The Flash: Easter Eggs and DC Comics References In "The Flash Is Born"

Barry Allen became The Flash  tonight -- well, in the eyes of the world. Iris West named him on [...]

Barry Allen became The Flash  tonight -- well, in the eyes of the world. Iris West named him on her blog, based on a recommendation from Barry Allen, based on a recommendation from Oliver Queen.

So...what else happened? Quite a bit, actually. We had some pretty obvious (and not-so-obvious) name-drops of DC people and environs, a major leap forward for the Nora Allen murder investigation and, yes, the first non-flashback appearance of the man in the yellow suit.

There were also a few tropes dropped that, while not explicit references, seem worth mentioning. We'll move past those quickly, we promise.

So...what did we see? What did we miss? Read on...

Believe the Impossible

In the beginning of the episode, Iris' blog post is a callback to the voiceover from the beginning of the pilot. They do it at the end, too, bookending the episode with it, helping to establish the pattern of "naming" The Flash for the public in-story the same way they did for viewers.

Superhero crush

She hangs up on Eddie and everything. Aww.

Yeah, this is the first of those things that we said we wanted to at least take note of. It's a long-standing tradition that the girl your superhero has a crush on in his secret identity will have a thing for the superhero, oblivious to the fact that they're the same guy. That seems to be in full effect here, with Iris letting The Flash take precedence over her actual boyfriend.

Girder

Tony Woodward's powers came from being dunked in molten metal tainted by S.T.A.R. Labs experiments. In the TV series, S.T.A.R. Labs's reactor malfunction (seen in Arrow and then again in The Flash's pilot) is seemingly responsible for all of the metahuman activity in Central City.

They still pretty much work the way you saw here.

In the New 52, DC's 2011 publishing reboot, Girder is one of a trio of Flash villains who are murdered by Gorilla Grodd, their heads left on pikes to scare others.

Added bonus: In The Flash #123, the first appearance of DC's Earth-2 and the start of their multiverse, the cover depicted Barry Allen and Jay Garrick -- the Flashes of two worlds -- rushing to save a man from a falling steel girder.

"A man of steel"

That's the most totally tongue-in-cheek DC reference they've made yet -- which is saying something!

"Born to take a beating"

I just can't quite shake "Have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?" here.

Cop daughter/army brat trope

I always say Lois Lane could beat the crap out of Clark Kent if it weren't for the whole yellow sun thing.

Keystone

We've noted this one before, but it's worth paying attention to the fact that this is the first time we've ever seen Central City's "twin city" 

"What if somebody with Barry's abilities killed Nora?"

Reverse-Flash.

Jay Garrick

Oh, yeah. Speaking of the devil. Jay Garrick totally got a name drop this week.

Iron Fist

HA! They even cross publishers for clever references. Besides referring to Girder as a "Man of Steel," they talked about his "iron fist." Well played, Team Flash.

Sonic boom

The young scientist known as Vibe in the comics seems to really love the idea of a sonic boom. Wonder if he can do something about that.

Thawne wants to hit something

Here, we get some attention paid to Eddie Thawne, presumably because we want to spread some of the suspicion around as to just who might be the ball of yellow-and-red death at the end of the episode.

What's interesting, aside from his "hitting" Barry, is his reference to being the son of a politician. Eobard Thawne, better known as the Reverse-Flash, is the character Eddie is most widely expected to BE. But...was he the son of a politician?

Not as such, no. There's a President Thawne in the DC Universe -- in the 30th Century -- whose daughter Meloni married Don Allen, the son of Barry and Iris Allen in the future. In turn, Don and Meloni would have a son as well: Bart Allen, would go on to be Impulse, Kid Flash and even The Flash for a time.

On fire, except he doesn't burn up

Heat Wave? It seems likely. It's interesting that we're going with a metahuman angle on him, though, since we just saw that Captain Cold is going to give him his heat gun and at least Cold is just a guy with advanced weaponry.

EDIT 10:12 p.m. ET - Or, yeah, that could be Firestorm, as some readers on our Facebook have suggested. He actually LOOKS like he's on fire, so that's way more logical.

Namedrop

Yes, we have The Flash.

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