The Flash’s Biggest Mistake Could’ve Been Avoided

Summary

• The Flash
  ‘s controversies and delays hindered its success, and its attempt to capitalize on Marvel’s multiverse storyline fell flat.
• Introducing supporting characters like Batman and Supergirl distracted from The Flash’s own story and comic book lore.
• Focusing on Barry Allen’s personal life and motivations, rather than team-ups, could have made for a better movie.

Even an entire year after the 13th movie of the (now dead) DCEU was released, fans of the comic book genre cannot talk about The Flash without bringing up the many allegations and controversies surrounding the main lead, Ezra Miller. While the pre-James Gunn movie is held back by this unfortunate connection, its five-year delay in release, while DC Studios itself went through a myriad of leadership changes, prompted almost endless storyboard changes and mass confusion behind the scenes. This was another unforgettable blunder that will stick with the DCEU entry no matter how many years pass. Despite all this, The Flash’s biggest fallacy was not found in the personal lives of its cast or what went on behind the curtain, but it’s half-hearted attempt to curtail off the back of Marvel’s multiverse storyline.

Bringing in other characters like Michael Keaton’s Batman and Sasha Calle’s Supergirl was the biggest mistake. Both Keaton and Calle played their roles to the best of their abilities. There is no question surrounding that — so did Miller, for that matter. But the screen time needed to not only introduce these supporting characters, create substantial side stories for them (it’s questionable that Batman had any such arc), and make them interesting for the audience, so it took away from Flash’s own expansive comic book lore. One could argue that this kind of solo spotlight experiment was already put to the test with Blue Beetle (DCEU’s next movie), which turned out to be the lowest-grossing film in the DC Extended Universe.

The Flash Didn’t Need to Be a Team Movie

Man of Steel, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and Shazam all did wonderfully with profit margins. Throw away the rush to create some slapdash version of Flashpoint, and Barry Allen — as a human being — could have been focused on a lot more. His parents’ story could have been the foundation for Allen’s career as a forensic investigator in Central City, and Iris West could have played a much more pivotal role in motivating Barry. For this to be fully investigated, though, let’s dig into the comic side of things and figure out how a better Flash movie could have been made.

The Scarlet Speedster was originally created by writer Gardner Fox and artist Harry Lampert in 1940. While faithfully adapting Jay Garrick’s version would be laughed at these days (the suit is the definition of the silver age of comics), WB could have replaced the bizarre falling babies sequence with a chaotic bank robbery attempt that was initiated by some iteration of the Faultless Four (Garrick’s first case under the Flash moniker).

This would pay homage to the first Flash, and there would also be no need for a stretched-out Ben Affleck Batman appearance (no Wonder Woman cameo, either). While strange water vapors being the culprit behind his speed is a little too bland for movie theater audiences (which is what happened to Garrick), something from Barry’s suit being connected to his mother would be a consistent visual callback to his motivations. This would also harken back to Jay Garrick’s use of putting wings on his helmet (which was a tribute to his grandfather, who served in World War I).

Dark Flash Needed More Than Five Minutes

Now that the intro is changed, and his suit is more than just a novelty that pops out of a ring, it’s time to discuss the elephant in the room. What story or villain(s) from the Flash comics could replace the frantic chaos of an alternate Batman/Supergirl/ Flash? While we could easily point to someone from Grant Gustin’s show like Zoom or Gorilla Grodd, the easiest and most logical answer stems from the same movie being dissected: Dark Flash.

With everything else happening in The Flash movie, it’s not a surprise that the future evil version of Barry Allen had a relatively small role on the big screen. In saying that, though, quite the opposite is true regarding the comic character he was created from. Black Flash embodies the Grim Reaper for those connected to the speed force and appears whenever a speedster is close to death. The zombified presence is also a sort of guardian for the speed force and has shown to come around when timelines are manipulated for one’s own reasons. That will always be a means to Barry’s end goal — changing something from the past to live happily in the present with his mom not dead and his father not in jail.

Deciding Who to Save From Dark Flash

Just as Wally West’s girlfriend, Linda Park, was taken when Black Flash could not successfully capture Wally, Iris’ storyline could be expanded into becoming the new motivation for Barry to run again. Dark Flash could have stated that something needed to be taken to balance the change from Barry resurrecting his mother. With Flash needing to make things right and slowly accepting that Iris had nothing to do with his wish, he would have to figure out a way to destroy Dark Flash once and for all. This would come to fruition without the help of Batman, Supergirl, or any other versions of himself.

Even though the audience was introduced to The Flash in Whedon’s version of The Justice League, there was no need to make such a big deal about trying to recreate the team for The Flash. Audiences are clearly into solo movies when done with emphasis and epic scenes (not the Chronobowl, please and thank you). The world of Central City and all of its residents within — be it heroes, villains, or just familiar Flash faces — would have roped more people in than trying to capitalize on nostalgia and other DC-related properties. We can only hope James Gunn learns from this and builds heroes properly. The Flash is streaming on Netflix.