The Flash: 6 Things You Might Have Missed In “Back to Normal”

Tonight, Team Flash didn’t let a little thing like having no powers stop them from fighing the bad guys.

And it wasn’t a pretty win, but it was a win. And along the way, we got some fun winks and nods to the continuity of the comics and more.

So…what did we see? What did we miss?

Read on, and comment below.

BIG BELLY BURGER?

It’s not explicit here, but it sure looks like Caitlin is being brought the same kind of fast food as Zoom’s prisoner that they routinely served to the Reverse-Flash and other prisoners in the Pipeline last season.

That would be Big Belly Burger, the fictional fast food restaurant created in ’80s DC Comics and seen throughout the Arrow and The Flash universe.

GRIFFIN GREY

Griffin Grey, a supervillain created by Danny Bilson and Paul DeMeo during their run on The Flash: The Fastest Man Alive, debuted in tonight’s episode of The Flash.

Bilson and DeMeo, of course, worked on the 1990 TV series The Flash, featuring John Wesley Shipp in the title role. When they left Fastest Man Alive, they were succeeded by Arrow and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow showrunner Marc Guggenheim.

As in the TV series, Griffin Grey had enhanced strength in the comics (as well as a host of other powers), but the side-effect of rapid aging. Ironically, he was a foe to the Bart Allen version of The Flash — Barry’s grandson who was raised essentially in VR in the future and always seemed less mature than his age.

ACE CHEMICAL

Facial recognition picks up Griffin Grey breaking into Ace Chemical, giving Team Flash their first opportunity to find him and save Harry.

Most recently seen in promotional material for Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, Ace Chemical is the company where The Joker was born.

The Ace Chemical Processing Plant, which first appeared in the comics in 1951, was where a criminal known as the Red Hood was knocked into a vat of chemicals by a young, inexperienced Batman, turning him into The Joker.

The plant was featured in 1989’s Batman (as Axis Chemicals instead of Ace), and will reportedly be a setting used in Suicide Squad later this year, as well.

DWARF STAR ALLOY

As noted in the episode, the Dwarf Star Alloy used to reinforce Barry’s costume during his fight with Griffin Grey is the same stuff that Ray Palmer uses to powers his A.T.O.M. suit.

Of course, in the comics, the alloy is primarily notable for being what allows The Atom to shrink.

THE BIG BELLY MASCOT

The Big Belly Burger mascot is seen on a poster in Harrison and Jesse’s quarters for what I think might be the first time in the CWverse history…or at least definitely the first time that I’ve noticed for an Easter egg column.

In the chain’s earliest appearances in the comics (the Superman titles of the ’80s to be exact), the Big Belly Burger chain’s mascot was a large, bearded man holding a giant burger, in a nod to the “Big Boy” chain that was prevalent at the time. The chain still exists, but is less prevalent in the U.S. than it was in the late ’80s.

You can see the bearded mascot wearing a chef’s hat next to the Big Belly Burger logo in the image above. The likeness was based on then-DC Comics editor Andy Helfer (at least according to John Byrne, who was the principal creative force on the Superman books at the time the mascot was designed).

Fun fact: in the comics, Big Belly Burger was founded in Coast City and is a subsidiary of LexCorp.

DUPLICATE ORIGINS?

In the comics, lightning really does strike twice for The Flash.

Barry Allen, after having been struck by lightning and sprayed by chemicals, became the Fastest Man Alive. Years later, he was showing his nephew Wally around the lab when, standing in the same spot and being showered with the same chemicals, Wally was struck by lightning and transformed into Kid Flash.

After Barry’s death during the Crisis on Infinite Earths, Wally would go on to become The Flash for years, one of only a handful of Golden and Silver Age sidekicks to actually elevate into the role vacated by their mentor.

On tonight’s episode of The Flash, a now-powerless Barry knows that he needs to re-establish his connection to the Speed Force in order to defeat Zoom and save Caitlin Snow, whom the villain has taken hostage.

Harrison Wells of Earth-2, who emigrated to Earth-1 when Zoom had his own daughter hostage at the start of the season, has an idea of how to do it: he wants to recreate the particle accelerator explosion that turned Barry into The Flash.

In other words, Wells wants to recreate the exact conditions that transformed Barry into The Flash…and hope that lightning strikes twice.

Given that there are two new players on and around Team Flash — Wells’s daughter Jesse and Barry’s half-step-brother Wally — who are destined to be speedsters if their comic book destinies have anything to say about it, it seems pretty likely that next week’s experiment may not go exactly as planned…and we might see Wally West (or Jesse Quick) get a little faster as a result.

Maybe even both. I mean, if the Wells family returns to Earth-2 after they’ve defeated Zoom, that world’s Central City will need a new speedster, given what we know about Jay Garrick, right?