The Flash Showrunner Seemingly Confirms Barry Allen Will Die in Crisis on Infinite Earths

New comments made by The Flash showrunner Eric Wallace have some fans thinking that, in spite of Oliver Queen's (Stephen Amell) apparent sacrifice to "save" Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) in "Crisis on Infinite Earths," Barry will still perish at some point in the story. The hero still does not know about his friend's deal with The Monitor, but learned in last night's season six premiere that the Crisis he has been dreading for years is coming five years ahead of schedule -- on December 10 of this year. For those keeping track at home, December 10 is also the date that The Flash's episode will be part of the planned "Crisis on Infinite Earths" crossover.

When The Monitor turned up in "Elseworlds" last year, both Superman (Tyler Hoechlin) and Green Arrow got a peek inside of the Book of Destiny, which seemingly suggested that -- as in the comics -- Barry Allen and Kara Zor-El (Melissa Benoist) would die in the Crisis. Oliver struck a deal with the Monitor that would sacrifice himself to save the pair, although the specifics are as yet unclear.

"'Crisis' turned out to be the best thing that could have happened to…The Flash because it created an immediacy to things," Wallace said after a screening of the season premiere. "We know that on December 10, 2019, the Flash will die….We're not messing around."

While several news outlets who were there for the screening took Wallace's quote literally -- that the showrunner is saying The Flash really will die in the Crisis -- it could just as easily be just a premise he was using to set up his next remarks:

"The Monitor showing up and making a cosmic pronouncement drives you to extremes in order to fight against or accept the coming 'Crisis,'" Wallace said (via CBR). "And every episode this season… is all about 'do I accept death or do I fight it?'"

So -- whether you take it literally to mean that death (in some form) is inevitable for Barry Allen, or more in the sense of a mission statement, it's clear that the final few moments of last night's episode set Barry up for huge things going forward this season.

"Crisis on Infinite Earths" has loomed over the Arrowverse for years. The series premiere of The Flash featured an allusion to the hero disappearing amid red skies in the year 2024. During the original comics event, red skies were a sign of doom to come to a world during the Crisis. At the end of last season, a couple of things happened: The Monitor (LaMonica Garrett), who had appeared in "Elseworlds," reappeared and revealed that Oliver Queen was destined to die in the Crisis...and the future newspaper at STAR Labs rolled back the expected date of the Crisis from 2024 to 2019.

In the comics, Crisis on Infinite Earths centered on a battle between the combined superheroes (and even some villains) of the DC multiverse and an immortal, cosmic threat known as the Anti-Monitor. Like The Monitor, the Anti-Monitor will be played by LaMonica Garrett in the Arrowverse. As the Anti-Monitor destroys realities, he replaces their positive matter energy with antimatter, growing his own power and sphere of influence. He was eventually stopped by the sacrifices of several heroes, including The Flash and Supergirl, as well as the merging of multiple universes to save reality by becoming a single, unified timeline. Fans have long wondered whether the events of "Crisis on Infinite Earths" might bring Supergirl and even Black Lightning to Earth-1, where the rest of the series take place. The crossover will also feature guest appearances by Tom Welling as Clark Kent, Erica Durance as Lois Lane, John Wesley Shipp as the Flash of Earth-90, Johnathon Schaech as Jonah Hex, Kevin Conroy as Bruce Wayne, and Ashley Scott as The Huntress.

"Crisis on Infinite Earths" kicks off on Sunday, December 8 on Supergirl, runs through a Monday episode of Batwoman and that Tuesday's episode of The Flash. That will be the midseason cliffhanger, as the shows go on hiatus for the holidays and return on January 14 to finish out the event with the midseason premiere of Arrow and a "special episode" of DC's Legends of Tomorrow, which launches as a midseason series this year and so will not have an episode on the air before the Crisis.