Flash Season 3 Begins with…. FLASHPOINT

As anticipated, Flash Season 3 will start with a form of “Flashpoint.” The 2011 event miniseries featured Barry Allen accidentally changing history. The ripple effects of the Flash saving his mother led to a world where Barry never became the Flash, Bruce Wayne never became Batman, Superman was a lifelong prisoner in a science lab, and Wonder Woman and Aquaman led their nations in a global war that threatened to destroy everything.

Grant Gustin confirmed that the season three premiere is titled Flashpoint, but adds that the TV show’s adaptation “will be its own thing.”

https://twitter.com/grantgust/status/744932568106049536

https://twitter.com/grantgust/status/744951601341702144

Obviously they can’t do the exact same story in a universe that already doesn’t have Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, or Aquaman, but they can certainly take the basics:

Flash changes his parents’ history, accidentally screws everything up, and has to fix it.

(When I put it that way, it sounds a lot more like Back to the Future, doesn’t it?)

I think Earth-1 Real-Harrison Wells is a safe bet for the altered timeline, as is seeing Eddie Thawne again. An Arrowverse Citizen Cold could be a lot of fun, as long as they don’t go the full cannon-fodder route that the comic did.

In the comics, DC used the event as an excuse to relaunch their entire line with a new history at the end. Barry fixed time, but it didn’t settle in quite the same way as before. I can’t imagine the CW will completely reboot four TV shows at once — they’ve all got way too much momentum to do that. But they certainly have the opportunity to make adjustments like they did with the Pied Piper this year. Earth-1 Wells might be able to stick around afterward, for instance, or Jesse might have an Earth-1 counterpart. Or they could do something bigger, like merging Supergirl’s universe with the Arrowverse. Or at least explain why National City suddenly looks more like Vancouver than Los Angeles.

(Hat tip: Flash TV News)

Flash may be coming to Netflix faster this year, but leaving Hulu

The CW and Netflix have been renegotiating their contract, making some viewers worry that the 2015-2016 (and later) seasons of Flash, Arrow etc. might not make it to Netflix at all. Now a report at Variety suggests that they’re close to finalizing a deal which would not only keep the shows available, but would bring them to the streaming service much faster — within a few weeks of the end of the season instead of waiting for months. This will give new viewers a chance to catch up before the next season without chugging coffee and skipping sleep for a few days. (via ComicsAlliance)

The network’s deal with Hulu is also expiring, but they apparently haven’t been able to reach an agreement. It seems Hulu wanted the rights to the whole season as each episode became available, not just the most recent five episodes. Understandable, especially since it turns out most of Hulu’s CW-related traffic was viewers watching Flash and Arrow!

Free streaming during the season will still be available on CW’s website. I tried that a couple of times this year after missing an episode, but it just didn’t play very well. I ended up buying a couple of episodes on Google Play. With any luck, they’ll fix the site.

So what do you think: Looking forward to Netflix? Disappointed to lose Hulu? Don’t care because you watch live / wait for the DVD anyway?

Update July 5: The new Netflix/CW deal is official, and full seasons of Flash, Arrow, etc. will be available starting eight days after the season finale.

DCTV Fall 2016 Premiere Dates

The CW has announced their premiere dates for Fall 2016, including their four DC superhero TV shows. Rather than launching them all the same week, they’re splitting them across two.

Tuesday. October 4:

The Flash season three premiere

Wednesday, October 5:

Arrow season five premiere

Monday, October 10:

Supergirl season two premiere

Thursday, October 13:

Legends of Tomorrow season two premiere

All four shows run from 8:00-9:00pm.

Seeing them all on the schedule as a regular block of programming really brings home the size of the TV universe that DC has been building. Even if Supergirl stays a separate universe (though fans have speculated that Barry’s time travel antics could result in merging the realities after the inevitable Flashpoint-inspired story arc), it’s connected to the other shows in tone, producers, and of course the fact that it’s already crossed over with The Flash. That four-way mega-crossover they’re planning seems a bit more real now!

Titans (Back) Together – Review of TITANS REBIRTH #1

titans rebirthThe welcome home tour for the original Wally West continues straight out of the pages of FLASH REBIRTH, as Wally returns to his first super-team, the Titans! Will his friends remember him? And, if they don’t, what happens next? One thing is for certain…fans of the original Wally are (so far) ecstatic with his depiction since his return to the DCU. Whether that trend continues…is something we’ll talk about more after the jump as we look at TITANS REBIRTH #1!

SPOILERS AHEAD!

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This Week: Flash Silver Age TP

DC is re-releasing a bunch of its early Barry Allen stories from the 1950s and 1960 in the first volume of a new series of softcovers, Flash: The Silver Age.Flash Silver Age by Michael Cho

Collecting the earliest adventures of The Flash from SHOWCASE #4, 8 and 14, and THE FLASH #105-113! Witness the origin of The Flash, the debuts of his Rogues Gallery, including Captain Cold, Gorilla Grodd and Weather Wizard, and the introductions of fellow heroes Kid Flash and the Elongated Man.

Stories by John Broome and Robert Kanigher with art by Carmine Infantino, and a cover by Michael Cho.

Presumably this series replaces the “Flash Chronicles” series that previously reprinted the early Barry Allen Flash stories in softcover trade paperbacks and got up to 1961. I like to think that someday DC will actually keep going with one of these reprint series and we’ll get past the mid-1960s.

Wally takes center stage in Titans: Rebirth #1 Preview

Titans Rebirth 1DC has a preview for Titans: Rebirth #1, out this week.

In this one-shot issue, direct from the events of the DC UNIVERSE: REBIRTH #1, Wally West has returned from the Speed Force and will try to reunite with his former team: The Titans! Now years later, Donna Troy, Arsenal, Garth, Lilith and Nightwing know that their memories had been altered, but are still unaware of the friend and teammate they’ve long forgotten.

When Wally shows up in their apartment, the Titans attack! He’ll have to find a way to stop his friends, while proving that he is the “missing Titan”. Find out more from writer Dan Abnett and artists Brett Booth (pencils), Norm Rapmund (inks), Andrew Dalhouse (colors) and Carlos M. Mangual (letters) in this week’s one-shot TITANS: REBIRTH #1!