‘The Flash’ Season 3: Your Flashpoint Primer
Last season’s final episode of The Flash ended with a momentous decision by Barry Allen (Grant Gustin): Go back in time and save his mother’s life. That kind of tampering with history is bound to have enormous consequences. In fact, Season 3 is kicking off with an episode called “Flashpoint,” signaling that the show is bringing one of DC Comics’ largest-ever crossover events to TV. Here’s a quick overview of what Flashpoint is and what it could mean for all the DC Comics series on the CW.
What is Flashpoint?
Well, there are two different versions: The comic book version and the DC Animated Movie Universe version, titled Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox. Both are essentially the same — events surrounding the Flash create an alternate universe that leads to a reboot of each of the respective universes. It’s reminiscent of the original all-DC crossover: Crisis on Infinite Earths in 1985, which was an attempt to make sense of DC’s 80-plus years of history and its countless contradictions and multiple continuities.
Related: Ken Tucker Reviews the Flash Season 3 Premiere
The DC Comics version (2011)
The core miniseries encompassed only five issues, but the storyline stretched over dozens of titles. Barry Allen wakes up to find his mother alive and himself without superspeed. The world is threatened by a war between two empires: Wonder Woman’s Amazons and Aquaman’s Atlanteans. Batman is Thomas Wayne, a vigilante driven by the death of his son, Bruce, and Superman is nowhere to be found.
Believing Reverse Flash to be the culprit, Barry re-creates the experiment that gave him his speed, only to find out that he was the one who created the alternate universe when he saved his mother. He has become a living paradox, which means Reverse Flash is free to kill him without erasing himself. But instead, Barry goes back and allows his mother to die, saving the millions of lives lost in the Amazon/Atlantis war.
Afterward, all the titles in the main line of comics were restarted from Issue 1 under the banner of the New 52. The regular DC superhero comics were merged with the mystical (and generally more mature) Vertigo titles and the Wildstorm imprint (made up of characters from Image, another comic company entirely), which had previously been separate.
The DC Animated Movie Universe (2013)
Aside from the details — like Batman being a huge fan of guns – the story is basically the same. The story leads into Justice League: War, which is the first movie that ties all the animated movies together into a single continuity going forward.
The CW Version (2016)
So what will we see in the Arrowverse version of things? Well, because the world isn’t nearly as fleshed out with superheroes as either of the previous iterations are, there won’t be any Batman, Wonder Woman, or Aquaman. And though, theoretically, there could be an appearance from Green Arrow, any of the Legends of Tomorrow, or even Supergirl and Superman, Legends executive producer Phil Klemmer says there will be only be two major crossovers, as last year, and the first won’t happen until Episode 7.
“We’re not going to stay in Flashpoint the entire season,” says Flash EP Aaron Helbing, “But all of the impact of Flashpoint and of the consequences of Barry’s action will definitely play out throughout the season.” He explains that the Flashpoint universe won’t be that big of a shakeup. “It’s kind of analogous to the way we went to Earth-2 and we saw Iris as a cop, Joe as a lounge singer. At the core, they’re still almost the same, but there’s a distinction without a difference.”
Of course, there’s still the Legion of Doom — an unholy collaboration between Reverse Flash (Matt Lescher), Malcolm Merlyn (John Barrowman), Damien Darhk (Neal McDonough), and Captain Cold (Wentworth Miller) — coming later in the season. And there does need to be an explanation as to how Supergirl becomes part of CW continuity. Flashpoint may explain all these things and more. But we’ll have to wait until later in the season to figure out just how.
Season 3 of The Flash premieres Tuesday, Oct. 4 at 8 p.m. ET on the CW
