The Flash‘s season 1 finale, “Fast Enough,” airs this Tuesday, and with the setup we have to wonder if the finale will draw from the famous DC comics story Flashpoint.
Since learning that time travel is possible, Barry has been determined to travel to the past to save his mother. And now that he has traveled in time once and knows Harrison Wells/Eobard Thawne killed Nora Allen, he has become even more determined to do so. This conflict between Barry and the Reverse Flash appears to come to a head in the season finale.
Among numerous highlights, the extended trailer for The Flash season 1, episode 23, “Fast Enough,” shows Barry, mask off, telling a bleeding Nora Allen who he is.
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So, what we gather from this trailer is that Barry successfully travels to the night of Nora’s murder — something that also happens in Flashpoint.
But what exactly is Flashpoint? What consequences might that storyline have?
In the comics
In Flashpoint, Barry wakes up in an alternate timeline in which his mother is still alive — though his father died of a heart attack. While the Flash, Justice League, and Superman don’t exist in this world, Central City is protected by Citizen Cold.
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In this timeline, Cyborg is a world-class hero and Batman is Thomas Wayne (Bruce died the night of the mugging instead of him). Also of major consequence is a war going on between Aquaman’s Atlanteans and Wonder Woman’s Amazons in which many have died.
As Barry sorts through what is going on, his memories start aligning with the current timeline. He attempts to recreate the accident that gave him his powers, but it takes two lightning strikes rather than one. Barry believes that the Reverse Flash changed the timeline somehow, but it turns out it was all a result of Barry traveling back through time and stopping the Reverse Flash from killing Nora Allen.
“You were like a bullet through a windshield. You shattered history,” Reverse Flash taunts. “The lives of the people closest to you were put on a broken path. You changed time like an amateur! This is your fault, Barry. This hell is your creation. You traded the life of your mother for the rest of the world!”
Side note: This line echoes a conversation Harrison Wells and Barry have in “Rogue Time” after Barry traveled through time the first time. “This new ability of yours, Barry, is dangerous. You only traveled back in time one day. What if you traveled back decades, centuries? Imagine the havoc you could wreak,” Wells says. And when Barry asks if he should take the chance to save his mother, Wells replies, “[H]ow many more people could die if your mother lives?”
(The answer is apparently a lot, considering the war between Atlantis and the Amazons.)
After realizing that he must let Nora die to prevent the world he found himself in, Barry travels back through time once more and merges with his younger self to stop him from rescuing Nora, which creates yet another timeline that has subtle differences from both Barry’s original timeline and the Flashpoint timeline — thus creating the New 52.
Familiarize yourself with Flashpoint
Obviously, the above is a highly abbreviated version of the events in the comic books. If you really want to delve into the storyline, you can read the original comic storyline in 2011’s Flashpoint (Volume 2) #1 through Flashpoint (Volume 2) #5.
Or, if you’d like to see the story in the DC Animated Universe, check out 2013’s well-regarded Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox.
So what?
There is a lot to tie up from this season of The Flash in a single episode. Introducing a huge storyline like Flashpoint in a single episode on top of everything else that needs to happen would likely be too packed. And this is why it wouldn’t surprise us if The Flash season 1 ended on some kind of Flashpoint-related cliffhanger, allowing the beginning of season 2 to explore the world of Flashpoint.
Of course, we know the Flash and Arrow writers love to take the source material and twist it, so if The Flash were ever to tackle Flashpoint, it would no doubt have its own unique beats while paying homage to the original comic book arc.
The Flash‘s season 1 finale airs Tuesday at 8:00 p.m. ET on The CW.
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