Carlos Valdes Says The Flash Season 3 Will Start Off Way Different

During his panel at MegaCon, The Flash's Carlos Valdes explained the Season Three finale -- which will go in front of cameras over the summer -- in much the same terms as he did for a recent episode of DC All Access.

With the hindsight of the time-and-space-splitting season finale on Tuesday, though, it takes on a whoel other meaning.

"All I'm going to tell you is things are going to be different, way different," Valdes said. "Not in a bad way; I think in a really exciting way, and it's that difference that's going to inform Barry's trajectory throughout the season, and I think people are going to like it."

What difference could there be? Well, the most obvious answer is that The Flash will have broken time somehow when he saved his mother.

At the end of Wednesday's Season Two finale, Barry Allen traveled back in time and saved his mother from being murdered by the Reverse-Flash, effectively setting into motion a time paradox that made the Season One version of himself, standing by to attempt the same feat, vanish from existence.

And comic book readers (or even just those who watch the DC Universe animated films) think they know what's next: Flashpoint.

Released in 2011, Flashpoint is a five-issue miniseries in which Barry Allen wakes up in a horrifying alternate timeline filled with dark, twisted versions of the heroes and villains he knows. The world is at the brink of annihilation as Aquaman and Wonder Woman stage a war that pits their nations against one another with everyday humans trapped in between. And in order to stop all of it, Barry has to discover what altered the past to create this terrible future, and then restore his powers so that he can travel back to change it.

Sadly, Barry eventually learned that it was his own carelessness -- he had traveled back in time to save his mother, and the ripple effect of changing a fixed moment in time that was decades old shattered reality.

The story was later adapted for Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox, an animated feature film.

The Flash returns to production in July with an eye toward an October premiere date.