Review: The Flash Is the Best Comics-to-TV Pilot Since The Walking Dead

Tonight at Comic Con International: San Diego, Warner Bros. Television and The CW debuted the pilot for The Flash, their upcoming Arrow spinoff starring Glee's Grant Gustin.

It's very good.

The Flash should generate a ton of excitement, because its pilot is light years ahead of Arrow's or Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., springing more or less fully-formed from the imaginations of Geoff Johns, Andrew Kreisberg and Greg Berlanti.

It's easy enough to credit Arrow for that; Stephen Amell appears in a key scene in The Flash's pilot, reciprocation for last year, when Gustin's version of Barry Allen made his debut on Arrow. Those episodes delivered some monster numbers in the ratings for Arrow and shouldn't be surprising if their two-hour crossover event in November or early December does the same. Such a springboard certainly helped The Flash, but ultimately all it really did was establish a baseline for Gustin's depiction of Barry. The accident that put him into a coma before it granted him super-speed took place in the closing moments of those episodes, of course, but we see that happen again, and from a slightly different perspective, here.

There's a focus on character that's refreshing in one of these; the Arrow episodes gave the writers a chance to establish who their version of Barry is and what they want to do with him, opening up the pilot episode to be a bit less plot-driven and really embrace the tone of what will be the show's first season.

They waste very little time getting him geared up, into the uniform and even establishing a Team Flash to play counter to Diggle and Felicity. Tom Cavanagh in particular, who plays S.T.A.R. Labs honcho Harrison Wells, is terrific in the role and lends just the right mix of gravitas, humor and heart. All three of the S.T.A.R. scientists are fairly well-developed right out, although there are aspects of their personalities that are a bit broad for my taste; when Cisco Ramon breathlessly expresses how cool their situation is and is rebuked for not considering the implications to Barry's safety, it's a fair critique.

If there is any weak link in the pilot, in fact, it's that broad and archetypal characters can sometimes be a bit unrealistic and distracting. While they aren't necessarily going for Arrow's grounded realism here, the silliness of Vibe and the overwritten dialogue we get from our proto-Weather Wizard are distractingly out of step with the rest of the characters and the story at times.

There's some stage-setting for the future; we get Easter eggs, mentions or teases of things like Ferris Air, Gorilla Grodd and any number of DC Comics properties. The word "metahuman," DC's preferred terminology for people with powers going back to sometime in the '90s, makes its way into the script too, along with a glowing map that shows us there are likely plenty of them.

Gustin shines as Barry Allen, though, and the way he's able to balance bringing enthusiasm and obvious excitement to the character without feeling too meta is impressive. He's got great chemistry with everyone he shares the screen with, making nearly every line in the pilot feel like an important moment as a result.

The villain is -- as those who remember the terrible Justice League pilot from about 20 years ago -- an interesting choice. Weather Wizard is the kind of villain who can't really punch his weight with Barry. He's mostly nice effects, which can be counteracted with nice speed effects, which works well to set a tone for the series but it almost feels like a missed opportunity that they didn't dive a little more into the mythology that's hinted at for Barry in the episode.

That, though -- like the earlier comments about some of the overbroad moments -- is a niggling concern compared to the overall show itself, which is fantastic. Fun, smart and infused with great performances, The Flash is probably the best superhero pilot ever made and certainly the best pilot based on a comic book property since The Walking Dead debuted.

What took it to the next level, at least for this reviewer, was the final sequence. As the episode draws to a close, we're tantalized by the mother of all DC Comics Easter eggs, in a scene that suggests there's a lot more to The Flash and his relationships with certain other cast members than we'd had any reason to expect up to that point. It's not clear whether they'll try and cram it all into a single season or if this is a five-year plan, but one thing is for sure: what they're proposing is balls-out insane. The final moments of The Flash are for the Arrowverse what it was to have Nick Fury walk out to meet Iron Man that first time. It's (potentially) the start of something very big and very awesome -- a microcosm of the show itself.