Spoilers The Flash - Season 3
- Thread starter Commander Richard
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Then everyone would say it was repetitive because we just had an evil Barry.
There was actually a major storyline in the comics where Wally thought Barry had returned and teamed up with him for a while, but it turned out to be Thawne in disguise as Barry. Which I suppose was a major source for the first-season arc with Barry's mentor Harrison Wells turning out to be Thawne in disguise.
According to TVLine, next season's big bad is
Not familiar, but I can see based on the powers how it could work very well. Bad name, though. Hopefully Cisco isn't responsible for that.
the Thinker.
Not familiar, but I can see based on the powers how it could work very well. Bad name, though. Hopefully Cisco isn't responsible for that.
That would be real cool, especially because
The Thinker would be the first non-Speedster big villain on Flash. Having a mad genius as the big villain could be really cool, and if nothing else its something different for Barry to fight. Sure, Reverse Flash was pretty much a genius, but he was from the future, so this is different. I hope this ends up being true. A mad scientist/genius without the speed force could make Cisco and the Star Labs team an even bigger part of the direct fight. I hope we get a good Wells to go along with it (I'd be happy if Harry came back full time, but I just like Wells in general so I'm interested in seeing what they go with next for the Wells slot on the show)
Ralph Dibny, aka The Elongated Man, will be coming to season 4.
http://www.cbr.com/the-flash-season-4-casting-call-thinker-elongated-man/
http://www.cbr.com/the-flash-season-4-casting-call-thinker-elongated-man/
Appropriate, since he debuted as a guest character in The Flash -- indeed, I believe he was the first hero that the Barry Allen Flash ever teamed up with.
I wonder if the writers will remember the fact that Ralph Dibny was listed way back in season 1 as one of the people still missing after the accelerator explosion.
I'm excited to see him. I just really, really hope they both give him his powers (minus needing to eat fruit) and don't make him a villain like they did with Atom Smasher. The Flash has a really bad trend of taking heroes and making them villains for literally no reason.
Also, I hope they have Sue Dibny show up (and with her and Ralph very much together, not some kind of relationship drama related thing). Ralph and Sue are honestly one of the most sold, and (generally) well done couples in DC comics, even over Clark & Lois and Arthur & Mera in my opinion (well, back before first Brad Meltzer fucked them up with Identify Crisis and then Gail Simone ruined the New 52 version of the characters they were).
Also, I hope they have Sue Dibny show up (and with her and Ralph very much together, not some kind of relationship drama related thing). Ralph and Sue are honestly one of the most sold, and (generally) well done couples in DC comics, even over Clark & Lois and Arthur & Mera in my opinion (well, back before first Brad Meltzer fucked them up with Identify Crisis and then Gail Simone ruined the New 52 version of the characters they were).
Literally.
Flash has also done a lot of the opposite. It's made villains heroes (Caitlin) or at the very least antiheroes (Snart & Rory). The franchise has a long tradition of "re-positioning character alignment" (for lack of a better phrase) going all the way back to Tommy/Malcolm in the Arrow pilot--several times they played up the tension of which side of the fence Tommy was going to fall on, so to speak.
And to say it's done so "for no reason" is silly. It's clearly an attempt to keep things unpredictable. When it works it keeps people who've read the comics on their toes and people who haven't don't know any better anyway.
And for my money the reveal that "Jay Garrick' wasn't really Jay Garrick and that JWS was really Jay Garrick and E2 Flash was on of the most fun reveals I've seen on TV in quite some time.
It doesn't "keep people on their toes" to make Atom Smasher a villain, just like it wasn't clever writing to change the identity of Prometheus on Arrow. Its crap writing, the kind of bad twist that took a certain director from being the acclaimed director of The Sixth Sense to the laughing stock of The Happening. Its pretty much THE biggesat recurring problem on The Flash (its also a common problem on Arrow, but that show has so many uhuge problems it barely registers on the top 5-10 problems on that show).
The Jay Garrick reveal was one of the worst reveals in the Arrowverse. Not Prometheus bad, but easily a top 5 bad. It was extremely stupid, and added nothing. Just like Savitar's reveal was a "twist" that was both easily predictable and made the villain fairly mediocre once you figure it out/it was revealed.
So, yes, that garbage is done for literally no good reason. Its bad Arrow writing infecting Flash, and hopefully it doesn't happen next season.
What? His powers come from an extract of a fruit, "gingo" that Ralph developed using chemistry. It's no different than Rex Tyler using Miralco.
Its not needed, its just a goofy complication that was barely even mentioned back when he was in comics more often (I read most of JL Europe without knowing about the fruit, and even in a lot of his older stories it barely comes up). plus he was listed as having disappeared after the particle accelerator accident, so he more then likely got his powers from that, not from fruit. Otherwise why would he have disappeared during the incident? Unless they want to get very convoluted and say a bunch of fruit was effected by the accidnet, they'll probably just skip the middleman and give him powers directly. Or, this being the Arrowverse, Ralph Dibny will be revealed as the alter ego of the Arrowverse Soloman Grundy, because stupid "twists" like that are something bad writers love in the DC CW tv shows.
Heck, I'm pretty sure that the Arrowverse "Rex Tyler" had no powers and didn't even use his miraclo pills, just like how his JSA in no way resembled the real JSA, so at this point if The Flash recreates Identity Crisis with Sue as the wife of Arthur Light and Ralph as the...villain I won't even be that shocked because, as much as I love The Flash, all Arrowverse writers have a huge case of Shyamalan syndrome and an obsession with putting "tricking comic fans" over good writing in their priorities list.
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In the comics, yes, but the shows have changed a lot of characters' origins. As I said, the first season already name-dropped Ralph as one of the people missing and presumed dead after the accelerator explosion, clearly setting him up as a potential metahuman. All they have to do is remember their own continuity and Ralph's origin is already dealt with. Unless they use the Flashpoint timeline changes to handwave a different origin. (Other DC character alluded to in that same list include Grant Emerson/Damage, Will Everett/Amazing Man, and Bea da Costa/Fire. Ooh, it'd be cool if they cast Natalie Morales as Fire -- she recently played the same character under the name Green Fury on Powerless, so she could be her own doppelganger!)
By the way, I think Nate Silver must be a Flash fan, since he just used "Earth 2" and the multiverse as a framing metaphor for a FiveThirtyEight piece about what might've happened had Clinton won the election:
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/if-clinton-had-won/
Although the article posits that "Earth 1" is our world where Trump won, when of course we know that the 2016 winner on Earth-1 was vaporized by the Dominators (in December, thus shortly after what must've been his re-election) and the current US president there is Susan Brayden.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/if-clinton-had-won/
Although the article posits that "Earth 1" is our world where Trump won, when of course we know that the 2016 winner on Earth-1 was vaporized by the Dominators (in December, thus shortly after what must've been his re-election) and the current US president there is Susan Brayden.
My objection is simply to the idea that the fruit is some how goofy or odd source for his powers. The world is full of things derived form botanical sources. It an weird objection to have and to describe as "eating a fruit" is off base when IIRC what he does is drink a liquid made from the fruit.
I fully expect there to changes is Ralph's origin and backstory. That wasn't my point.
I think it's seen as goofy because it's just so mundane. If you could extract a substance from these fruits that gave humans such extraordinary powers, why does only one guy have those powers? Why isn't that substance more widely available? Why haven't supervillains or governments or militaries explored its use? If a superhero's abilities are portrayed as rare or unique (for the sake of argument, let's table the whole Elongated Man/Plastic Man issue), then it doesn't really fit to give them an origin that seems like it could be widely replicated.
Well, the reason Ralph knows about the fruit is that most India Rubber Men used in their acts. What he did was used the fruit to create a chemical that enhances its effects, turning him into the Elongated Man. And like many superheroes he kept that too himself. Probably problems with FDA approval.
Anything that one person can discover, others will discover. The history of science is littered with cases where two or three different individuals or groups simultaneously discovered or invented the same thing. If the knowledge is there to be found, it inevitably will be found more than once.
In Ralph's case, I imagine that comics in the years leading up to his retirement in 2006 would have explained that he had a metahuman gene that allowed the plant extract to uniquely interact with his metabolism.
Then the MCU should be littered with Stark like tech, Erskine super soldiers and adamantium laced skeletons. And DCU cops shold all have Wayne tech utility belts and planes should be made of Nth metal.
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