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Hey youtubers it’s Charlie and this week they screened the first episode of The Flash
at Comic Con, Legally. So this is going to be my non-spoilery review. Since a lot of
you probably won’t get to see it until October 7th when it officially premieres, I’m going
to do no-spoilers first, then for everyone that has already seen it, I will have a spoiler
section with a special warning.
Hello any new people too, if you’re just finding me I do weekly Flash and Arrow videos,
be sure to subscribe to get everything. I’ve got a special Flash and Arrow Comic Con Giveaway
and I’ll explain what’s going on with those panels because I will be uploading them.
Flash Review first. I feel like because of what this show is, the cast they picked and
the creative team behind it, the trailers they’ve posted tell you everything up front.
So watching the actual episode doesn’t reveal anything comic book readers or Arrow fans
didn’t already know.
It’s through and through all the best stuff from Arrow, but done in the light of day with
more humor. That’s because Barry Allen is much more positive than Oliver Queen. If you
saw Grant Gustin on Arrow, his portrayal of Barry is virtually unchanged. They haven’t
messed with the character or anything. It’s a direct continuation and because so much
time has passed, they deal with those time gaps in very creative ways.
If you haven’t see Arrow before then all I can say is that Grant Gustin has the perfect
kind of energy for The Flash. He’s like this hyper-curious best friend type that makes
you feel like he’ll definitely be Justice League material some day.
This show is all about his origin story. So give him a few years to get the moves down
and he’ll be running laps around Superman in no time.
Just to clarify, I’m not talking about Grant Gustin being in Justice League, I’m talking
about the comic book version of the Flash joining the Justice League. He’s an A List
member, top tier level powers. When he’s able to draw enough energy from the Speed
Force he can run so fast he travels forward and backward in time.
Time Travel powers combined with the ability to outrun Superman automatically make you
an A-List superhero. The Flash we meet in the first episode is just starting to figure
things out and put his own Team Arrow together.
I guess we can call them Team Flash, all the supporting characters are great. Including
Detective Pretty Boy played by Rick Cosnett. I feel like because his name is Edward Thawne,
everyone is going to go into the episode with certain expectations and still come out surprised.
The definitely give a hat tip to the name Thawne and the idea of running fast, but even
knowing everything I knew before hand. I was still blown away by a few big left turns in
the plot.
Team Flash, what forms initially at least as Barry’s support circle are already characters
you’ve met. Tom Cavanagh’s Harrison Wells character
is the person who runs STAR LABS is kind of like a parental-type figure. Not quite, but
on the show he’s too old to be like a Diggle character. He feels more like a Slade Wilson
from Arrow Season 1. Only in that he’s a mentor.
They come together in this really interesting way. There are a lot of comic book easter
eggs and the show is thus far, the most faithful comic book adaptation DC has done. It’s
more faithful to the Flash comics than Arrow is to the comics, just to give you something
to compare it to.
The Villain they use to call Barry to Action is someone you guys will really enjoy. The
way they integrate the Particle Accelerator Explosion and all the superpowers totally
worked for me and visually it looked great.
The big concern with a show like this is the expense of doing superpowers on screen every
week. During the era of Smallville it would have cost ten times as much to do what this
first episode does. And it’s only going to get cheaper as seasons progress.
Seriously, I have no doubt that we’ll see a season 2, I don’t expect them to make
an announcement until after the first couple of episodes have aired. But this will be one
of the strongest new shows the CW has.
They’ve already announced several additional comic book characters coming on the show including
Robbie Amell as Firestorm and now Plastique. If you remember, Arrow took it easy on Comic
Book stuff when it first started. Well the Flash is going full throttle. And that includes
Arrow crossovers.
Right now the mid season finale of both shows will be a two hour crossover event. Each shows
will have a two parter. The first part will comprise that two hour crossover, the second
parts will be dealt with separately when the seasons come back.
That just gets me so pumped for both shows this fall. And yes, I will be doing weekly
vids for both shows. I know a lot of you have been asking.
So now I’m going to talk about some of my specific favorite moments which means spoilers,
so careful in case you don’t want to know anything. I’ll wait just a sec...okay, here
we go.
Amongst many many favorites, I think my biggest moment of Joy was the Harrison Wells reveal
at the end. Right off the bat I’ll say I’m thinking the show is going to use him as a
Flash, Grant Gustin of course and Edward Thawne, detective pretty boy.
Here’s the thing, if they’re taking a lot of plot cues from Flash Rebirth think
about how Geoff Johns made the transition from the Eobard Thawne Professor Zoom to the
next one, Hunter Zolomon.
I think Harrison Wells is either going to be The Rival inhabiting the body of Max Mercury,
he has the ability to time travel via the Speed Force which explains the newspaper from
the future or he’s Eobard Thawne, the true Professor Zoom. Regardless of which Reverse
Flash he is, I think Edward Thawne on the show is going to become the Hunter Zolomon
character. They’ll just give him Hunter Zolomon’s story.
The Gorilla Grodd easter egg was something the producers had to fight to keep in. Really,
the network was going to take it out but they said it had to stay in just to give us that
WTF awesome moment.
I don’t think they’ll use the Grodd character anytime soon, but he could totally be here
in season 2. Think of his story as like a Dawn of the Planet of the Apes situation.
As for Team Flash, now that we know Robbie Amell is playing Caitlin Snow’s supposedly
dead fiancee, Ronnie Raymond aka Firestorm. I’m wondering if they’ll still drive her
to the darkside like her comic book persona, Killer Frost. Something big would have to
happen between her and Firestorm for her to turn on the team.
Robbie Amell’s character is debuting in the fourth episode. And yes, they are doing
the Martin Stein thing. He’s going to be a character on the show that we’ll meet
eventually. No word on what the Firestorm costume will look like, but expect it to be
a slightly modified from the comics like Grant Gustin’s Flash costume.
They’ll probably dig some Star Labs tech out to help him contain his Firestorm powers
whenever he activates them.
That final Future Newspaper everyone has been freaking out over is what’s going to inform
the major arc of season 1. Eventually Team Flash will learn what’s going on with Harrison
Wells, what he’s trying to do.
Here’s a crackpot theory, in the newspaper it says “Flash Dissappears”, what if he
dissapeared to the past and Harrison Wells is really Barry Allen?
I don’t think that’s the case, mostly because Harrison Wells had been shown working
at STAR Labs as a brilliant scientist for a long period of time.
Barry Allen is not a brilliant scientist, he’s clever, but he’s not an expert at
Theoretical Particle Physics. Harrison Wells is someone else. But I do think he’s trying
to affect a future outcome by changing the past.
All Flash stories become Time Travel stories at a certain point.
But let me know what your favorite moment was and here’s the details on what’s happening
at Comic Con and my giveaways.
The Flash isn’t doing a separate panel on it’s own. Saturday Night in Hall H Stephen
Amell is hosting a superpanel where all of the new DC Shows are going to be featured.
That includes the cast of The Flash, Gotham, Constantine and of course Arrow. Arrow is
also doing it’s own panel on Friday. I’ll be recording both of those and posting footage.
So be sure to subscribe to get all that stuff.
Because Marvel’s panel is on the same night I’ll be uploading that first, but I should
have the Flash and Arrow stuff uploaded by midnight Saturday. I will be live tweeting
so you can follow me on social if you want. Links for that in the description.
I’m also posting reviews for Constantine and Gotham this weekend too for those asking.
My Flash And Arrow Giveaways are pretty simple. I’m giving away Funko Pop Arrow and Flash
figures. I’ll pick two random people from the comments next week. All you have to do
to participate is be a subscriber and leave a comment on this video.
I’m going to be posting a lot of comic con videos this week. I’ll be adding them all
to a special Comic Con Playlist on my channel. You can click here to watch my Marvel Preview.
That also starts the playlist. And you can click here to learn all about Robbie Amell’s
Firestorm character.
Thanks for watching everyone, see you tomorrow. High Fives!