The Flash: What Is Black Hole?

The "Crisis on Infinite Earths" crossover might officially be done, but it's safe to say that The Flash currently has quite a lot on its plate. Tonight, the fan-favorite The CW series aired its midseason premiere, and answered one of the biggest questions of Season 6 in the process -- what is the metahuman conspiracy that Team Flash has begun to cross paths with. In the process, that answer provided a major tie to the world of DC Comics. Spoilers for this week's episode of The Flash, "Marathon" below! Only look if you want to know!

The episode saw the various members of Team Flash navigating a post-"Crisis" world, and determining the changes to the multiverse and continuity in the process. For Iris West-Allen (Candice Patton) and her crew at the CCPD - Kamilla Huang (Victoria Park), Allegra Garcia (Kayla Compton), and Cecile Horton (Danielle Nicolet) - this meant investigating the origin of Maelstrom, the shadow corporation that seemed to have ties to metahuman smuggling. Iris met with a man named Gene Huskk, who had unintentionally interacted with Maelstrom while working at McCulloch Technologies, when they seemingly smuggled out a prototype gun that could harness light technology. As Gene revealed, Maelstrom was really a front for another organization -- named Black Hole.

So, for those who were speculating about what the organization would be - especially given the mysterious spiral symbol on a lot of their paraphernalia - it looks like we finally have an answer that isn't Spyral. In the comics, Black Hole is a terrorist organization that was introduced in The Flash's Rebirth run, which seeks to tamper with and negatively harness the Speed Force. The group does this through an array of weapons, ranging from "Lightning Guns" that fire electric blasts to "Tire Spikes" that home in on Speed Force energy and interferes with a speedster's connection to it.

In the two-year amount of time that the group appeared in The Flash comics, it screwed with Barry Allen's connection to the Speed Force in an array of ways -- and even once enlisted Iris as a member of their group. While there's no indication of how things will shake out over the course of Black Hole's TV tenure, it certainly provides an interesting foil for the team to confront in this post-"Crisis" world.

What do you think of Black Hole debuting on The Flash? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

The Flash airs Tuesdays at 8/7c on The CW.