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Friday, December 16, 2016

CW’s Barry Allen is the New Thanos






CW’s Barry Allen is the New Thanos.

Back in 1990, Thanos gathered the Infinity Gems to get the power to alter reality to get the attention and approval of the cosmic entity Death.


In 2015, CW’s Barry Allen ran through time and space and created Flashpoint to have a “smooth world” where he could win the heart of his love Iris West and have his parents alive again. 


Weird when you think about it. Especially when you consider the fact that Barry was raised by Joe West side by side with his daughter. When you look at their relationship from that context it comes across as borderline incestuous.


Thank You Goeff Johns and Greg Berlanti for turning one of the most noble heroes in the DC universe into a creep on the level of Eliot Rodger.


Damn. Just Damn.


Over at Marvel, they called Thanos a villain when he went on his quest to destroy the lives of others to impress Death when he had the Infinity Guantlet. But over in DC and the CW we’re supposed to believe the TV Barry Allen is still a hero for doing the exact same thing when he created Flashpoint and destroyed the lives of people like Cisco, John Diggle, and countless others.


Double standard anyone? Or has the line of demarcation between good and evil changed that much in 30 years?


If that line has changed that much in 30 years we’re really fucked up as a society.  What good is a super-hero if he doesn’t stand for the standard that his mission was founded on? The Silver Age Barry Allen would look at his TV counterpart and consider him a threat on the same level as the Anti-Monitor. But in 2016 we’re told TV Barry is a hero.


Damn. Just Damn.


At this point CW’s Wally West is more of a hero than Barry Allen. In the second season, Wally lost his mother.  And he sucked it up and went on with his life. Looking to honor those he lost by being a better person. Over the course of the season and a half Wally has been on TV he’s shown more character and resolve than Barry Allen, the guy we’re supposed to be rooting for.


It’s a shame when you see Kid Flash being more of a hero than the man who is supposed to have inspired him to be a hero.


Damn. Just Damn.  Shows us all how BAD the writing on CW’s Flash truly has become.


The comic book version of Barry Allen sacrificed himself to stop the Anit-Monitor from destroying the multiverse. But the CW’s Barry Allen ran through time and space to create a safe space for himself and did damage to the DC television multiverse.


Seriously, you can’t call this guy a hero anymore. He’s just a skinnier version of Thanos in red leather.


The CW version of Barry Allen is a super villain plain and simple. Thanks to the bad writers at Berlanti productions One of DC’s greatest heroes has been turned to the dark side. Unfortunately many DC fans and CW fans won’t be able to see how their hero is in the wrong and has been in the wrong since the season finale.


In 1990, everyone knew Thanos was the bad guy when he used the Infinity Gems to alter reality to his liking without regard for anyone else. But in 2016 Barry Allen gets a pass for doing the exact same thing. That shows me how much the line between good and evil has changed as it relates to superheroes and society.  Disturbing when you really think about it.

3 comments:

  1. Well, for one thing, Allen's efforts are only around a localized area of where he lives while Thanos' plan was the size of the universe so that's something to consider.

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  2. Good point Shawn. What they should have done is made either Reverse Flash, The Rival, or an evil Flash from a different dimension be the one who creates Flash point. Barry then steps into a world where things are different, but his mom in this reality his mom is still alive. Then it's a very City on the Edge situation where in order to fix everything, he has to sacrifice someone close to him. And the episode ends on a touching note where he says goodbye to his mom, as he runs to put everything right. That's a classic Flash plot. But, this is more of DC darkening up their heroes. The whole origin Geoff Johns gave the Flash is stupid, where he becomes a forensic tech because his mom was murder and his dad framed for the crime. Why can't Barry Allen just be a guy who runs really fast, and thinks its cool being a superhero. Instead this season should have been leading up to the Invasion crossover. Why not have a story line where we find out that someone one team flash is an agent of the Dominators. Have the Dominators pulling strings behind the scenes, and then everything leads up to the Invasion crossover as your season finale.

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  3. I got tired of the Time Travel stuff with Flash, it got cheap and redundant. I personally wasn't a fan of Superman doing Time Travel in the first Reeve movie either. Did doing so tire him out? Did it almost kill him to do it? Did it appear unlikely that he could ever do it again? Personally, I will always like the Animated TV Superman from the 1990s, as well as the times that Dwayne McDuffie wrote for him on Justice League, and there were a few. Because he felt heroic, against big odds, and so forth, as opposed to being Godlike and not feeling the stakes for me because they shot off the big guns so early on.

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