Spoilers The Flash - Season 3

[Romulan_spy]

Sounds plausible, except that it flies in the face of what the show literally just established as the already existing history of the future. Savitar 'broke' Barry, but Barry still defeated him and many others and continued to fight supervillains for years if not decades. If Iris' death drove Barry to give up, Abra Kabadra would never have even heard the name 'The Flash'.

Future-Barry could have given up at first but then come back as a "darker" Flash, eventually becoming Savatar. I still think that Iris' death is the catalyst that turned Future-Barry into Savatar.

 

[Velocity]

My head just exploded. Future Barry turned into Savitar because of the death of Iris at the hands of Savitar. Those time travel paradoxes....

 

[Phoenix219]

What I want to know is, since the song from Guys and Dolls was being sung by the three gangster dads in two different locations, did Barry and Kara only hear half of it each? That would've been confusing. Or did they somehow hear both Malcolm's part and the other two's part at the same time?

And did anyone else notice that the son of Malcolm Merlyn's character was named Tommy? Even though Mon-El was playing the part, I doubt that was a coincidence.




I don't mind that -- I just wish it hadn't been so arbitrary, that there'd been more explanation of what he was and why he was doing this. He came off more as a plot device, a deus ex machina to mend the heroes' romantic woes, than a character.




Oh, that would've been nice. Well, the Meister's still out there. And we know from the future newspaper headlines that he's going to be signing a 6-figure book deal on Earth-1 in May. So maybe he'll be back on The Flash, at least.




I think Grant Gustin and Stephen Amell have great chemistry -- Amell is never better than when he's playing off Gustin. But Gustin and Benoist are a joy together.

"Superfriends" was a fun song, but if they hadn't been able to commission it, they could've done just as well with the Cole Porter standard "Friendship." Indeed, the song seemed like kind of a pastiche of that one, with a similar sentiment and back-and-forth structure.






Yep -- that's the whole reason they did this episode, because they had a surprising number of singers and Broadway performers in their combined casts and wanted to show off their pipes. Same reason Legends keeps having Martin Stein break out in song as a distraction.

In-story, though, it's a bit hard to justify. If the scenario was constructed from Barry's and Kara's minds, why would Barry cast two of the gangster dads as Stein (who's a friend) and Merlyn (whom he barely knows)? It's a little too obvious that the roles were selected based on who had singing talent in real life rather than who made sense in-story.




I had the impression that they did try but couldn't make it work; at least, one of the producers said "You're asking the right question" when asked if NPH was being considered for the role. He was probably too busy or too expensive. But since the character was so radically changed, I don't really mind.




That's right -- the character was created by Michael Jelenic. The character's only prior appearances were in the BB&B episodes "Mayhem of the Music Meister!" and "Mitefall!" (cameo), the final issue of the BB&B tie-in comic (also a cameo in a "Mitefall!"-like story), and the Lego Batman 3 videogame, where he was played by Troy Baker.

There is a similar character in Flash history, though, a Jay Garrick adversary called the Fiddler, who could hypnotize people with his violin. And the Justice League TV series's episode "Legends," which featured name-changed versions of Justice Society heroes and villains because they couldn't get the rights to the originals for some reason, renamed their Fiddler character the Music Master (played by Udo Kier). Interestingly, that 2-parter was written by Andrew Kreisberg, who co-wrote the story for this episode. ("Legends" is also the source of the name Black Siren for an alternate Black Canary. Interesting how much from that JL 2-parter by Kreisberg has ended up in the Arrowverse, including the name Legends and the use of the Justice Society. It also involved a powered character creating a pocket reality out of his imagination, so there's a vague similarity to "Duet.")

It actually wasn't a rights issue at all - there is a youtube video of a promo for the show complete with the actual Justice Society in it! In actuality, they decided that they didn't want to "waste" or "disrespect" the JSA in such a way (that will make sense once you see the plot of the episode.) It was to keep them intact and in play if they wanted to go back to it in the future.

 

[Christopher]

It actually wasn't a rights issue at all - there is a youtube video of a promo for the show complete with the actual Justice Society in it! In actuality, they decided that they didn't want to "waste" or "disrespect" the JSA in such a way (that will make sense once you see the plot of the episode.)

I saw the episodes when they premiered 15 years ago, thank you.

According to the DCAU Wiki, "The creative team wanted to use the JSA but DC Comics declined."

 

[kirk55555]

I heard that DC declined to allow the use of the actual JSA because they considered the "Legends" episode disrespectful. Basically, having Alan Scott, Jay Gaarrick, etc tell Black Canary to bake cookies, treat Hawkgirl badly, etc, would have reflected badly on the characters. Those characters hadn't acted like that since the 40s (if they even did that then, although I say that knowing that the old JSA made wonder woman their secretary), and it didn't represent how the characters had been written at any time since their revival, and especially since the 70s All Star Comics series. Since the episode came out three years into Geoff Johns amazing JSA run, they probably didn't want people watching a JLU episode showing the JSA having standard, bad 40s attitudes toward women, then having the viewers possibly associate that behavior with the current characters in the JSA comic.

That's just a combination of stuff I've read online and my own extrapolation, but it makes sense to me, and I'm glad DC didn't let the JLU team use the actual JSA because of that reason.

 

[Phoenix219]

I heard that DC declined to allow the use of the actual JSA because they considered the "Legends" episode disrespectful. Basically, having Alan Scott, Jay Gaarrick, etc tell Black Canary to bake cookies, treat Hawkgirl badly, etc, would have reflected badly on the characters. Those characters hadn't acted like that since the 40s (if they even did that then, although I say that knowing that the old JSA made wonder woman their secretary), and it didn't represent how the characters had been written at any time since their revival, and especially since the 70s All Star Comics series. Since the episode came out three years into Geoff Johns amazing JSA run, they probably didn't want people watching a JLU episode showing the JSA having standard, bad 40s attitudes toward women, then having the viewers possibly associate that behavior with the current characters in the JSA comic.

That's just a combination of stuff I've read online and my own extrapolation, but it makes sense to me, and I'm glad DC didn't let the JLU team use the actual JSA because of that reason.

No, you are dead on. It wasn't just a "declined" thing..... the episode was written and scripted and in production with the JSA, or we would NOT have gotten this:

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[Phoenix219]

Future-Barry could have given up at first but then come back as a "darker" Flash, eventually becoming Savatar. I still think that Iris' death is the catalyst that turned Future-Barry into Savatar.

What if it not Future Barry, but the S2 Time Fragment Barry that became one with the Speed Force, and was driven mad by it?

 

[Hound of UIster]

No, you are dead on. It wasn't just a "declined" thing..... the episode was written and scripted and in production with the JSA, or we would NOT have gotten this:

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And of course having a mutated pastiche of Roy Thomas as the villain probably didn't help either. Especially internally within publishing you had people proclaiming the JSA was outdated and cancelling the previous book and killing several of them in Zero Hour and then possibly using that animated episode as further ammo for their argument.

 

[Phoenix219]

I saw the episodes when they premiered 15 years ago, thank you.

According to the DCAU Wiki, "The creative team wanted to use the JSA but DC Comics declined."

Who implied that you didn't see the episodes when they aired originally? Relevance?

Thats exactly what I said - it wasn't a rights issue - it was a "the way the characters are being used" issue. The integrity of the characters and their history was more important then the one-off story arc.

The JSA was not sold or licensed to someone else. DC had full creative control of all the rights to all of the characters. Respect, not Rights.

 

[Christopher]

No, you are dead on. It wasn't just a "declined" thing..... the episode was written and scripted and in production with the JSA, or we would NOT have gotten this:

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Is that even for real? The images are very low-resolution. And the promo says "Next Sunday" -- animation takes months to create, so there's no way they could've redone the animation and voices in the entire 2-parter in less than a week.

Okay, from Brian Cronin's reliable "Comic Book Legends Revealed" column, here's Bruce Timm explaining the situation in his own words:

However, DC Comics publisher Paul Levitz had some concerns with the story. He felt the story as written disrespected the JSA and was overall an inappropriate use of the characters. We pleaded our case, but we could clearly see his point, too: the DC guys have spent a lot of time and effort in revitalizing the JSA recently (to the point here it’s now one of their most popular titles) we certainly didn’t want it to seem as if we were saying the JSA was a joke. No disrespect was intended on our end-quite the opposite! We wanted the story to be a love letter to the original JSA and a bittersweet nod to simpler times. [However], Paul saw our point and quickly agreed to a compromise: we’d change the names and designs just enough to make them not quite the JSA, but still get the point across. They’re now the superheroes of ‘Earth Two-and-a-half’, if you will…kinda similar to what Alan Moore was doing in his Supreme run.

It did give us a few hairy moments, as all this stuff was happening at literally the eleventh hour. [We] were actually on the phone with the legal department, awaiting clearances on our new JGA characters’ names, at the voice-recording session. We started recording not knowing what some of the character’s names were going to be!

If they were waiting for clearances on the JGA names at the start of the recording session, that means they decided to use the JGA before they actually began recording the voices -- and of course, they record the voices before they do the animation. Therefore, they never actually animated a JSA version of this episode, and that YouTube "promo" must be some fan's wishful thinking.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

I've been catching up with my DVR, I skipped ahead to the musical episode but watched the speed force back-to-back with this last one and it really pales in comparison. Between Mxy, Music Meister and Abra Kadabra I've had my fill of annoying magical characters. The FX with the cards flying out was pretty nifty though.

Can't that timeship rise vertically? What is this, Star Trek?

 

[Christopher]

Can't that timeship rise vertically?

Well, to be fair, he cobbled it together from stone knives and bearskins.

 

[Tuskin38]

Have there ever been any non-Human Speedsters who use the Speed Force in the comics?

 

[Nerys Myk]

Have there ever been any non-Human Speedsters who use the Speed Force in the comics?

It's a Flash thing. And Flashes tend to be humans.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Grodd had speed in a recent comic.

Every Alien with Superman level powers, including Superman, is also a speedster.

 

[Christopher]

Have there ever been any non-Human Speedsters who use the Speed Force in the comics?

Are you talking non-human as in sentient aliens, or more like a Flash equivalent of Krypto or Comet the Super Horse?

 

[Nerys Myk]

Grodd had speed in a recent comic.

Every Alien with Superman level powers, including Superman, is also a speedster.

But with out a connection to the Speed Force.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Zolomon in the comics used really slow time travel to mimic superspeed.

It's just a bunch of words.

 

[Tuskin38]

Are you talking non-human as in sentient aliens, or more like a Flash equivalent of Krypto or Comet the Super Horse?

I meant aliens really

 

[N-121973]

The actor who played Kadabra reminded me of Lin Manuel Miranda.

I liked how Iris convinced Barry that the price to pay was too high to make a deal with Kadabra. Needless to say, it was Joe and Barry who couldn't bear the thought that handing Kadabra over to Gypsy could mean not saving Iris' life. Well, it was Joe's actions that led the villain to get away the first time.

The chase scene was silly. It reminded me of the motorcycle chase from a previous episode wherein Wally and Barry could've outrun it but didn't. The same was true with the timeship. It always appears that Flash is running at supersonic speeds but has a hard time catching a running or flying object.

Kadabra has duplicates elsewhere in the DC Multiverse with him called Dwight Pollard on the Earth Gotham is set on (I haven't seen Gotham season 3 yet but he has something to do with that universe's Joker) and on the Earth of the Dark Knight Trilogy he was Thomas Schiff, the Joker goon Harvey Dent psychologically tortures for information before Batman shows up and talkes him out of it. Oh he's also on Earth-616 playing a member of the crew who helped Scott Lang.