The Flash: Five Comic Book Stories That Could Be the Season Finale's Big Twist

Between the confirmation that The Flash will deal with time travel this season and star Grant [...]

By Russ Burlingame - January 25, 2015 11:19 am EST

Booster-Gold-Crashes-Time-Sphere-Into-The-Flash-Cosmic-Treadmill

Between the confirmation that The Flash will deal with time travel this season and star Grant Gustin's recent comments about the end of the season, many fans are thinking that we will see a major time travel-related story playing havoc on the world of The Flash by the time the season is over.

There's "still more to find out" about the Reverse Flash reveal that will shock audiences, Gustin said. "There's a big twist that even surprised me. I've seen all the predictions online. No one has predicted the big twist that's coming at the end of this season."

Of course, it's often said that "I've read all the theories online and none of them are right." Danai Gurira was quoted as saying this near the end of The Walking Dead's fourth season...you know, the one that ended with Terminus being bad news and its inhabitants being cannibals, just like everyone guessed all season long.

That said, The Flash has been truer to the comics than Arrow or Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., so it seemed worth a brief dive into recent Flash time-travel stories to speculate about which one might play into the second half of The Flash Season One and beyond...

A Tale of Two Zooms

The obvious choice would be for them to defeat the Reverse Flash, pull off his mask and...show that it isn't Dr. Wells.

Eobard Thawne, the first Reverse Flash, is obviously somehow connected to Eddie, so he would be the obvious choice,but in any event the revelation that there's more than one Professor Zoom would not only sync up with the comics, but provide fans who don't know the source material a solid "WTF?" moment in the season's final frame.

Chain Lightning

This one would require some serious reworking of the story to make it work, but as it's one of my favorite Flash stories of all time and just happens to be chock full o' time travel, I'd be interested in seeing them play it out.

The story revolves around Cobalt Blue, the evil twin brother of Barry Allen from whom he was separated at birth by a drunk doctor. It's a long story.

That said, it could end up involving Eddie Thawne...!

Anyway, the eventual story sees The Flash struggling to protect his historical legacy by running through time with his Speed Force allies, battling the Reverse-Flash and finally the Anti-Monitor. When Walliy West (then the Flash) arrives within the story of Crisis on Infinite Earths, he nearly interferes with the outcome of that story and has to set time right, dooming Barry Allen in the process.

John Fox

In the '90s, it was en vogue to replace your hero, either temporarily (like Batman and Superman) or permanently (like Green Lantern and Starman). Resuls varied, but one of the shortest lived was when Mark Waid briefly replaced Wally West with John Fox, a Flash from the 27th Century.

After a time-tossed Wally West came to his era, hinting that he may not have been able to get home, John remembered something from history. At the end of the twentieth century, an ice age occurred, setting back human civilization. He was afraid that if Wally had been able to get home, he would have stopped it. So John took some chronal gauntlets designed by Rel Vidar from the Institute and sets off for 1996.

There, John designed a new costume for himself and began operating as the Flash in Wally's absence. He soon fell in love with Wally's girlfriend, Linda Park. He was unable to stop the beginning of the Ice Age, which had been set off by Abra Kadabra and Polaris, but after Wally returned, they stopped it together.

As ever, it's probably better to just fill in "Barry Allen" for "Wally West" in these stories, but the plot (this time borrowed from the DC Wiki) could remain generally the same.

DC One Million

This one would be a really long shot, but it could be really interesting. And we already know that the most memorable character to come out of DC One Million, Hourman, has TV rights presumably held by The CW since they were developing a pilot not long ago.

The premise is that a Justice League from the distant future (the 853rd Century) arrives in the present to help defeat Solaris, a sentient, seemingly cybernetic "sun" that has menaced humanity for centuries. In so doing, the characters of the DC Universe are brought face to face with what their legacy will mean to the world millennia from now.

This is probably the least likely to happen and the easiest to screw up...but there are surely enough DC heroes in the Arrowverse at this point to make it work.

Flashpoint

This is our bet; after obsessing all season long on the murder of his mother; after figuring out that it was done by the Reverse Flash; after discovering time-travel...what if Barry goes back and stops Wells from murdering his mom?

And then he woke up, powerless, whit his mom still alive, his dad out of jail and the world in a terrible, terrible way?

That's what seems the most likely thing to happen in the season finale to us, but what do you think? Sound off in the comments below.

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