I’m trying to vary the topics I cover for Comic Book Wednesday. I was originally going to do a follow up to blog from last week, where I spoke about Spider-Gwen, but I decided that it’s possibly better to leave that for at least another week and, since I’ve already covered movies from both Marvel and DC previously, I thought I’d switch to TV for a change. Specifically, I thought I’d talk about a subject that I didn’t discuss this week when I had a conversation about the upcoming Marvel TV shows. I may or may not talk about those in the future. What I’m interested in talking about right now is The Flash, which is returning to our screens rather soon, and what we can expect from Season 4. I’ve been doing some research on this, trying to read up on the rumours for the season ahead, and it kind of seems like there’s a lot that’s already known about the next season, doesn’t there?
The Aftermath of Season Three
Well, first and foremost we can’t talk about Season Four without first thinking about how Season Three ended, with Barry managing to save Iris from what seemed like certain death at the hands of Savitar, and the death of another incarnation of Harrison Wells, not to mention that little bit at the end where Barry kinda went into the Speed Force forever…
Heh, forever. In a TV show season finale. C’mon did any of us think that would last? Part of me wonders why they even bother with such monumental “this will change everything” moments in season finales given that we all know that in all likelihood the status quo will be all but restored by the end of the first episode of the next season. And the rumour is that the status quo will kinda be all but restored by the end of the first episode of the next season. The official synopsis says that it’s “up to Team Flash to save Barry from his own personal hell”, which pretty much implies that he will return in the season opener. Perhaps everything won’t immediately go back to normal, but I’m all but expecting that by the time the second episode is finished the regular cast will be all put back the way they were. There’s one slight difference that I’m anticipating though, and that’s that the romance we saw between Barry and Iris last season may be put on ice.
I don’t base this on anything I’ve read, bar the fact that the three previous seasons loved teasing the idea of Barry and Iris being together than focusing on the reality of Barry and Iris being together. It seems, therefore, like a typical TV show storyline to break them up again while Barry “deals with what he went through” and give us another story over the course of the season about them reuniting, along with possible roadblocks in their way. I could be wrong. Truth is I hope I’m wrong, because they’ve done the whole “will they or won’t they?” thing already, and we don’t really need this to turn into Friends, do we? Honestly, the whole “will they or won’t they?” plot with Ross and Rachel became annoying after a while, with “Ross loves Rachel but she doesn’t know” followed by “Rachel loves Ross, but he’s moved on”, followed by them being together, a convoluted reason for them to break up, and then season after season of “one of them still loves the other but…”. I can honestly see that being what they’re planning for season four of Flash. Barry “won’t be ready” to resume the relationship, then Iris will find someone new and Barry will mope that he turned her away, and then he’ll find someone new right as Iris breaks up with her rebound guy and then she’ll mope because she “missed her chance” and… bleh. I hope I’m wrong.
Another more interesting part of season four will be finding out what they do to replace HR Wells, now he’s died. Will they go hunting for a replacement like the last season, and bring in another “alternate version” for Tom Cavanagh to make us like? He managed it pretty damn well with the last two, so I see no reason why he couldn’t pull it off a third time (well, fourth if you include making us like the original version only to reveal he was actually the bad-guy). The Wells of Earth-2 is the other alternative, the one we already have established and who “is needed back on his Earth”, except… is he? Or will the fact that the Flash is stuck in the Speed Force mean that “Harry” will stick around this season to help out? He’ll have plenty to deal with after all, from the Flash being missing in action to Wally taking over to trying to work on something to help Caitlin. There’s plenty of reasons for the smartest version of Wells to stick around for the whole season, rather than replacing him with another alternate with another new story. And besides, “Harry” sticking around means we may see more of Jesse, and I won’t lie, I do like that character (and in theory she’s done protecting Earth-3 if Jay Garrick is free of the Speed Force, right?).
What’s Happening With Caitlin?
Before we move on to the other gossip for the season, let’s go into more detail on a previous point. We saw the evolution of Caitlin Snow into Killer Frost last season, but is that a route that’s going to continue, or are we in for something new?
One bit of research I did prior to this was to watch an interview with two of the producers on YouTube, who promised that “if you’re a fan of Killer Frost you won’t be disappointed”, but also that “if you’re a fan of Caitlin Snow you won’t be disappointed either”. Ok, so that’s nice and cryptic, but does that mean we’re going to see a nice version of Killer Frost? Does this mean that the ice powers which for reasons unexplained make her evil (seriously, DID they explain why that is and I just completely blanked it or did we just wholesale accept that oh, right, OF COURSE ice powers make you evil because why wouldn’t they?) are going to continue, only now she’ll lose the evil? Or does this mean we’re going to see lots of switching between the two? Is she still going to be trying to control her powers? Is she going to go back to refusing to use them? Are we going to see Smiley Frost one moment and Killer Frost the next? How exactly are they going to handle this? I think they’ve kind of written themselves into a corner with this character because whatever they do now it’s going to be questionable.
Let’s assume that, for no reason whatsoever, she’s suddenly able to stop being evil and now has ice powers as her regular old character. That… doesn’t explain why she was evil in the first place? It doesn’t explain why she had a second personality which seemed to control her when she was using her powers, nor does it explain why the hell she suddenly lost that second personality. In fact, if she’s good for no reason other than “it suits the plot, and we wanted the character to stick around” then I’ll be highly disappointed. Then again, if she’s randomly evil for the whole season I’ll just get annoyed. Again, we’ve seen the whole “is she evil or does she still have a heart?” thing in the last season… can they stretch that out any further? We really don’t need more teasing of Cisco and her fighting. Again, we’ve seen that. What we need is something new, some new evolution for the character, and it’s got to be a lot more than just “she goes back to not using her powers” as well. I’m hoping that the writers have thought this one through and have a plan for how to handle it, otherwise we’re going to be in for a long, bumpy ride if we’ve got Caitlin/Killer Frost switching back and forth alongside the whole “will they or won’t they?” between Barry and Iris. The whole will just become super cliché and… nobody wants that.
The Villain Isn’t A Speedster
When they made this announcement I think I may have actually said “oh thank god for that”. Honestly, after three seasons of various speedster villains I half expected Godspeed as the fourth season villain, but nope, apparently they’re giving us something new.
Honestly, was I the only one who thought they were only ever going to go with “fast vs fast” and “Barry has to figure out how to get even faster” for every season? Once again it was something that I was worried they were going to continue into season four, but apparently not. Apparently, we’ve got a non-speedster villain this season, and apparently it’s the TV shows version of The Thinker. This was teased in season three, when they were mentioning thing that Barry hasn’t met yet, and it’s a huge relief. It’ll be a breath of fresh air, giving Barry and the team something new to go up against rather than just someone who’s quicker than Barry. Hopefully it’ll add a new dynamic to the show, and hopefully they’ve thought this one all the way through considering we’re going to need a very good villain if he can stay one step ahead of the fastest man on the planet. That gives us a whole new concept to explore, and two new characters to explore alongside them, considering he’s not coming alone and is getting his own sidekick.
Is it far to call her his sidekick? The rumours certainly seem to suggest she will be. Said sidekick will be “The Mechanic”, someone to build the stuff that the Thinker… thinks of? Ok, on paper these two seem terrible, but then on paper so were the last two seasons (since, you know, on paper they were “Barry fights another guy who’s really fast”), and they provided some good, quality entertainment, did they not? Then, of course, we get this whole “brains versus speed” thing played out across the fact that The Flash may or may not be his old self. I honestly don’t know if he’s going to be the main big bad and only appear sporadically, or if he’s going to be a regular big bad who somehow stays one step ahead of the geniuses and two of the fastest beings who ever lived (when you include Wally as well), but we’ll soon find out, I guess? In truth, I’m both excited and worried by this, but then when you think the original Harrison Wells managed to outsmart Barry at every turn even without super speed then we know already that Barry is susceptible to a bit of outsmarting. Hopefully, when you throw in gadgets as well, that’ll create an interesting enough bad guy for our heroes, plus maybe a new hero too?
The Elongated Debut
Yep, we’ve not only got new villains this season but apparently a new hero as well? Well, we assume a new hero. What we do know is that Ralph Dibny will debut, aka the Elongated Man, but do we know if he’ll join Team Flash?
I’m not sure if we do or not. We don’t even know if Flash and Elongated Man will be on the same side. They could both be heroes but constantly find themselves both striving for the same goals and getting in each other’s way. We also don’t know what the origin of the Elongated Man is going to be. If they’re going with the comic book origin (or I should say, with DC being DC, the origin that I know. He could have about 19 different ones, all of which are somehow valid thanks to New 52… but my hatred of DC having five different origins and nine different versions of each character is probably a subject for another blog) then they’re going to need to update it. The comic book origin is very 60s. Then again, so is the power set of the Elongated Man. He stretches. He’s also a detective. But mostly, he stretches. That’s… cool, I guess? There’s only so much you can do with that for a TV character though, right? No idea how much of a regular he’ll be, or even if he’ll appear in one short arc and then be done, but we’ll discover that as we go, I guess.
The same is true of the other people cast. Amunet Black, aka Blacksmith, will also make an appearance. Now this is a character I can get more behind, a character who can control metal and merge it with flesh. That seems far more like something cool we could see on TV, and I can definitely see her being more of a threat not just to Barry and Wally but also, potentially, to the rest of the Arrowverse as well, given that she’s the rumoured big-bad for the crossover. Is it wrong that I’m seriously excited for Diggle to see someone who can reshape metal and see what his reaction will be? Because I am. I’m also excited for how someone like Oliver deals with that. Even for Barry that’s going to be a challenge, but for someone like Oliver you’ve got to think that Blacksmith could make a season-long villain, so if she is appearing for the crossover and then potentially being done with then I’ll be intrigued to see what she’s up to and why it takes the combined might of at least Barry and Oliver to stop her, if not more besides. Will we see the whole gang together again, including Supergirl? Blacksmith will need to be a hell of a villain if they need to call in the heaviest of hitters in Kara to deal with her…
What’s Next For Wally?
So, we know there will be new villains. We know Barry will be back in some form or another. We know that Harrison Wells will be back as well (or a version thereof). But what’s next for Wally West? What’s the next evolution for this character?
“Oh, sorry guys, the plot said I had to be somewhere else.”
I may have been the only person who was actually a little upset that they went ahead and gave Wally super speed. I feel like I was justified in that being upset last season when, honestly, he played the role of sidekick and then was conveniently absent a lot so that Barry still had actual challenges he needed to face. Most of that was Wally being told “nope, you’re not ready yet”, which only lasted so long until HR took him under his wing, helped train him, and then set him loose doing his Kid Flash-like things. But now what’s next for Wally? Will he continue being the sidekick? Will he get a new storyline? Will he just be another cog in the Team Flash machine? I hope that they’ve actually got plans for the character this season or they’re going to need a LOT of excuses to explain why TWO speedsters can’t take down threats of only meta-human magnitude. And I know I say “only” but Barry’s been dealing with meta-humans since day one, they can’t really up the stakes on the whole meta-human thing now to give him such huge threats EVERY WEEK that he’s going to need Wally around, especially when his villain is ONLY The Thinker.
No offence to the Thinker. I’m sure he’ll think up some awesome stuff. But against TWO speedsters that will just require too much suspension of common sense to think that he could continuously gain an upper hand enough to be a legitimate threat. The same is true of every other villain. Even the classic villains (please oh please oh please let Captain Cold return, I seriously <3 Wentworth Miller in that role) are going to have major problems going up against two speedsters on a regular basis, and thus this just gives the show a major problem. What do they do with Wally? How do they make him a worthwhile member of the team while also making the threats seem large enough that two speedsters have to struggle to overcome them? Personally I’d like to see some storyline where Wally has to limit how much he uses the Speed Force. I’m not sure WHY this could happen, but it would create an interesting role for the character to have to find new ways to continue to help and struggle with not being able to just run in and battle, while also keep that yellow costume in reserve for when it’s really needed. Is this what they’ll do, or will he just be mysteriously absent whenever Barry gets in trouble… pretty much like most of last season?
What Other Stories Will We See?
So, there’s a big thing going around that Barry could become the Black Flash this season. Is that just wishful thinking or is there something to it? Plus, was the Speed Force striking the city at the end last season a sign of a possible version of the Rebirth story to come?
These are two theories/rumours that I’ve read a lot. The first is that Barry may or may not be the Black Flash this season. I’m not sure where this came from, and I’m also not sure if it’s good or bad. Ok, so he’s changed the timeline from the version of himself he met, which means that nothing he knew of the future is now in any way certain, and he was still the regular version of the Flash then, not the Black Flash, so it’s now possible that he may become the Black Flash but… I hope not. We’ve seen a very cool version of the Black Flash, specifically in it hunting down Reverse-Flash in Legends of Tomorrow. Getting a version of the same storyline in The Flash would just be bad, and honestly getting any kind of Black Flash storyline could once again write the writers into a corner they can’t get out of. I’d prefer they just avoid the whole thing personally, much as I’d prefer they avoid the chance to repeat the Rebirth/Godspeed story from the comic for one important reason, which I cannot stress enough at this stage: WE’VE GOT ENOUGH MOTHER F*$%^!G SPEEDSTERS!
Seriously. We do. From the THREE villains we’ve had now, to Barry, Jesse AND Wally, not to mention Jay Garrick kicking around as well, we don’t need EVEN MORE speedsters for Barry to end up training, or lord knows what else. If they go this route I’ll honestly just end up smashing my face against the sofa repeatedly and moaning “why? Why? Why?” repeatedly, not only because it’ll really get super old, super quickly but far more importantly because ALL THE SHOWS ARE CONNECTED, and how in the unholy hell can we have about 9 speedsters all in one city while Oliver and co are still shooting robbers with arrows? They need to keep things balanced, and they need to move away from the whole “fast vs fast” thing now before they kill their own show with just repeats of the same basic dynamic over and over. Honestly, I’m no longer worried about how fast Barry can run. Nor am I worried there’s someone who might be faster. We seriously need to move on, and now is a good time to do that. So let’s see new things, shall we? Preferably, also, let’s stay away from the OTHER crutch that the show keeps turning to time after time after time since they introduced it in such an awesome way and have just been relying on it ever since, and that’s time travel. Say it with me, Flash fans: NO MORE MOTHER F*$%^!G TIME TRAVEL! We’ve got a whole SHOW based on the concept, we don’t need it happening every week in The Flash as well. Not unless the Legends are going to show up and murder Barry for consistently causing anomalies that somehow they conveniently forget to look into.
So, that’s my Flash Season 4 preview. Hope you enjoyed it. If you want to talk about The Flash then I’m on Twitter (@AlexisEbdon) and Facebook (facebook.com/ajebdon), so find me and we can talk about what you’re most looking forward to. Or not. That’s your call.