How Could Flashpoint Impact Arrow, Supergirl, And Legends of Tomorrow?

Earlier today, Arrow star Stephen Amell suggested that The Flash altering time in the season two finale might have significant repercussions for Arrow going forward.

Given the history of the Flashpoint storyline in the comics, we kind of wondered what that might mean for the rest of the CW/DC Universe.

When DC’s Flashpoint miniseries hit in 2011, it rewrote the rules (and continuity) of the DC multiverse, rewriting 25 years of post-Crisis on Infinite Earths stories with an ambiguous five year timeline during which nobody was quite sure everything that had happened.

The New 52, DC’s 2011 publishing initiative, merged three worlds — the traditional DC Universe, the world populated by the DC-owned characters of the publisher’s largely creator-owned Vertigo line, and the publisher’s Wildstorm imprint — and spat out a hybrid world where superheroes had only just started to become very common, and time had been rewritten by The Flash (with nudges here and there by the Reverse-Flash, Pandora, and Doctor Manhattan of Watchmen fame).

In spite of the fact that Supergirl will air on Mondays for its second season, the series will debut six days after The Flash kicks off, making some fans wonder whether The Flash is starting first because the other shows on The CW will be following its lead into the alternate universe of the Flashpoint story, making the crossover story their season premieres.

If so, what might we expect from each show…?

ARROW

In the world of Flashpoint, Oliver Queen is the head of Green Arrow Industries, a major military contracting company, who steals steals advanced gadgets from super-villains for military use.

Batman, meanwhile, is Thomas Wayne, whose son was gunned down in front of him in Crime Alley and whose wife cracked under the strain and became The Joker.

It’s been theorized by a number of fans that the comparisons between Arrow‘s Oliver Queen and Batman might mean that rather than exploring the weapons-manufacturer Oliver, they might have Oliver be gone entirely in the Flashpoint timeline and replace Stephen Amell with Jamey Sheridan, who played Robert Queen in the Arrow pilot.

There are some fans who hope that the time-traveling shenanigans of Flashpoint would give them a reborn universe where characters like Tommy Merlyn or Laurel Lance might not be dead…but really there’s nothing much to support that outside of “when time travel is involved, anything is possible.”

SUPERGIRL

In the comics, Supergirl didn’t have a role to play in the Flashpoint universe.

That doesn’t mean that if the history of the shared Earth of Arrow, The Flash, and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow were altered, it couldn’t impact Kara Zor-El in some way.

Everybody’s favorite theory is that the Flashpoint event could be used to bring Kara’s world into sync with that of the other shows. 

When Barry Allen found his way to National City (and Supergirl’s Earth), he checked with her and, no, she hadn’t heard of any of a litany of superheroes and -villains from the main CW Earth-1. Barry, for his part, hadn’t heard of Superman or Supergirl.

Of course, the end of the Flashpoint event in the comics merged three worlds into one, leaving the new continuity somewhat altered. Could that play out on TV, in some way? Could National City actually, literally come to Earth-1?

It feels like a longshot to me, although if they did, there would be two ways to do it.

The first is that National City and Supergirl are brought to Earth-1, but their Earth remains otherwise intact. This leaves their world defended by Superman and provides cover for any actors who need to leave the show or reduce their role following the move from CBS to The CW and, as a result, Los Angeles to Vancouver.

The second is that, as in the comics, the histories of the two worlds could be blended and Superman and Supergirl could just always have BEEN THERE, with the memories of the heroes being modified accordingly. 

Each of these has its own advantages and disadvantages. And certainly the whole notion that the first few episodes might take place in the Flashpoint universe feels very, very unlikely since there’s a healthy, handsome actor cast as Superman for the first two episodes of Supergirl‘s run, and in the Flashpoint universe, Superman was emaciated and unstable. And, again, you can’t really even just give Superman’s role to Supergirl, becuase we know Superman has a two-episode arc to start the season.

DC’S LEGENDS OF TOMORROW

What happens to a Time Master when time changes all around him?

That would be the question posed by Rip Hunter and the crew of the Waverider in the event that they were impacted by the Flashpoint.

At the start of Flashpoint, Booster Gold had just returned to Vanishing Point, where he lived with Rip Hunter and his sister Michelle. He discovered that everyone was missing, and a series of cryptic clues were scrawled on Rip Hunter’s blackboard in his time lab.

He left Vanishing Point and found himself trapped on the Flashpoint world, doing his best to figure out what was going on and how to fix it without the benefit of Rip’s expertise.

While Rip would be the one — not Booster, obviously — who would be most likely to find himself trapped without his support system, TV’s Rip Hunter isn’t anywhere near as expert in the intricacies of time travel and the multiverse as his comics counterpart. He’s actually a bit more like Booster’s level of Time Master expertise in Legends of Tomorrow, even Flashpoint notwithstanding.

The “Berlantiverse”

So, what will Flashpoint — or whatever version of it The Flash elects to do — impact the larger DC TV Universe?

Well, in spite of the whole “three realities become one” thing, it’s wildly unlikely that we’ll see anything not on The CW tie into the events of any of these shows right now. So that’s no Gotham, no Powerless, no movies.

In fact, it’s probably unlikely that we’ll see any kind of seismic continuity change at all. Remember that there are some people who only watch one of these shows, and while The CW would love to make all four must-see TV in order to understand one, they likely understand better than comics do that to do so is potentially hazardous if people decide it’s simply easier not to watch any.

That said, we could see some minor tweaks. Don’t be too surprised if elements of Earth-2 or Earth-3 end up playing big roles in The Flash. Maybe Jay Garrick could even fold into Legends of Tomorrow‘s Justice Society storyline, which seems likely to take place in the past, not on another Earth. 

And, yes, it’s possible (though not likely) that Supergirl could be realigned onto Earth-1 as part of this.

Right now, anything goes. The safe money is on something that happens on The Flash having a fairly negligible impact on the other shows…but after Amell’s comments, fans are going to be expecting something a little crazier.