The TV flash is not the hero he thinks he is

In the recent TV show The Flash, Barry Allen aka The Flash is introduced as the real hero, but he also sends us a subversive message about the true nature of heroism. The way the show plays with audience expectations makes us believe it’s one of the most promising superhero TV shows around.

Readers should be aware that the rest of this article contains heavy spoilers from The Flash TV show. If you haven’t seen the show yet or are concerned about spoilers, stop reading now.

DC Comics superhero The Flash is one of the oldest heroes in comic book canon, but most people today are probably more familiar with the 90s version, which you say in The Justice League. Now in live action, the Flash is still Barry Allen, a cool guy with amazing speed powers. When its first episode aired on television in the United States, The Flash became the most-watched television show there. In the show, Barry Allen is struck by lightning and gains the “meta-human” ability to run faster than the speed of light, taking on the name The Flash.

Apparently he’s the hero of the show, fending off the bad guys and saving the day, but there’s another guy who can run faster than The Flash, and that too without the “meta-human” abilities. The man in the yellow suit, Dr. Harrison Wells, was experimenting with a particle accelerator to create meta-humans, and a lab accident gives him superpowers. He’s considered the villain of the room, but while The Flash is a good-hearted, super-powerful gifted guy, the Reverse Flash is the one who’s really in charge of everything.

The Man-in-the-Yellow Suit is the one who really gives the plot momentum – while Barry Allen’s father has been blamed for the death of Barry’s mother, the blame actually lies with the Reverse Flash , which was to capture the particle-generating tachyon in Mercury Labs. In flashback, we see Dr. Wells hiding in a secret vault inside S.T.A.R. Labs, where he interrogates his AI computer Gideon about The Flash’s sudden demise and disappearance. This suggests that he knows about the future and later we learn that he actually came from the future to kill The Flash.

As the story develops, Thawne’s role begins to be a major driving force in the series. When our “heroes” try to trap him in STAR Labs, they fail and people try to shoot the Reverse Flash. He doesn’t fight back, and we learn over time that it was because he didn’t want to risk harming his own ancestors, or that he may have never been born. On the way to the climax of the season, we see the Reverse Flash telling the Flash that he [Thawne] manipulated him [Allen] all along. The Reverse Flash actually kept Allen safe throughout his adventures so that the future he envisioned would remain intact. While the Flash struggles to figure out who the Reverse Flash is and the Reverse Flash’s true motivations, Dr. Wells the Reverse Flash guides all of his development as a hero.

While the Flash caught and incarcerated the “evil” meta-humans, it’s also something Dr. Wells orchestrated. Every superpower all of these meta-humans possessed turns out to be the tools Dr. Wells needed to achieve his “intended future”. The Flash has been everyone’s hero since the start of the series, but everything he’s done has only been done to help the Reverse Flash. So stop cheering on the Scarlet Speedster, because he was just the Reverse Flash’s puppet. Dr. Wells was the puppeteer, who always controlled Barry Allen’s life. We can’t wait to see what strings he will pull for Season 2.