Spoilers The Flash - Season 2
- Thread starter Commander Richard
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He met Flash in a couple of JSA adventures and that was about it. I don't think they actually teamed up. I don't think he met Green Arrow until the Silver Age.
Uh mate, I was talking about the comics. Since Rebirth has just reestablished the Multiverse we like. After Flashpoint and Infinite Crisis put the Multiverse back together wonky.
The TV Flash has alluded to a Crisis event since season 1.
Who doesn't want something like this?
It was the aftermath and subsequent decades 1986-2016, that I disagree with the Multiverse's handling. It took them 30 years just to get us back to what hopefully is a functioning multiverse.
As long as Cisco still has his Vibe powers he can open a portal in just a few seconds, so there's really no need to merge the universes.
EDIT: As much as I love shared universes like the MCU, and the Star Wars and Star Trek universes, sometime it can be nice to let shows exist in their own universe. It gives them more freedom to do their own thing and not have to worry about contradicting what came before or what might come later.
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So I just got caught up on the last two episodes. Not bad, but kind of underwhelming. The cliffhanger was very interesting, albeit yet another example of Barry paying no attention to consequences (something we've had a little too much of this season, especially the last few episodes).
A few things that bothered me:
Caitlyn loves Laurel Lance? I know Barry was introduced on Arrow before the Flash started, but that was just him, right? Caitlyn and Cisco, et al, didn't show up until this show. And I don't remember Laurel Lance ever being on this show, was she?
The race. How on earth can you possibly write, straight out in the open, that the villain's plan is to use Barry's speed to destroy the multiverse, and then STILL have the hero think that going along with that plan is somehow going to lead to victory? That was so irritating. He gave literally no reason whatsoever why racing Zoom would actually accomplish anything, and completely ignored the fact that doing it was literally giving Zoom what he wanted (again). Even worse, that no one else raised that glaringly obvious objection, instead they were all only concerned that he would lose because he was angry.
Wally and Jesse. Not that this was so terrible - they both had good parts in this - but throwing in such an obvious speed force set-up several episodes out only to do absolutely nothing with it was disappointing. Having Zoom taken down by mutliple friends working together also would've been a much stronger refutation of Zoom's running commentary about how family is a weakness.
Incidentally, glancing through the pages that I missed, I saw a lot of discussion about the names of the different universes which seemed to be based on the idea that every doppelganger in earth 2 was an 'opposite', but that's really not true. Barry, Iris and Joe were all good people on earth 2, just with slightly different characteristics and positions, and we also have no reason at all to believe that earth 1 Harrison Wells was in any way a bad guy. Not to mention Linda Park, who was admittedly a thief, but still not really a bad person, just scared to death by Zoom. The only undeniably bad counterparts we have are Cisco, Caitlyn and Laurel. And no, Zoom doesn't count, since he's clearly a completely different person (and we again have no information whatsoever about the personality of earth 1 hunter zolomon).
A few things that bothered me:
Caitlyn loves Laurel Lance? I know Barry was introduced on Arrow before the Flash started, but that was just him, right? Caitlyn and Cisco, et al, didn't show up until this show. And I don't remember Laurel Lance ever being on this show, was she?
The race. How on earth can you possibly write, straight out in the open, that the villain's plan is to use Barry's speed to destroy the multiverse, and then STILL have the hero think that going along with that plan is somehow going to lead to victory? That was so irritating. He gave literally no reason whatsoever why racing Zoom would actually accomplish anything, and completely ignored the fact that doing it was literally giving Zoom what he wanted (again). Even worse, that no one else raised that glaringly obvious objection, instead they were all only concerned that he would lose because he was angry.
Wally and Jesse. Not that this was so terrible - they both had good parts in this - but throwing in such an obvious speed force set-up several episodes out only to do absolutely nothing with it was disappointing. Having Zoom taken down by mutliple friends working together also would've been a much stronger refutation of Zoom's running commentary about how family is a weakness.
Incidentally, glancing through the pages that I missed, I saw a lot of discussion about the names of the different universes which seemed to be based on the idea that every doppelganger in earth 2 was an 'opposite', but that's really not true. Barry, Iris and Joe were all good people on earth 2, just with slightly different characteristics and positions, and we also have no reason at all to believe that earth 1 Harrison Wells was in any way a bad guy. Not to mention Linda Park, who was admittedly a thief, but still not really a bad person, just scared to death by Zoom. The only undeniably bad counterparts we have are Cisco, Caitlyn and Laurel. And no, Zoom doesn't count, since he's clearly a completely different person (and we again have no information whatsoever about the personality of earth 1 hunter zolomon).
And you're ignoring my previous comment in which I explained that I never thought anyone was talking about "a COIE experience" and that it's still a bad and unnecessary idea even with just two universes.
Besides, the very idea of combining alternate worlds at all, no matter how many, is clearly derived from the concept of COIE, because that was the first comics work (indeed, the first work of popular fiction anywhere as far as I know) to be based on the concept of collapsing universes together.
All the more reason why it would be a shame to destroy the individuality of that universe while it's still young and growing. Let it acquire more superheroes of its own, heroes that arise out of its own setting. Let it get the alien and space-oriented heroes like Adam Strange, the Superman-tier heavy hitters like Captain Atom, the Superman-affiliated spinoff heroes like Superboy and Steel, the Martian Manhunter-affiliated characters like the JLI.
Err, no, the Bronze Age began in the '70s. It's associated with developments like Jack Kirby's departure from Marvel for DC, the rise of more serious and "socially relevant" comics, the emergence of the All-New X-Men and New Teen Titans, etc. Crisis was the end of the Bronze Age, and the dawn of what's variously called the Modern Age, the Iron Age, and the Dark Age. Or, less pretentiously, the post-Crisis era.
I'm sure I've already pointed out that past precedent has nothing to do with what an adaptation does, because the goal of an adaptation is to create its own fresh interpretation that uses earlier works as a starting point rather than a straitjacket.
And I've certainly already pointed out that DC's Earth-1 and Earth-2 characters teamed up routinely for a quarter-century before Crisis happened. And I've already pointed out repeatedly that we've just had a whole season of The Flash on which characters from two different universes teamed up or clashed on a weekly basis. Team-ups do not require merging universes.
Actually Caitlin and Cisco made their debut in Arrow season 2, episode 19, "The Man Under the Hood" -- 10 episodes after Barry's 2-parter. They had a run-in with Deathstroke while packing up STAR Labs's Starling City warehouse, then touched base with Felicity about Barry's coma and helped her manufacture the Mirakuru antidote. They would later guest-star on the Arrow crossover episodes "The Brave and the Bold" in season 3 and "Legends of Yesterday" in season 4.
She was in "Who is Harrison Wells?," episode 19 of season 1 of The Flash -- exactly one season after Cisco and Caitlin debuted on Arrow. Joe and Cisco went to Starling City to investigate the Wells case, and that's when Laurel asked Cisco to create the Canary Cry device for her. Although I believe it was the first time they'd actually met.
Granted, there's no onscreen evidence that Caitlin herself was close to Laurel (although maybe they'd become Twitter buddies or something), but she didn't say "I loved her," she said "We loved her." "We" being the larger superhero community that Caitlin was part of, including both Team Flash and Team Arrow. She probably considered Laurel part of that extended family, even if they weren't individually all that close.
It's a pretty standard fictional trope, though. "But it's a trap!" "I know it's a trap, but it's the only way to beat him/her/them."
The reason was that Zoom had explicitly stated that he'd keep killing Barry's loved ones unless Barry agreed to the race. Once the plan to disable the magnetar failed, Barry was out of options other than winning the race -- or, as it turned out, using the race as a lure and a distraction for Zoom so that he could deliver his temporal coup de grace. (Coup de temps?)
It's setup for next season, naturally. As we saw with the appearances by Barry, Cisco, and Cailtin in Arrow season 2, these producers like to play the long game, to seed ideas in the season before they bear fruit.
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I still can't believe that was the secret magic weapon--but after reading your post I want a video clip of Ollie using The Power of Love to fight Darhk--set to the Hewey Lewis song.
Huh, I thought Arrow had only had Barry himself on, prior to the launch. Learn something new every day. I vaguely remember that season 1 episode, but Laurel being in it is a complete blank. Must've been extremely forgettable for anyone who didn't already know the character.
I know that. But most people wouldn't say that, either, unless they personally had similar feelings, and it seemed doubly weird since it seemed like several of them weren't necessarily close to her. But it's a small thing, and apparently at least partially explained for anyone who watches Arrow.
Not really, though. It went way beyond the standard trope, because it's not actually a trap. It's Barry voluntarily providing his own power to enable the destruction of the multiverse. And the second part of the trope was also completely hollow, since Barry refused to provide even a single coherent thought on exactly how he was going to beat Zoom in this race - there was nothing different about this compared to any other time he tried to beat Zoom and failed. Which makes the sudden turnaround where he instantly has a workable plan even less convincing.
But Barry wasn't pushing it as a last ditch effort. He didn't even want to consider trying to destroy the magnetar, he wanted to skip straight to the race and to hell with the risk to literally inifinite civilizations. It was extraordinarily unheroic.
It would even be more heroic to destroy this universe, in such a way, to save infinite other universes, even though his world is the linchpin upon which all other Earth's are held.
The Government would nuke Central City to save the rest of the planet.
The Government would nuke Central City to save the rest of the planet.
I think you're confusing "keeping the plan close to his vest so the audience will be surprised" with "not having a plan at all and suddenly thinking of one at the last second." After all, Zoom had literally given Barry the plan at the start of the episode -- he created a time remnant of himself, then killed it, then said to Barry that he was "almost there" and had to be able and willing to kill his own time remnant if he wanted to beat Zoom. So the plan was in Barry's mind, and the audience's if they were paying attention, since the teaser. The gun was on the wall from the start, in plain sight. Some part of Zolomon must've had a death wish, must've wanted Barry to end his misery, because he literally told Barry how to defeat him.
The team tried to destroy the magnetar while Barry was imprisoned in the pipeline. Wells reported that it was physically impossible to dismantle the magnetar without destroying Earth-1. So yes, that too was explained. That option simply was not on the table.
Kill Barry.
Zoom might throw a hissy fit and sack a few cities, but what's a few cities between friends?
Zoom might throw a hissy fit and sack a few cities, but what's a few cities between friends?
I'm not confused by it at all. I understand that he must have had the plan already. I just find the execution of those scenes extremely poor - from the fact that Barry refused to share his plan with his friends (who he supposedly trusts) for no better reason than because the audience isn't supposed to know yet, to the fact that none of his friends ever even mentioned the biggest reason why his 'plan' as presented was completely insane (ie, the fact that he was risking the lives of an infinite number of innocent people), to the fact that he refused to even consider a different plan which wouldn't risk the death of worlds (there's no particular reason his time wraith/time remnant trick had to take place on Zoom's terms), to the fact that it was all underpinned by Barry's supposed inability to save his friends from Zoom's attacks which was established by Barry *not even trying* to save his father (terrible scene) and which also completely undermined his entire narrative that he could beat Zoom in the first place (unless he was willing to tell people what his plan was, which brings us right back to the start).
All of which is not even speaking to the fact that his plan as it apparently existed was only about stopping Zoom. His knowledge of how to suddenly undo the damage he'd done and shut the magnetar down literally came out of nowhere. Barry is at least a very intelligent person, so that's not entirely unbelievable, but for him to be counting on his ability to pull that off (or to just finish things before it was necessary) was still horribly reckless.
Him going after Zoom, come hell or high water, to end things before more of his friends got hurt would've been believable. Him helping Zoom try to destroy the multiverse just to put him off guard? Maybe if it had been structured differently to really explain why there was no other choice, but what actually happened was just a complete mess.
I never disagreed that that part wasn't explained *eventually*, but the explanation does nothing to put Barry's behavior prior to that in a better light.
Not "eventually." Wells's statement that the magnetar couldn't be shut down came before the climax, when the team came back from their Flash-less confrontation with Zoom and just before they found out that Wally had released Barry from the cell. So we already knew that shutting down the magnetar was off the table before the climax happened.
Barry would have come across better if he explained to his friends the obvious: Zoom does not actually need Barry's speed to destroy the multiverse. Zoom could just create enough time remnants to do the job himself. That's why Barry has to play along; it at least gives Barry a chance to throw a wrench in the works. Otherwise, Zoom might just get bored and do the job himself without Barry there to make a difference.
So, who will the Season Three Big Bad be? I have to assume it's going to be something very different; surely they're not going to do Evil Speedster Who Masquerades As A Mentor Figure three times in a row! The obvious answer might be the Rogues as a team. They can't do Grodd because he's too expensive.
How about a time remnant villain from the Flashpoint universe that was just created?
If he screws around with the timeline some more like I was speculating, maybe we could get an evil alternate timeline Barry out of the deal.
Maybe for a main villain they could reveal that the time remnant Barry created in the Season 2 finale actually didn't die, and instead reforms from the speed force but is now mentally unstable. He then becomes a new super fast villain (they could take an unrelated villain name like Inertia or Speed Demon and stick it on evil Barry). He could capture real Barry for an episode or two, and infiltrate the team as Barry 
Time for Mirror Master I guess. He's one Rogue we haven't seen yet. The mirror gimmicks should make for interesting visuals, especially short cuts through the mirror dimension.
Uh what? The real Eobard Thawn is from Earth-1. Is there even an Earth-2 Eobard?