During the “Crisis on Infinite Earths” event, as the Anti-Monitor’s anti-matter wave swept across the universe, the Monitor gave Cisco his Vibe powers back… only for Cisco’s role in the crossover to be quite limited.
After taking the meta-human cure at the end of The Flash season 5, Cisco’s role on the team has been drastically different without Vibe around to back up Barry, Frost, and Elongated Man in the field. Instead, Cisco was prepped to take on the role of Team Flash leader when the characters believed Barry would disappear, though we all knew that wouldn’t go anywhere.
However, Vibe returning during the crisis seemed like a fresh start for Cisco to have his powers and choose not to use them, especially with the entirety of physics changing from the previous multi-verse’s collapse and the merging of Earth-Prime. Or so we thought…
What we learned on ‘The Flash’ season 6, episode 10
So, it’s no surprise that The Flash season 6, episode 10 didn’t even bother to address why Cisco was given his powers again if only to lose them when the multi-verse reset. In this reality on Earth-Prime, Cisco, again, took the meta-human cure.
Does he regret it after the events of the crisis? We don’t know. It’s a question Caitlin posed to him after his freak out over all of the changes to the multi-verse, but regardless of what conclusion Cisco comes to, it’s a waste of time. So why was Cisco regaining his powers even included in the “Crisis on Infinite Earths” crossover if he did, like, nothing with his powers to stop the Anti-Monitor’s wave (that someone else could have easily done too)?
This arc is an unbelievable waste of time
Altogether, Cisco giving up being Vibe at the end of The Flash season 5 has not been a good or interesting story. So far, it’s done little to further his character (like, they tried to make a point that he could still be a hero without powers, but he did that before he was Vibe too, so we already knew…) and hasn’t really produced any outstanding storytelling.
I still stand by my opinion that Cisco should have only taken the cure if he was being written off of the show because it makes zero sense that he took the cure to lead a normal life and he’s still fighting with Team Flash… Not having powers only puts him more at risk of being harmed, so really taking the cure had the opposite effect of what Cisco intended. Sure, he’s not out there fighting meta-humans on the frontlines, but it’s not like Iris and Joe haven’t been in plenty of danger over the years.
If Cisco comes back in a few episodes on The Flash, after cataloguing the post-crisis world, and decides he wants to be Vibe again, this entire cure story would have been a waste and Cisco could have just kept his powers and have been the same person. If he decides he doesn’t, then introducing this doubt is, again, wasting the fans’ time when other (much more interesting) stories could have been told with Cisco.
But above all, what really bothers me about this is that precious moments of “Crisis on Infinite Earths” were wasted to give Cisco his powers back when it did absolutely nothing to further the story. If he wasn’t going to have his powers when The Flash came back, what was the point? There was absolutely no purpose, and that now feels like an episode of The Flash that aired on a different Earth where the results actually impacted Cisco’s life on Earth-Prime.
I guess we’ll see when Cisco returns. The Flash season 6 continues Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET on The CW!
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