Just to check ourselves, here’s a quick rundown of the Firestorm connections so far in what has become known as the Arrowverse – the shared continuity of “Arrow” and “The Flash.” All three heroes served as members of the Justice League of America, and when Firestorm initial comic book was cancelled, his adventures appeared as a back-up second story in the Flash’s title. Professor Martin Stein and Ronnie Raymond fused to become the first version of Firestorm, and Jason Rusch, who we saw in “Revenge of the Rogues” was part of a later version of the hero. The showrunners sure do love Firestorm.

Besides Stein, Raymond, and Rusch, it should be noted that Caitlin Snow in the comics transforms into one version of the super-villainess Killer Frost, a major foe of Firestorm, who was glimpsed briefly in “Fast Enough.” The Flash has fought Multiplex and Sand Demon, both Firestorm villains. Two episodes have been named after him – his nickname “The Nuclear Man,” and this one “The Fury of Firestorm” was the name of the hero’s second series. And Felicity Smoak, a major character in both “Arrow” and “The Flash,” originated in the Firestorm comics. That’s just off the top of my head, I’m sure there will be more, some in this very episode…

The Real Ronnie Raymond

Now we know the real reason that Firestorm, or at least Ronnie’s half of Firestorm, died saving Central City in the season two opener. Actor Robbie Amell wanted to pursue a film career instead of being a big television star and live-action superhero like his cousin Stephen Amell over at “Arrow.” I like the positive attitude, but I didn’t think The DUFF did all that well, nevertheless, we are short one half of Firestorm.

Now it’s worth mentioning here, and it was also discussed on a recent episode of the Fire and Water Podcast, we haven’t really gotten the real Ronnie Raymond on “The Flash” yet. In the comics, Ronnie was a bit of a dumbass jock, nowhere near the physicist we’ve seen depicted on the TV series. With Professor Stein possibly dying without his other half, a substitute needs to be found. And this is not a far off concept in the comics as several folks other than Ronnie and Stein have been part of the Firestorm matrix over the years.

The Candidates

Caitlin has done some research on who might be an appropriate candidate to bond with Professor Stein to save him, and came up with two possibilities. One was Jefferson ‘Jax’ Jackson, played by Franz Drameh of Attack the Block and Edge of Tomorrow, who is the frontrunner because this episode opens on him making the winning high school touchdown the night the particle accelerator exploded. While saving a fellow student he catches a full dose of the blast. Hmmm… heroic, high school, dumbass jock… is this the real Ronnie Raymond? And it is worth noting that a Jefferson Jackson has been among Ronnie’s friends for decades.

The other is Dr. Henry Hewitt, a Hudson University graduate and physicist. Caitlin leans toward him because he’s a scientist – and a fellow Firestorm foe. Yeah, that’s right, in the comics, Henry Hewitt is the super-villain Tokamak. Like Firestorm he is nuclear-powered and had the ability to break down objects on a molecular level. One of his madder schemes involved cloning himself and merging with his clone in a similar fashion as our hero to gain Firestorm-like powers. Both mad scientist and corporate leader, he was evil double-time.

The Auditions

Caitlin was very happy to invite Hewitt to S.T.A.R. Labs and clue him into everything that was going on, short of Barry’s identity as the Flash, and let him know about the power of the Firestorm matrix. Since Jax had not been cooperative thus far, they tried to merge Hewitt with Stein… and nothing happened. Angry, and apparently looking forward to having great power with no responsibility as all future super-villains do, Hewitt left in a huff, but not before we get to see a flash of power emanating from his hand. We see it, but Team Flash doesn’t. That can’t be good.

When Barry finally gets Jax to come in to S.T.A.R., he asks about the treadmill and what kind it is. Barry answers, “Cosmic.” Love it! Here’s the gist – the particle accelerator blast messed up his knee, ruining his college football chances, and also his dreams. When confronted with merging with Stein and getting all those wacky Firestorm powers at first, he blows it off, and walks out.

Tokamak vs. Firestorm

Later in a fit of anger, Hewitt blows his lid, and manifests fire all over, but is also absorbing it as well. And it begins. When Caitlin goes to Jax to try to talk him into being a hero, he almost buys it until Hewitt shows up, spewing fire and energy. He’s mad, these aren’t the powers he was promised. Wow, what a spoilsport, no wonder he’s a super-villain. As Cisco and Caitlin later learn, the more angry and powerful Hewitt becomes, the more unstable, thus the name, Tokamak.

In the meantime, Jax has agreed to merge with Stein, and the Firestorm matrix takes to him quickly, and he takes to the power just as quickly. The best part is that Professor Stein is in his mind, more like the comics version of Firestorm, in so many ways, now more like the comics version. The battle is a lot of fun, if a lot of fire as well. And as in the comics, it takes more than one hero to bring down Tokamak. Jax as Firestorm is fun, and I want to see more, and look forward hopefully to a rematch with an armored Tokamak, just like in the comics.

Francine West

In the comics, Iris’ adoptive mother was Nadine West, with Fran Russell being the name of her natural mother in the 30th century. Much like the comics West father Ira West the absent-minded scientist became detective Joe West for television, Iris’ mom has similarly become a deadbeat con artist drug addict. In their first adult meeting, Iris blows her off. She hasn’t needed her for twenty years, and she doesn’t need her now. Cold.

On that however, Francine West pulls her trump card – she’s sick, and not just sick, but dying. I know my BS meter was going off. Investigative reporter Iris is having none of that, she checks the facts, and finds out mom is telling the truth – but hiding something else. When Francine left the family, she was pregnant, and eight months later gave birth to a son. The fatherhood is up in the air, but could it be… Wally West?

The Wisdom of Joe West

While Barry’s father figure, and usually being right, Joe West has not always made the best decisions. Keeping the fact that his wife has been alive all these years is one thing the benefit of which could be debatable. He is wise, but not all the time. Just like he always knew about Barry’s feelings for Iris, he also gets the vibe that Barry and Patty are flirting. He presses his son, but as suspected, yeah, Barry likes Patty but she’s not Iris. Still, Joe encourages Barry to explore a little.

As the applied sciences department of Mercury Labs is robbed by the Earth-Two Harrison Wells, this prompts the returning Amanda Pays as Tina McGee to contact Joe on the sly. After all, isn’t Wells dead, and why would he be without his chair even if he wasn’t dead? Joe has an idea of course, but he forbids Patty to mention it to Barry. Patty has a hard time with lying. Yeah, the showrunners are turning up the soap.

Land Shark!

Speaking of Patty, she’s also working on a case where citizens have sighted a giant human shark or a shark man, and even found teeth. Giving them to Barry to examine, he finds them to be human, possibly metahuman. Fanboy minds boggle – could it be the Shark, King Shark, or some new villain/creature? It’s left hanging for a bit.

Meanwhile, after the battle with Tokamak, who’s imprisoned in the Pipeline (why? Doesn’t Iron Heights have a metahuman section now?) Jax and Stein leave for Pittsburgh, a former homebase for Firestorm. I hope this isn’t for too long, as I enjoyed this episode. And who is the former colleague in Pittsburgh who trained Stein and Ronnie? I’m lost on this one, anyone have any idea? Lorraine (Firehawk) Reilly maybe?

And that’s when the shark shows up. We have more growing CGI as we did with Atom Smasher, and a very large shark-man, probably more King Shark than the Shark, sent by Zoom, and he attacks the Flash. The battle doesn’t go well, and when Patty empties her gun into the shark, he comes toward her. A hooded stranger with a ray gun of some sort takes him down… it’s the Harrison Wells of Earth-Two. Cue end credits.

Next: The Harrison Wells of Earth-Two, and Doctor Light in “The Darkness and the Light.”

Like meteor freaks or monsters of the week, breachers from Earth-Two sent to destroy the Flash on orders from Zoom have become status quo so far this season of “The Flash.” This week’s breacher goes by the name of Doctor Light, a character with a dangerous and twisted history and legacy in the comics. We’ll take a look at that, and the episode at hand, “The Darkness and The Light,” after the jump.

Doctor Light Vs. the Justice League

Back in the Silver Age of DC Comics, the concept of continuity as we know it today did not exist. What Superman was up to in Action Comics had no bearing whatsoever on his adventures in World’s Finest Comics or Lois Lane or Justice League of America or his own title. That’s just the way it was. DC didn’t catch up to that sort of stuff until the early 1970s. There were two exceptions. One was Zatanna’s search for her father Zatara that jumped from title to title for about a year, and the other was the insidious Doctor Light.

Doctor Arthur Light had appropriated Thanagarian technology that allowed him a variety of light-oriented powers, and using for evil, he crossed paths with the Justice League. Once beaten and imprisoned, Light surmised that he could not defeat the JLoA en masse, so determined to wipe them out one on one. Doctor Light began to appear in each of the Justice Leaguers’ solo titles in his quest to fight them individually. First he fought the Atom, then Green Lantern, and so on. It was feared by some readers that the villain might be right. Perhaps he was no match for the whole team, but just maybe…

Identity Crisis

As the Silver Age became the Bronze of comics, Doctor Light contended against the Flash, and Superman and Batman, and then later was humiliated more than a few times by the Teen Titans, and then he was beaten and incarcerated by literally some kids in costumes called Little Boy Blue and the Blue Boys. How the mighty had fallen, something drastic had happened behind the scenes, and a rather frightening retcon by novelist Brad Meltzer explained it all.

In the beautifully written and illustrated, but critically maligned, mini-series called Identity Crisis, we find out the tragedy caused by and the trauma inflicted upon Doctor Light. Before he battled the Titans, Light managed to infiltrate the Justice League’s satellite headquarters and battered and raped the Elongated Man’s wife. When the League caught him, they learned exactly how desperate and mad to destroy them Light truly was.

Darkest Hour

Rather than fight them individually, Light swore he would uncover their secret identities, hunt them down, and harm their loved ones as he had just done. He would get them, and they couldn’t stop him. A plan was hatched, it was suggested Light be magically lobotomized by Zatanna, removing any information he may have gathered on the League. A mad plan, a plan that not everyone agreed with. The Flash was convinced when Light brought attention to the fact he could see a wedding ring under his glove. Light was mindwiped.

Thereafter, he became inept, a joke, a loser who could not even beat a pre-teen hero named Little Boy Blue. And as the years went by, The League still used Zatanna to mindwipe and ‘reform’ villains who had learned secret identites or whatnot. Only Batman was against it, and he was mindwiped to make him forget, an action that would cause derision years later. And when Light got his memory back, he became deadlier than ever. All of this would come back to bite the Justice League in the butt later on. It’s a perfect example of ‘absolute power corrects absolutely.’

The New Doctor Light

Now we’ve talked about the Crisis on Infinite Earths before. A lot of characters were killed or changed, but there were a handful of new characters created. The new Doctor Light was one of them. Gaining light powers from the events of the Crisis, Japanese scientist Kimiyo Hoshi became the new Doctor Light, originally not the nicest person in the world, arrogant and belligerent, she was inspired by the death of Supergirl in the Crisis to become a better person, a superhero.

All that history and villany and legacy in the name of Doctor Light, and it turns out that the Dr. Light encountered in this episode of “The Flash” is neither of them, nor anything like them. She is, like the other breachers, is sent by Zoom to kill the Flash. While any of the Light costumes from the comics, we are given a slick reality version that I rather like. Many superhero and villain costumes from the comics do not translate well to live-action, and the attempts to do so along with the revisions don’t make the cut. The TV Dr. Light has a very cool look I’d like to see more of.

The Harrison Wells of Earth-Two

We open this episode eight months ago in the Tomorrowland world of Earth-Two as that universe’s Harrison Wells introduces app technology to detect metahumans. Apparently Earth-Two is overrun with them and the majority of them have gone bad. Enter Jay Garrick, that world’s Flash, who accuses Wells of creating all those metahumans. They don’t seem like friends at all. It’s almost hero/villain chemistry.

Cut to now on our Earth where Wells has just defeated King Shark and saved Barry’s life. No one on Team Flash is very happy with any Harrison Wells in their midst. Hell, Joe takes a few shots at him. It’s interesting that the old Wells was evil but seemingly gentle, while this one is a dick (just quoting Cisco, folks) but might actually be here to help.

The Dr. Light of Earth-Two

When I say Dr. Light of Earth-Two, don’t be misled, fanboys and fangirls, I’m not talking about the minor villain who pestered Doctor Midnite in the Golden Age, I’m talking the slick costumed thief sent by Zoom to kill the Flash. We enter doppelgänger territory again when she’s revealed as that world’s Linda Park. Both a surprise and a missed opportunity, depending on how they use it. I seriously hope they’re not saying all Asian women look alike though…

Wells wants to use her to bring Zoom to them, a worse idea than the original Wells ever had. And although the new Wells mentions that Zoom can make people do things out of character, it seems all this Dr. Light wants to do is rob banks so she can leave town. Isn’t she afraid Zoom could still find her? Where is Zoom anyway? Why doesn’t he come after the Flash? The other bad news is that she blinded Barry.

Soap and Comedy

There is a ponderous middle section of this episode that has become a bad 1970s sitcom drenched in soap opera suds. I could swear this was a rejected “Brady Bunch” subplot. Blinded, Barry tries to keep a dinner date with Patty, so while wearing sunglasses, Cisco guides him via earbud radio. Holy Cyrano, Batman, and I mean “Batman” ’66, yeah, it’s that bad. It works out, but wow.

Meanwhile, Jay and Caitlin are canoodling in a van keeping watch on Linda Park. There’s a bizarre theory that since the first thing Atom Smasher did was kill his Earth-One doppelgänger, that would be what this non-murdering Dr. Light would do as well. Jay and Caitlin are becoming more and more a couple, so I guess there’s no Joan waiting for him on Earth-Two – but apparently there is an Atlantis, above the water.

Double Jeopardy

Then Dr. Light blasts the van they’re sitting in and goes after Linda Park, our Linda Park. There’s some faulty logic at work here, and why does it seem that everyone from Earth-Two knows Jay is the Flash? Didn’t he do that blur thing with his face so people couldn’t see it? And please note that Light called him the Flash in a newspaper office, someone has to remember that. Team Flash saves Linda but not before Light accidentally kills someone.

Later Wells outs Cisco of his Vibe powers with his app so they can find Light. The Flash learns a new power, creating multiple images, speed mirages, to defeat her. That said, it was waaay creepy hearing Wells give Barry speed advice. How does he know about speed mirages? Is the Harrison Wells working with Zoom? Could Wells even be Zoom?

Beginnings and Endings

Once defeated, Dr. Light is deposited in the Pipeline, along with Sand Demon, and who knows who else. Weren’t the days of the Pipeline and wondering where they go to the bathroom over when Iron Heights put that metahumans wing? I guess we’re back to daily runs to Big Belly Burger for the prisoners (as well as for apparent fans Jay and Wells), and the ignorance of civil rights are back. Maybe the cross-dimensional Miranda rights are different…

Jay also leaves when Team Flash agrees to Wells’ plan to confront Zoom. I’ll miss him, and hope he doesn’t go back to the barber who gave him that crappy haircut (ick). Barry and Patty have finally gotten together as a couple and had a nice goodnight kiss. Love is in the air for Cisco as well, as he asked out the pretty barrista he’s been crushing on. Yeah, she is who we thought she was. We saw her for a few seconds in the season finale last year, and in the trailer for “Legends of Tomorrow.” Welcome to Ciara Renee as Kendra Saunders – Hawkgirl.

Next: “Enter Zoom!”

Team Flash is playing a dangerous game. Now that Jay Garrick has left, they are following the plan of the Harrison Wells of Earth-Two to use Dr. Light as bait to lure Zoom to them. Will this spell doom for The Flash and his friends? Meet me after the super-speed jump to find out in my review of “Enter Zoom.”

Who Is Zoom?

With only a few actual on-screen appearances so far, Zoom has become the obvious big bad for this season of “The Flash.” But who is he really? On the surface, he appears to be a conglomeration of a few characters, a little bit Zoom, a little bit Black Flash, and even a little bit Reverse-Flash, but who is Zoom in the comics? Zoom in the comics is Rogue profiler Hunter Zolomon, and I think his complicated backstory gives him an out. If this Zoom was Hunter Zolomon, the showrunners would have started laying the groundwork some time ago.

That means this Zoom is someone else. And I think I have a pretty good idea who it could be. Based on the use of dopplegangers so far in this season, I think it’s someone we already know. The obvious choice would be Harrison Wells, but I think that’s too easy. I think Zoom’s identity will be even more diabolical storywise. What would be devastating? Could Zoom be the Eddie Thawne of Earth-Two? The Joe West of Earth-Two? Could it be even more twisted – Earth-Two’s Barry Allen? I turn to that old writing rule – what’s the worst that could happen? – as I throw out my final answer. I say that Zoom is the Henry Allen of Earth-Two… after all, we know John Wesley Shipp can fit the suit…

Jesse Quick

We get one or two flashbacks to months ago on Earth-Two. We meet again Harrison Wells’ daughter Jesse, just as smart as him, having graduated high school at fifteen and now attending Central City College. Another oddity that’s different from the comics – there’s an Earth-Two Central City. In the comics, it’s Keystone City that is in the same geographic place, and is home to Jay Garrick, the Golden Age Flash. Harrison has a nickname for his daughter – Jesse Quick.

The name will ring a bell for comics readers. Another speedster on Earth-Two, and colleague of Jay, is named Johnny Quick. Not as quick as the Flash, but able to fly, Johnny accessed the Speed Force by saying aloud a mantric mathematical formula, an ability he passed on to his daughter, Jesse, who eventually became Jesse Quick. Yeah, it’s a lot to process, and more complicated than I’m giving you here, but Jesse is a very cool super-heroine, taking after her father, and her mom, who was also in the business as Liberty Belle. It’s hard to tell what Jesse will be here in this incarnation.

While watching the news in one flashback, Wells hears that The Arrow, AKA The Hood, has been unmasked as Robert Queen, the father of the late Oliver Queen. Hmmm, things did unwind differently on Earth-Two. It’s then that a breaking news bulletin announces a metahuman attack on Central City College. Zoom apparently killed his daughter – something we know not to be true, as we’ve seen her imprisoned.

Prison Break

And by that, I don’t mean a reference to “Prison Break” or a return of Captain Cold and Heat Wave – at least not yet. Dr. Light escaped from the Pipeline. I know this whole Big Belly Burger lunch delivery thing was going to get them in trouble sooner or later. She bent light to become invisible and slipped out when Cisco opened the cell.

I think it’s safe to say that Dr. Light is in the wind for the time being, a permanent resident of Earth-One, perhaps to appear again later in the season for more mistaken identity twin fun. It took a long time for us to find out that the prisoners of the Pipeline were surviving on Big Belly Burgers (not the best of diets, as I’m sure the Morgan Spurlock of either Earths One or Two might tell you), but where they go to the bathroom is still a mystery. I bet Dr. Light escaped just so she wouldn’t have to find out…

Bad Idea Theater

So Team Flash is left with an empty Dr. Light costume and the bad planning of Harry Wells, so it’s back to the bait and shoot game. This time though, instead of the real Dr. Light, they have Linda Park cosplaying as her. There’s some fun as they give her some target practice with life-size cardboard cutouts, but she still doesn’t have the confidence until… holy bad idea theater… The Flash reveals his secret identity to her. Seriously? What is the point of a secret identity if everyone knows who you are?

At this rate, the only person in the regular cast who doesn’t know Barry Allen is the Flash is Patty Spivot, and trust me, that is not a good start to a relationship, no matter how big or small the secret is. She is having enough trouble dealing with the idea that Joe is letting Dr. Light, a known murderer, just get away with it basically. How will she feel when everyone in Central City but her knows who the Flash is?

Zoom Vs. the Flash

The trick doesn’t work. Let’s face it, while Grant Gustin and Malese Jow are good actors, the characters they play – Barry and Linda, are terrible actors. If Zoom was blind and deaf, he would not have believed their little stage play of Light killing the Flash. After Team Flash finally give up on their farce to lure Zoom to Earth-One, that’s when Zoom does show up, kidnapping Linda to lure the Flash out – his trick does work.

Once the Flash procures Linda’s safety, the speedsters begin to duel. It’s apparent that Zoom is more than human, monstrous, bigger, and most dangerously, faster. Flash can’t outrun him, his best speed stunts don’t work because Zoom is faster. I gotta say, I loved Barry using Jay’s thunderbolt trick though. Zoom pounds him mercilessly before parading him through the city – to Picture News, to the Central City Police Department, and finally S.T.A.R. Labs. Zoom makes sure everyone knows that he has beaten the Flash.

This is not a happy ending. Zoom is driven off, but he’ll be back, and Barry, when he wakes up, can’t move his legs. We’re Flash-less, Zoom is on the loose, and you can see… Grodd is back. This is not good…

Things were looking very grim for our heroes in the last episode of “The Flash.” In the aftermath of a mad plan that had Linda Park masquerading as her Earth-Two doppelgänger Dr. Light, Barry lost the use of his legs in frantic combat. Humiliated and beaten in front of Central City, things get worse when Super Gorilla Grodd returns. Meet me after the simian leap for my review of “Gorilla Warfare.”

Weird Aftermath

We open on both a somber and quite casual note this episode, kind of misleading from the events of the last episode. Zoom beat the Flash soundly and bloodily, and the paraded him through the city so everyone knew that their hero was effectively Zoom’s bitch. This was a miserable humiliating defeat, but you would never know it for the casualness of Team Flash at S.T.A.R. Labs this evening.

Barry is slowly healing, but still healing because of his speed. One would guess that without his powers, these injuries would have left him dead or paralyzed. Barry’s psychological injuries are harder to fix however. Wells on the other hand, wants to go home, most likely to find his daughter Jesse, who he now knows is alive. Caitlin convinces him to stay. She seems to have a thing for these Earth-Two guys, eh? First Jay, and now Harry as Cisco calls him. Together, Caitlin and Wells work on a plan to close all the portals, save the one at S.T.A.R.

Hawkgirl

While all this misery and Sturm und Drang is going on, Cisco seems more concerned about his date with the new barista at Jitters. Her name is Kendra Saunders and comics folks will know her better as Hawkgirl, or at least the most recent version of Hawkgirl. You see, what I tell you folks here may not match up with what they do on the show. I wish I could be more precise, but comic book continuity being what it is, there have been many versions of the character – in fact, most comic book readers believe Hawkgirl/woman and Hawkman to have the most convoluted continuities out there.

Effectively there are certain ingredients in Hawkgirl’s backstory that are always the same. Amongst the myriad origins that include ancient astronauts and alien police, there is always the theme of reincarnation and eternal love. Like Barry and Iris in the comics, Hawkman and Hawkgirl have a love that survives life and death, time and space. Depending on what origin the showrunners use, this could be very interesting, but we don’t have all the puzzle pieces yet. The bottom line is that on their date to see The Princess Bride, Cisco vibed on her, seeing a ‘bird man’ or ‘angel.’ Based on the special effects we see for only seconds, I can’t wait.

Grodd

We know that Grodd has been on the loose, but on the sly, since he escaped at the end of “Grodd Lives.” He shows up again here, collecting intelligence enhancing drugs by mind-controlling scientists then killing them. Finally the Super Gorilla kidnaps Caitlin, who had been kind to him before the particle accelerator accident changed him. He wants her to help him make more of him, to “repeat Grodd.” Creating an army of super-intelligent apes and other animals is a tactic Grodd has used often in the comics.

His appearance is still awesome and a special effects bonanza (or should that be bananza?), but it feels a little less than last season’s appearance. Perhaps seeing Grodd in broad daylight as opposed to dark sewers changes his look, or maybe the showrunners spent too much CGI money on King Shark. Either way, Grodd looks amazing, and menacing, and I want more.

Mad Science

Whereas the evil Earth-One Harrison Wells was a long game planner, the Earth-Two Harry Wells seems to be more in the mode of a mad scientist, planning by the seat of his pants, and taking risks like vitamins. His mad science solution to the Grodd problem? Why, dress up like the Reverse-Flash and try to order him around like a lab experiment while doing his best E-1 Harrison Wells impersonation.

How does Wells know that his counterpart promised Grodd the city? Is this like him knowing what a speed mirage was back in “The Darkness and The Light“? This Wells may not be evil, but he still has secrets. I’m still not buying the obvious and saying he’s Zoom, I’m pretty sure that’s the Earth-Two Henry Allen.

Finally a way to shove Grodd through a breach to a specific point on Earth-Two is found. Apparently each breach, while just all over Central City on Earth-One, lead to various points around the globe on Earth-Two. The one Grodd went through leads to a city where other lab experiment apes live. I’ll bet you a Flash ring it’s called Gorilla City. Speaking of rings, we may have seen the origin of putting Flash’s costume in the ring as in the comics.

Sad Resolutions

Iris does something, ahem, I mean something right in this episode as she brings deadbeat dad Henry Allen back to give Barry pep talks and snap him out of his funk. The encouragement works, but don’t think I didn’t notice that Henry and Zoom have not appeared at the same time… He of course bails again for who knows where at the end of the episode. Why don’t the powers-that-be want John Wesley Shipp around? It’s not like there’s a “Dawson’s Creek” reunion on the horizon.

Barry has been lying to Patty for all this time, and doing a worse job of it than Clark Kent with Lois Lane. From the perspective of the viewer, one just can’t help but wonder why he just doesn’t tell Patty that he’s the Flash. Everyone else on the show knows, right? And didn’t they bring Eddie into the circle when he was Joe’s partner? She’s not that dumb, and to have her make up with Barry when she catches him lying just denigrates her character. Following suit, Cisco, in a nice nod to Say Anything, complete with Peter Gabriel, makes up with Kendra, similarly not letting on about what he knows. Oh, these Flash men…

Next: This year’s big “Arrow” crossover event!

For almost a year now we have been teased with this third official TV series in the Arrowverse, and now finally “Legends of Tomorrow” joins “Arrow” and “The Flash” on the CW. The DC TV Universe just keeps expanding. Meet me after the super speed jump for my thoughts on “Legends of Today.”

Vandal Savage

I remember distinctly the first time I encountered the Vandal Savage. It was a much-read, well-loved copy of Flash #215 where I first met the immortal villain. Within its pages I learned Savage’s origins as a Neanderthal affected by the radiation of a passing comet, granting him immortality and other strange powers, and that he had been various tyrants throughout time until his current identity of Vandal Savage. The story, by Len Wein who would later write some of the best Justice League of America stories, also included a double Flash team-up, the villain’s death, a trip through Limbo, and the weirdness of Barry Allen waking up on Earth-Two in bed with Jay Garrick’s wife, Joan. So much goodness.

Vandal Savage recovered from his death, of course, because comics. As I learned more about him, I found that he was originally an enemy of the Golden Age Green Lantern, and that in the past he had actually defeated the Justice Society of America. As the years went by, Vandal Savage fought Superman, the Justice league, then both teams, and then just about everyone, while holding on to a certain enmity for the Flashes. He became, much like Darkseid, one of those villains who could call the entire DC Universe his enemies. From the dawn of time to the end of time, Vandal Savage has fought them all.

Party at Oliver’s

As we open Vandal Savage has arrived in Central City close to how Dracula came to London. Once ashore he kills everyone, not before though. He is hunting Hawkgirl, who as we know, and she doesn’t, is the barista Cisco is dating – Kendra Saunders. One brush with Savage and Team Flash thinks they might need to employ the help of Team Arrow.

A meeting in the Arrowcave turns into a dinner party at Oliver and Felicity’s, where apparently secret identities and secret super powers are just flung to the wind because everyone has forgotten what the word ‘secret’ actually means. On the other hand, the gathering did remind me a lot of the Bronze Age team-ups of the Justice League and Justice Society where socializing won out over adventuring… until the baddie attacked, which Savage does here, then bows out again.

Overload

So after John Barrowman as Merlyn the Magician, the current R’as Al Ghul, shows up with the League of Assassins, and tries to explain who Vandal Savage is – Kendra needs some air because things have taken a couple steps over to crazy town. Once outside, she’s kidnapped by a flying man with wings, who know is obviously Hawkman. Follow all that? If you do, you already know the comics, or you’re lying.

They have dropped a LOT into this episode, so much so the top is about pop off. I hate to say it, but this crossover event meant to launch a new series may just be our favorite scarlet speedster jumping the shark. And not that cool giant man-shark from a few episodes back either. What is more upsetting is that after getting this feeling, I also know there’s a lot more to come.

Velocity 6

Unlike the last Arrow/Flash crossover event, reviewed here and here, this episode of “The Flash,” happening in Star City and being a little more Arrow-centric, there seemed like there should have been more Flash stuff. That’s where the Caitlin/Jay/Wells subplot in this episode might have come from. There’s even a nice link to Vandal Savage as well.

The Earth-Two Harrison Wells doesn’t think Barry will be fast enough to face Zoom so he digs up an old plan he’d had originally for Jay, Velocity 6. In the comics, Velocity 6 was a drug developed by Vandal Savage to give the victim super speed, yes, but was also crazy addictive, and if a hit was coming, it was very destructive to the user. A sinister drug by a sinister man, in the show, it’s produced for Barry to become faster, but first, Wells wants to test it on Jay.

“If you can kiss me like this, you can tell me your secret identity… everyone else on the show knows…”

When Patty (who as I’ve mentioned, would have been much better off if someone just told her Barry was the Flash a long time ago) sees Wells and tracks him to S.T.A.R. Labs, thinking he was the prime Wells, she shoots him down. Rather than just telling her, Joe sends her away, so Caitlin and Jay can save Wells. Jay takes the drug, with no noticeable side effects, and saves Wells’ life. If only there was a miracle for Patty. I think this is going to end badly.

Hawkman

In the last episode I had noted the various different origins of Hawkman and Hawkgirl/woman, and said I would have to wait to see which direction the showrunners went with to comment on the characters’ transition. The version being used is the one where Prince Khufu and Chay-Ara are reincarnated over and over again, until murdered by an equally eternal enemy. Here, the evil priest Hath-Set, who is usually that killer, has been replaced by the immortal villain Vandal Savage.

Here, Hawkman is played by German actor Falk Hentschel, no stranger to live-action comics roles, as he appeared as Whiplash last season on “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” I like the costume better than the character’s appearances on “Smallville,” but I have to admit to liking that actor Michael Shanks more. Hentschel seems a bit goofy so far, not a word I want to describe one of my favorite heroes with. I did like the fight between him and Green Arrow and the Flash though, cool stuff.

Bits of Arrow Business

As I mentioned, this felt a lot more like an “Arrow” episode than one of “The Flash,” so let’s take care of all that continuity. I liked the brief clash between Damien Darhk and the Flash. It was well done, and consistent as all fights with Darhk seem to be. I just wish the Flash would hang out a bit more and end his storyline, because it’s been getting old for a while.

The other bit is at the end of the episode, where Oliver encounters a young boy at CC Jitters. He’s dropped his Flash action figure and then runs off to his mom. This one goes back to a loose end in the second season of “Arrow.” Oliver has a child he doesn’t know about, seven years old, and living in Central City with the mother. Could this be Connor Hawke? I’m sure that we’ll find out more about in future episodes of “Arrow.”

As far as Vandal Savage goes, the fates of Hawkman and Hawkgirl, and “Legends of Tomorrow,” we’ll have to wait until tomorrow night… see you there!

As seen in last night’s episode of “The Flash,” a new super-villain, Vandal Savage, has arisen and proven too much for the combined forces of both Teams Flash and Arrow. Will more heroes in the mix be able to stop Savage? Meet me after the jump for my thoughts on the second part of this crossover event, “Legends of Yesterday.”

Where We Stand

After another unsuccessful clash with Vandal Savage, this time powered by the ancient and magical Staff of Horus, Flash and Green Arrow have retreated with their teams to a farmhouse outside Central City. This is an intriguing switch as the Flash portion of this team-up took place in Star City, where else to go for the Arrow side but Central, right?

While Hawkman tries to help Hawkgirl ’emerge’ into her reincarnated life, he comes off as quite the jerk. In the comics this is a fairly new personality quirk. The duo are usually likable trustworthy heroic equals, but I guess you can’t always get what you want. One thing is consistent however, in “Arrow,” sometimes soap subplots trump major storylines. So as the team’s set up in the farm, Oliver is stalking his ex and her son.

Negotiating with Terrorists

After Oliver gets a DNA sample and is rebuffed by his ex, he gets a call from Merlyn the Magician. He has arranged a meeting with Vandal Savage. Our title heroes, and the two villains meet ominously at an old warehouse. It is less a meeting and more of a recap of already-knowns, just for the viewers who missed or slept through “The Flash” last night.

The important stuff – Vandal Savage is 4000 years old, kept that way by killing Hawkman and Hawkgirl every time they reincarnate. Unless Green Arrow and Flash hand over Hawkman and Hawkgirl to him, Savage will destroy Central City, and then Star City. Green Arrow and Flash stand their ground, but Merlyn adds that if they don’t relent, he and the League of Assassins will destroy Green Arrow. Uh huh. And that’s what negotiating with terrorists gets you.

Deadbeat Daddery

So while millions of lives in two cities are at stake, Oliver reverts to his normal selfishness and has Barry give him a paternity test, swearing the naive scientist to secrecy. Then with proof in hand he goes to visit the baby momma. He fully expects to pop in and start being dad, not even thinking about anyone else, especially Felicity. Sigh. Oliver is an animal whose spots will never change.

Samantha, the baby momma, has never cashed Oliver’s Mom’s extortion check. That means she’s a good person. And she gets extra points for not wanting Oliver around her son. He’s also a huge jerk for letting this secret keeping break him and Felicity up. Of course there’s one detail that happens that may fix everything…

Flashback

Folks who watch “Arrow,” but not “The Flash” might not have picked this up and known what was coming. You see, the Flash lives in a world of super-science whereas Arrow sticks to the closer to reality streets. You don’t expect time travel to pop up here. The Flash has done it before, changed the past, and made it stick. So when Arrow’s plan goes belly up and everyone dies – we know that’s not what really happens.

The Flash makes it back to the past, just before the meeting with Arrow, Merlyn, and Savage. They now know the original plan didn’t work, so they try another way. Kendra remembers her original death, including key elements like Hath-Set (now Vandal Savage in the TV version) and the nth metal (the original anti-gravity metal from the planet Thanagar), and our heroes get a second chance. This time with a focused Green Arrow and better weapons.

And in The End

The battle with Savage goes much better the second time around. Everyone but him lives. Oliver and Felicity are still together, although he is taking to his old secret keeping ways again, it’s status quo for the moment. That doesn’t mean I wasn’t surprised to hear that someone was making Captain Cold action figures!

Hawkman and Hawkgirl are off to St. Roch, a city they operated out of in the comics. And just before we hit the credits, we see Merlyn sweeping up Savage’s ashes, saying that he’s owed one. I guess it’s a no brainier he’s going to dump those ashes in the Lazarus Pit…?

Next on “The Flash,” the combined forces of Captain Cold, the Weather Wizard, and the Trickster!

What did the Flash get for Christmas? Not one, not two, but three Rogues on the loose out to take over Central City. It’s Captain Cold, the Trickster, and the Weather Wizard vs. the Flash, and if that’s not enough, we also meet Wally West for the first time. Meet me after the super speed jump for my thoughts on “Running to Stand Still.”

Wally West

Now I’ve talked about this before, but here’s a quick refresher course. In the comics, Wally West is Iris’ nephew who hero-worshipped the Flash. Since she knew the scarlet speedster, Iris was a good aunt and introduced them. In Barry’s lab, while the Flash explained how he got his powers, the accident happened again, this time to Wally, giving him super speed.

Back in the more innocent Silver Age of comics, Wally joined the Flash as his sidekick, Kid Flash. He fought crime alone, with his mentor, and later as a member of the Teen Titans. And when Barry Allen died in the Crisis on Infinite Earths, Wally took on the mantle of the Flash, and even took his place in the Justice League, the first of the teen sidekicks to step up to adulthood.

Kid Flash vs. the Reverse-Flash

Here on the show, having known for some time herself, Iris recruits Barry to help her tell their dad that he has a son he didn’t know about – Wally. Jesse L. Martin’s Joe West once again proves what a terrific actor he is when reacting to the news that he has a son. He does it again later with Barry when he gives him his watch. Martin is truly an asset to this series.

Prison Break

The snowy white Christmas is not predicted by the weather bureau and is instead the work of the Weather Wizard. He uses it to break into Iron Heights and free Captain Cold, whom he owes a favor, and… the original Trickster… because he’s crazy. Odd choices, but all with assumedly the same agenda – kill the Flash. Or at least that’s what the Weather Wizard thinks. Captain Cold not only takes a powder, but makes Barry owe him another by warning him about the Wizard and the Trickster.

Seriously, I’m not the Joker, I just sound like the Joker…

As much as I enjoy seeing Liam McIntyre’s Weather Wizard and especially Mark Hamill’s Trickster again, Wentworth Miller is the real treat. I love Captain Cold in the comics but Miller has brought a charm and charisma to the character and his love/hate relationship with the Flash that truly original and entertaining. More Captain Cold please. Man, “Legends of Tomorrow” cannot get here soon enough.

Rogues Revenge

While Cold demonstrates goodness and mercy to gain favor for future battles, the other two villains show surprisingly brutal streaks. I understand that comics are now grimmer and grittier, and television based on comics have followed suite, but the idea of the Trickster killing kids for Christmas is a bit much even for me. And the deal with the devil that’s struck, the Flash standing still and doing nothing while the Weather Wizard delivers killing blows to our hero? Wow, too much. In my day, neither of these Rogues were really dangerous or even deadly threats, it’s disturbing to see them portrayed as such, but as with Cold, it’s a new version, I guess I have to live with it for good or ill.

Merry Christmas, Barry.

There were things I loved. Among them, Cold’s visit to the West home, the warm and quiet introduction of Wally West, and wasn’t the Flash running across the blades of the airborne news copter the coolest? Hopefully the next episode won’t be so grim. A new episode of “The Flash” airs tomorrow night, “Arrow” on Wednesday, and the premiere of “Legends of Tomorrow” on Thursday. It looks like it’ll be a super-week.

Next: A new villain, more Wally, and will Barry finally tell Patty the truth… too late?

When last we left “The Flash,” the West extended family was welcoming Wally into their home for the holidays, and the Harrison Wells of Earth-Two was secretly working with Zoom to steal our hero’s speed and/or kill him. And if that good news/bad news isn’t enough, in this episode the Flash faces the newly revamped television version of a Flash super-villain who dates back to the Golden Age of comics – the Turtle! Meet me after the super speed jump for my thoughts on “Potential Energy.”

Why Won’t Barry Tell Patty?

Why won’t Barry tell Patty that he’s the Flash? This has been an ongoing concern for quite some time now. Not that I want Barry and Patty together, mind you – I am a big proponent of the Barry/Iris romance, a love that in the comics transcends time and space and life and death, but I don’t think the showrunners are there yet. But let’s face it, Patty is just about the only person on the show who doesn’t know Barry is the Flash. Hell, even Captain Cold knows!

At the start of this episode, we open on Barry’s nightmare – Zoom killing Patty, perhaps that’s why. I did like the burning roses trick, though I would think by now Barry would know what his super speed aura protects and what it doesn’t. Regardless, it’s driving Patty nuts too, as she even goes to Iris for advice on what’s wrong with Barry. He had five opportunities in just this episode alone to tell her, and yet he doesn’t. And now it’s too late.

The Turtle

First appearing in 1946’s All-Flash #21, the Turtle, as the world’s slowest man made an interesting match for the then-Flash Jay Garrick. They fought a handful of times before the Golden Age of comics faded and in 1956, a new age, the Silver Age of comics dawned. In Barry Allen’s first appearance in Showcase #4, a new Turtle-Man emerged (this being the Earth-One version) to slowly battle the new fastest man alive. The villain had one gimmick, and not a very useful one. As fast as the Flash was, he was significantly, almost surreally slow, almost advantageously so against our hero.

When Wally West took on the mantle of the Flash after the Crisis on Infinite Earths, he actually fought both versions of the villain – the Turtle and the Turtle-Man, both of whom over the years had developed their slow powers to the point of stopping time and even time travel. Standing outside the rest of the Rogues Gallery, and as silly as his name implies, the Turtle remains one of the Flash’s (any of the three) most diabolical enemies.

The TV Turtle

In the show continuity, the Turtle is totally new, and a bit more psychopathic and dangerous. A victim of the particle accelerator accident, Russell Glosson, as played by Aaron Douglas of “Battlestar Galactica,” can emanate a field of slowness, an inertia zone so strong that it absorbs all the kinetic energy around him. He appears to be moving at super speed – even teleporting – because he makes everything around him so slow. This is achieved with some very cool effects.

The Turtle is Cisco’s white whale, and he has a penchant for stealing things of great personal value to others, just for added nuttiness. Everyone but Barry seems to be aware that Cisco has been tracking this villain for some time. Perhaps Barry being the only one who doesn’t know about the Turtle is an analogy for Patty being the only one who doesn’t know Barry is the Flash. Of course, after their first encounters, the Turtle knows what the Flash values most, and kidnaps Patty.

That West Boy

As much as Joe is enjoying getting to know his new son Wally, it does not seem that the feeling is mutual. When he brings the boy to work, another kid being booked calls Wally ‘Tail Lights,’ hinting at a mysterious past. After missing a family gathering, Joe tracks him down to a drag race, where Wally is apparently top dog. Well, at least he’s already used to speed.

As it turns out Wally came to Central City because no one would race him in Keystone City any more. Sooo… Wally is a bad kid, not a criminal, but a bad kid. Perhaps in the future ‘the white shadow,’ I mean Barry can straighten him out, and make him more like Kid Flash material. In the end, like Patty, Wally takes a powder. It makes me wonder why even bring him into the show to begin with. Keystone, by the way, is just one of the DC Comics name drops this episode, along with Midway City (hometown of Hawkman and Hawkgirl) and Markovia (homeland of Geo-Force and Terra, also mentioned in “Arrow“). Also Martin Naydel, co-creator of the Turtle and comic book artist, has his name on a museum.

Soap and Speculations

And then there’s Jay and Caitlin. I just can’t see these two together no matter how right the television versions of them make it seem. Like seeing Barry and Linda Park (in the comics, Wally’s wife) together, I just have a mental block. I keep thinking “What about Joan?” who in the comics is Jay longtime sweetheart and wife. Anyway, apparently Jay has a mystery illness that will kill him unless he gets his speed back, and the only way to do that is to stop Zoom.

While waiting in the van during the museum stake-out, Harry reveals to Cisco the origin of the Zoom name. On Earth-Two, a trap was set by Zoom where several police officers were killed by the villain. One cop described “blue lightning zooming about.” Previously I had surmised that Henry Allen of Earth-Two might be Zoom, but now I have a different theory. There was a character from the comics that wanted to steal the Flash’s speed and also had a blue energy associated with him… Cobalt Blue! Could the Earth-Two Barry, a ‘twin’ of sorts, be Zoom?

Next: What did Harry do to the Turtle? And holy crap, what, how… is the Reverse-Flash back???