Tonight The Flash and the DCU: Legends of Tomorrow return for their new seasons …

As the season progresses I hope to do updates on the shows and talk about any connections they may have to previous storylines in the comic books

The Season 4 premiere of The CW’s The Flash is set to air Tuesday, October 10th at 8PM

I just finished Season 3 on Netflix and thought it was good, confusing in some parts, but good.

Season 3 Recap

The Season 3 premiere with Barry living in the reality he created at the end of Season 2 when he went back in time and saved his mother from being killed by Thawne. Barry is living the ideal life with both his parent alive and no longer having to be the hero since Kid Flash (Wally West) has taken over that duty. However, Barry’s manipulation of the timeline catches up with him longer he stays in this reality. Thawne, whom Barry has imprisoned in a cell that negates his powers, preventing him from escaping. Thawne tells Barry that his tampering with the timeline is coming back to haunt him. Thawne says that Barry has created a Flashpoint by preventing the death of his mother and that in order to set things right, Barry must release him and allow Thawne to kill his mother. Barry finally realizes it is the only thing he can do and releases and lets Thawne kill his mother.

When Barry returns to what he believes is the original timeline, he realizes that there are some things that are different and not quite right for some reason.

Barry’s attempt to fix time had effects across the CW DC Universe supporting characters.

Cisco’s resentment towards Barry after his brother Dante dies and Barry won’t fix the timeline to prevent his death.

Joe and Iris’s relationship sour after Iris discovers Joe hid the fact that her mother was still alive

Caitlin Snow starts manifesting the powers that turn her into Killer Frost

Barry has a partner in the Central City Crime Lab, Julian Albert Desmond.

The “Flash Vanishes in Crisis” headline in Dr. Wells’ time chamber no longer written by Iris Allen.

In the larger CW Universe:

John Diggle (Spartan) and Lyla Micheals prior to the Flashpoint event had a daughter (Sarah), now they have a son (John Jr.) (who the Legends met in Season 1 “Star City 2046”

Jay Garrick eventually shows up and tells Barry that he cannot continue to alter the timeline without breaking the space-time continuum.

Team Flash

Barry Allen/The Flash(Grant Gustin)

Iris West (Candice Patton)

Dr. Caitlin Snow/Killer Frost (Danielle Panabaker)

Cisco Ramon/Vibe (Carlos Valdes)

Wally West/Kid Flash (Keiynan Lonsdale)

Dr. Harrison “Harry” Wells/ Harrison “H.R.” Wells (Tom Cavanagh)

Detective Joe West (Jesse L. Martin)

Jesse Wells/Jesse Quick (Violett Beane)

Jay Garrick/The Flash (John Wesley Shipp)

New Characters

Savitar/Time remnant Barry Allen (Grant Gustin)

Julian Albert/Alchemy (Tom Felton)

Edward Clariss/The Rival (Todd Lasance)

Sam Scudder/Mirror Master (Grey Damon)

Rosa Dillon/Top (Ashley Rickards)

Gypsy (Jessica Camacho)

The Villains

Doctor Alchemy

The first villain Flash faces is Doctor Alchemy who shows up as and is offering those that had superpowers during the Flashpoint a way to remember and to get them back (at a cost of course). Villains that are introduced are:

Doctor Alchemy is revealed to be Julian Albert Desmond, Barry’s coworker, who is without his knowledge acting as Alchemy and setting the stage for the Season’s major villain: Savitar

In the DC Universe, Albert Desmond is a lowly chemist who suffers from dissociative identity disorder. Desmond has two distinct personalities: one major driving personality and another criminally inclined one. Under his darker personality, he applies his knowledge of chemistry to create the Mister Element identity. He creates elemental weapons such as bulletproof silicon to shield his cars and discovers a new element, Elemento, a magnetic light with which he sent the Flash into space. After being sent to jail as a result of his first encounter with the Flash, he learns of the Philosopher’s Stone from his cell mate. He escapes jail, finds the Philosopher’s Stone, and uses its power to transmute elements to restart his criminal career as Doctor Alchemy. Eventually, his good personality resurfaces, causing him to quit crime and hide the Philosopher’s Stone.

Doctor Alchemy recreating the following villains from Flashpoint in the new time:

The Rival – Edward Clariss was a meta-human speedster, during both the “Flashpoint” timeline and the current timeline. Named by the public as the Rival, he acted as the archenemy of Wally West/The Flash in the Flashpoint timeline. The Rival’s Flashpoint origin is not told.

In the DC Universe, The Rival first appeared in Flash Comics #104 (February 1949). Dr. Edward Clariss, a professor at the university attended by the Golden Age Flash, Jay Garrick. He tried to recreate the formula that gives Garrick his speed, which he calls “Velocity 9.” (the drug which was referenced in Season 2 of The Flash). After bitter at the rejection of his claims by the scientific community, Clariss becomes a criminal, wearing a darker version of the Flash’s outfit. His version of the formula, however, proved to be temporary, and he is defeated when it is expended.

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Magenta – a teenager, living in a foster home, who can control metal, terrorizes the city.

In the DC Universe, Magenta aka Francis Kane( first appearance The New Teen Titans (Volume 1) #17 )met a young Wally West and the two grew up friends, but when she reached adulthood, she started to exhibit strange magnetic powers. Wally tried teaching her how to use them properly, and they fell in love. After Wally had taken up the mantle of the Flash she he helped him battle Vandal Savage and the two began a relationship. However, things were moving too fast for her, and she moved out. She re-surfaced much later, interrupting an important Central City Stars baseball game to get Wally’s attention. Because of her powers, she had apparently built a dark personality for herself, complete with twisted memories of her time with Wally. After a battle in the stadium, Wally managed to convince her that he still had feelings for her, restoring her to her normal self. This episode obviously didn’t help matters with Wally’s current girlfriend, Linda Park.

Doctor Alchemy also offers Wally West the chance to finally regain the Speed Powers he had during Flashpoint. Wally rejects his offer but touches the Philosopher’s Stone which causes him to go into a sort of stasis and activates the Dark Matter he was hit with in Season 2, gave Jessie Quick (from Earth-2) her speed powers earlier on in Season 2.

Savitar

The major villain of the season is the self-proclaimed God of Speed, Savitar. It turns out that Savitar is actually one of Barry’s Time Remnants that Barry uses to defeat Savitar in the future. This makes Savitar’s origin very confusing :

So when Barry created Flashpoint and unknowingly created a closed loop allowing Savitar to exist. In 2017, Savitar kills Iris. When Barry travels to 2024 to ask his future self how he defeated Savitar, future Barry tells him created multiple time remnants to defeat him. In 2020, Barry defeats Savitar using the time remnant trick he learned from Zoom, trapping Savitar in the Speed Force. During that battle, Savitar kills all but one of Barry’s time remnants who is shunned by the rest of Team Flash, which causes the remnant to go insane. The Remnant Barry obtains the Philosophers Stone which gives him god-like speed and a suit of armor to protect himself and becomes Savitar. Savitar then travels to the past throughout the multiverse spreading the myth of Savitar as the God of Speed. Savitar then returns to the present, kills Iris and closes the time loop.

In the DC Universe, Savitar was a Cold War pilot for a third-world nation, who, while testing a supersonic fighter jet, was struck by what appeared to be lightning, and he went down in hostile territory. Discovering he could defeat the enemy by moving at super speed, he became obsessed with speed, naming himself after Savitr, the Hindu “god of motion”, and dedicating his life to unlocking its secrets. Savitar studied and discovered new powers that no other living speedster has mastered. Savitar’s obsession gained followers, and he became the leader of a cult. In search of more knowledge, he sought out the only super speed hero operating at the time: Johnny Quick. This encounter became a battle, the tide of which was turned with the arrival of Max Mercury, who led Savitar toward the Speed Force, but caused him to bounce off. “Dead Heat” The Flash #108 – 111 and Impluse #8 -9 Savitar would return decades later, to discover that his followers, the Thunderbolt Agents, had become a large cult in his absence. Making his headquarters in a fortress in Tibet, he recruited the speedster known as Lady Flash, using her powers as a catalyst to strip most of Earth’s speedsters of their link to the Speed Force, and transferring their speed to the Thunderbolt Agents. He sent a few of these agents to attack Wally West. When these proved ineffectual, he sent more to kill the other speedsters: Impulse, Jay Garrick, Johnny & Jesse Quick, XS and Max Mercury. Fortunately, Wally’s direct link to the Speed Force prevented Savitar from stealing his speed, and a coalition of all the speedsters he had tried to kill, foiled his plans. Hell bent on at least destroying Flash’s world in retribution, he led the Flash on a worldwide race of destruction, until Flash chose to give Savitar what he wanted: union with the Speed Force. His earlier encounter had shown him that the others who had arrived before would deal with Savitar as they saw fit.

At first, I thought they were going to be doing something close to the Flash story from the New52 run:

THE FLASH #36-40 (vol.3) In the future, Barry Allen has lost everything. In his desperation he finds a way to make it right. His quest begins as he travels back through time, stopping his Rogues from committing atrocities at the price of their lives. When our Flash tries to stop them, the Speed Force is ripped open, sending him to a far-away and savage land while the future Flash takes his place. It will take everything Barry has to make it out of the savage land and back to modern times to save his own identity.

Another reason I thought that they were going more this direction because it was one of the first times the New52 Wally West appeared as the future Kid Flash.

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The main focus of Season 3 is Barry trying to figure out the identity of Savitar and saving Iris from dying at the hands of Savitar. They figure out that Savitar is connected to The Philosopher’s Stone and try to end the threat by trapping Savitar in the Speed Force. As a result of them doing this Barry ends up 5 months in the future and witnesses Savitar murder Iris. Before he sees Iris murdered he catches a glimpse of the news headlines and Team Flash believe that if they can change those headlines then they can prevent Iris from being murdered.

I am not sure if this was an intended Easter Egg but them writing the future news headlines on the dry erase board reminded me of how DC teased things by using Rip Hunter’s chalkboard.

Barry Allen’s mission to save Iris throughout Season 3 provided a lot of interesting plot lines such as:

Barry training Wally to defeat Savitar

Team Flash traveling to Earth-2 to prevent Grood from attacking Central City on Earth-1

Caitlin manifesting her powers and joining Savitar as Killer Frost

Barry traveling to 2024 to learn how his future self how to defeat Savitar

Team Flash wiping Barry’s memory in an attempt to prevent the Barry-Time remnant from knowing what they are doing.

Barry entering the Speed Force to rescue Wally who has been trapped there by Savitar in his place.

Barry traveling to the past and bringing back Captain Cold to help him break into ARGUS to get the Dominator tech to power the Speed Force Bazooka.

The breakout character for me was H.R. Wells, (Earth-19’s Harrison Wells), who was a writer rather than a scientist. At first, he is annoying, to Team Flash and the viewers, but he grew on me and was disappointed when it was clear he (H.R.) would not be sticking around after he uses his face changing device to protect Iris from Savitar knowing he would die. At least there was some redemption for the character after he accidentally tells Savitar that Iris is being kept on Earth-2. H.R.’s selfless act inspires Barry to forgive himself for creating Flashpoint and inspires Barry to make the decision to go into the Speed Force Prison in the finale.

Other Characters that appear during the season;

Cisco takes a more active role as Vibe

Catlian becomes Killer Frost and decides not to take the cure that team has made for her. She doesn’t become like the Killer Frost of Earth-2 and is able to suppress the evilness that she has seen along with her transformation. It seems like they are bringing her more in line with the current Killer Frost who is a member of the Justice League of America.

Jessie, Harrison Wells of Earth-2’s daughter becomes a speedster and adopt the name Jessie Quick and starts a relationship with Wally West

Gypsie, who was on the Justice League Detroit with Vibe makes her CW debut as a Multiverse type bounty hunter

Mirror Master, The Top, and Abra Kadabra all make appearances and cause trouble for Team Flash

Supergirl, Martian Manhunter, and Mon-El (plus some cameos of characters from ARROW and Legends) visit Earth-1 when Supergirl and Barry are entrapped by the Music Meister in the musical episode, which was probably my favorite episode of the season.

Tracy Brand, the scientist who helps Team Flash build the Speed Force Bazooka (and has me wondering if Boston Brand aka Deadman might be worked into the CW universe).

Where will The Flash go for Season 4

Teaser for Season 4 of The Flash:

The Summary for the Season 4 Episode 1

With Barry in the speed force, Iris, Kid Flash, Joe, and Vibe have taken over protecting Central City. However, when a powerful armored villain threatens to level the city if The Flash doesn’t appear, Cisco makes a risky decision to break Barry out of the speed force. However, the Barry that comes out isn’t the same Barry that went in.

When I first watched the trailer the first Flash Story that I thought of was Mark Waid’s The Dark Flash which ran from The Flash#152 – 159

Traveling to the future to deal with the 1,000-year legacy of Cobalt Blue, Wally West, sacrificed his life to end the threat. Soon a new Flash, one whom none of the others had seen in their time-hopping adventure, appeared in Keystone City and began collecting Wally’s and Barry Allen’s personal effects. Nicknamed the Dark Flash this new Flash is older than Wally, faster than the others, able to vibrate through objects and to steal speed, he divides his time between his secret investigations and his public crimefighting. Turns out this Dark Flash was Walter “Wally” West, from another dimension who was unable to save Linda from her death at the hands of Kobra (The Flash 96 -100). Driven over the edge by this loss, he found Savitar joined him, devoted his life to studying speed, learned his tricks…including slowing down and redirecting moving objects… and killed him. He then became a wind of vengeance, crippling or killing villains so that they could not harm innocents. One day, when, speeding past the Flash Museum, he saw her: Linda, miraculously returned from the dead. In actuality, she was from the regular timeline and had been kidnapped by Abra Kadabra and held outside of time so that Wally could not be drawn back the next time he entered the speed force. She would escape, but returned to the wrong timeline. After finding here alive he became obsessed and could not see how frightened she was of his new violent possessiveness, and nearly attacked her. When Wally, was drawn back to her after all, arrived to protect her and battled Walter. The super-speed battle was only stopped by the arrival of Kadabra himself. Wally found a way to merge him self with Walter their bodies together, also merging their thoughts and strategies, and together they defeated Kadabra and helped Walter lose his rage for all of about 30 seconds. Kadabra teleported away the moment Walter stopped hitting him and (apparently) killed Wally and Linda. In the desperate battle that ensued, Walter accelerated his metabolism to heal the fatal wounds Kadabra inflicted on him, aging him 10 years in the process. The battle was a standstill, and Kadabra left to regroup…leaving Walter to disguise his identity with a new costume and travel to his counterpart’s own timeline, preparing to take his revenge on Kadabra. Walter eventually revealed himself to Max, Jesse, Bart and Angela as an older, scarred Wally West. Wally and Linda would eventually return, everything seemed fine. His continued presence in a timeline not his own was causing realities to merge around him, not in the ordinary subtle way, but both noticeably and dangerously. He would leave the regular DCu timelime, hoping to again find a timeline that his presence wouldn’t endanger.

It will be interesting to see if this is the direction they go with the season.

Here is what is known about Season 4:

The villain will be The Thinker aka Clifford DeVoe, who was mentioned by both Abra Kadabra, Savitar, and the future Barry.

Ralph Dibny aka The Elongated Man will be introduced into the CW Universe.

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Legends of Tomorrow Season 3

Season 2 Recap

After the defeating the immortal villain Vandal Savage and the corrupt Time Masters who colluded with him, a new threat emerges. Dr. Nate Heywood (Nick Zano), an unconventional and charming historian, is thrust into the action upon making a shocking discovery – the Legends are scattered throughout time.

Nate must find a way to rescue season one’s beloved team of heroes and rogues, including billionaire inventor Ray Palmer /the Atom; Sara Lance/White Canary; Professor Martin Stein and Jefferson “Jax” Jackson/Firestorm; and Mick Rory/Heat Wave.

The Legends encounter the J.S.A (the Justice Society of America,)in the 1940s and find themselves in Feudal Japan, the Old West, 1920s Chicago, Camelot, and the Revolutionary War as they hunt down and correct temporal aberration that has damaged the timestream. The Legends clash with foes both past and present when they must stop Eobard Thawne/Reverse-Flash, Damien Darhk, and Malcolm Merlyn from recovering and reuniting the Spear of Destiny which would allow them to recreate the Universe in their image.

The Legends

Ray Palmer/the Atom (Brandon Routh)

Sara Lance/White Canary (Caity Lotz)

Jax” Jackson /Firestorm (Victor Garber)(Franz Drameh)

Mick Rory/ Heat Wave,(Dominic Purcell)

Rip Hunter (Arthur Darvill)



New Characters

Nate Heywood/Steel (Nick Zano)

Amaya Jiwe/Vixen (Maisie Richardson-Sellers), aka

Rex Tyler/Hourman (Patrick J. Adams)

Dan Payne and Lance Henriksen as Todd Rice/Obsidian

Courtney/Stargirl (Sarah Grey)

Charles/Dr. Mid-Nit (Kwesi Ameyaw)

Henry Heywood/Commander Steel (Matthew MacCaull)

The Legion of Doom

Professor Eobard Thawne/Reverse-Flash (Matt Letscher)

Damien Darhk (Neal McDonough)

Malcolm Merlyn/Dark Archer (John Barrowman)

Here is what is known about Season 3:

Rip Hunter forms the Time Bureau and disbands the Legends

After last season it should come as no surprise that Rip Hunter doesn’t fit in with the Legends anymore, now that Sarah Lance is the “leader’ of The Legends. The rigid former Time Master is a stickler for the rules and decides to form a new crew.

Unlike the Legends, the Time Bureau will stick to the rules to fix problems with the timeline and remind the Legends of just how bad they were at doing this.

Season 3 Villain(s)

Season 3 will feature a new mysterious main villain, described as “a non-human entity,” at the center of an evil occult group.

Gorilla Grodd will be making the jump from The Flash to Legends of Tomorrow as he builds a group of villains to combat his time traveling foes. That said, Grodd isn’t the only major villain coming in Season 3.

Damien Darhk is back and this is the Damien that waged war on Oliver Queen on Arrow and paid for it with his life.

Eleanor, the daughter of Damien Darhk, who is described as “cunning with a charming dose of otherworldly creepiness,” who possesses the innate ability to inveigle others to do her bidding; an ability compounded by her alluring appearance will also be giving the Legends a run for their money.

New Members and Cameos

John Constantine is set to make an appearance

Zari Adrianna Tomaz “Isis”

As described on the DC Comics website: Zari Tomaz is a Muslim-American woman from the year 2030, who lives in a world of contradictions. Technology has brought about incredible change in her future—too bad human nature hasn’t kept pace. Fear, prejudice and a lack of care for the planet have forced Zari to become a “grey hat hacktivist,” a computer nerd with a wry, combative attitude. She is also a woman living a double life who doesn’t realize that she has secret, latent powers derived from an ancient, mystical source

The Ray

The Earth-X Freedom Fighter will make an appearance during the season.

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Both of these series look like they are going to be very exciting to follow. More on each show as the season progresses.