The Flash (2022)

[The Dark Knight]

I'd expect nothing less from The King.

[Travesty]

I don't find that surprising. lol

[Silver Nemesis]

I 100% agree. I love The Flash. He's my #2 after Batman, and I absolutely hate Ezra's portrayal as Barry. He's like a goofier version of Wally. He doesn't give me any kind of Barry Allen vibes. I'm just not a big Ezra fan as it is, and he sounds like a complete and total piece of sh*t in real life.

Ethan Van Sciver (co-creator of Flash: Rebirth, which was one of the primary influences on the DCEU Flash) quite rightly criticised Ezra's Flash for not resembling any version of Barry Allen from the comics. You can hear his criticisms of Ezra's Flash at the 4:04 mark and the 7:23 mark in the following video:

He's absolutely correct. You could maybe – maybe – pass Ezra's Flash off as a very distorted version of Wally West or Bart Allen, and even then he'd still be a terrible representation of those characters. But as Barry Allen? Not even close. Sure, they referenced Barry's revised back story from Geoff Johns' run. But his personality and temperament are totally unrecognisable as those of the Barry from the comics. It just isn't the same character. That's partly down to bad writing, but a lot of it's also down to the miscasting of Miller.

If the studio refuses to recast the part and insists on keeping Ezra in the DCEU, then they should at least produce a separate standalone series of Flash films with a different actor. A series that would be as self-contained and disconnected from the DCEU as Matt Reeves' Batman movies and which would stick closer to the classic Pre-Crisis comics. Flash fans deserve that much at least.

There seems to be a very intentional decision to steer clear of the classic Pre-Crisis Barry Allen characterization/incarnation within the cluster that is the DCEU for whatever reason. Its like, WB just HAS to have s (youthful) someone making quips on the team, and it's regulated to the Flash. But, as you say, it's really Barry Allen Flash in name only.

I've got a theory that the clownish portrayal of the Flash in most Justice League media stems from casual fans not knowing the difference between Barry Allen and Wally West. Back in the nineties, Wally was the Flash in the JLA comics. And Wally's personality was always lighter and jokier than Barry's. Then the 1997 Justice League of America TV movie went and portrayed Barry as a dozy workshy slacker whose personality was seemingly based on Joey Tribbiani from Friends. That's the only live action version of Barry that I'd rate lower than Miller's, since his personality and character arc in that film had literally nothing in common with the Barry from the comics. Then we got the Justice League animated series, which portrayed the Flash as the funny member of the JLA. Which is fine, since that was Wally and not Barry. But I sense a lot of people aren't aware of that distinction, and consequently expect the Flash to always be portrayed as the funny JLA member even when it isn't Wally under the mask.

This confusion, if it's as widespread as I suspect, might also explain why Barry is portrayed as being so much younger than most of the other JL members in the DCEU. In the comics Barry is of the same generation as Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent, whereas Wally is of the same generation as Dick Grayson. But there seems to be a misconception some people have that the Flash should be one of the younger members of the Justice League. That's only true if we're talking about Wally. If it's Barry, he should be roughly the same age as Bruce and Clark and should display a comparable level of experience, intelligence and maturity.

With the Bruce/Barry relationship in the DCEU, it almost seems as though they were trying to imitate the success of the mentor/apprentice relationship between Tony Stark and Peter Parker in the MCU (and yes, I'm aware that principal photography on Justice League began before Civil War came out). That would account for why Ezra decided to play Barry as an immature, jittery and easily excitable/distractible buffoon. Hence why I say his personality owes more to Peter Parker than to the comic book Barry Allen. Grant Gustin did something similar when he first played Barry on Arrow, and for a while it seemed as though he was playing Peter Parker.

Thankfully Gustin corrected his performance once he got his own solo series.

I think we've yet to see the definitive live action version of Barry Allen. But if I was to rank the existing portrayals, from worst to best, it would go like this.

Kenny Johnston (Justice League of America, 1997)



Ezra Miller (DCEU, 2016-present)



Rod Haase (Legends of the Superheroes, 1979)



Grant Gustin (Arrowverse, 2013-present)



John Wesley Shipp (The Flash, 1990-91, & Arrowverse)



I really liked the animated Barry Allen from Batman: The Brave and the Bold. The final showdown between him and Reverse Flash (voiced by John Wesley Shipp) in the episode 'Requiem for a Scarlet Speedster!' is one of the best super speed fights I've seen outside of the comics.

An animated Flash series made in this style would be great. But like I say, the definitive live action Barry has yet to appear. Which is odd, because Barry isn't a really complex character constructed from delicately balanced contradictions like Matt Murdock, nor are there lots of wildly different variations of Barry like there are for Bruce Wayne. There's one fairly straightforward characterisation, but they've never quite got it right in live action. Gustin is close, but he's a little too boyish and wimpy and the overall quality of writing in that show and the CW-verse in general is too poor for it to be definitive. Shipp was also close, and is IMO the best attempt so far, but they intentionally gave his Barry certain characteristics of Wally West to bring him in line with the comics of the era. So we're still waiting for the definitive live action Barry to appear.

I mean, I'm not super knowledgeable about Green Lantern, but I recall similar complaints were pointed at the 2011 Ryan Reynolds GL film as well. Where some fans felt WB essentially made Hal Jordan like a DC version of the cinematic version of Iron Man/Tony Stark. I don't really know how accurate that assessment is, but it would have been a foregone conclusion that there would be similarities drawn the minute Reynolds was cast. Especially with how both RDJ/Reynolds have a blatant predisposition to lean into sarcasm.

I'm no expert on Green Lantern either, but it seems to me that Reynolds plays more or less the same character in every movie. His screen persona is well suited to Deadpool, but it definitely didn't work for Hal Jordan. My knowledge of Hal is mostly limited to Justice League comics, as I've never undertaken a comprehensive reading of the Green Lantern comics (I'll get around to it one of these days), but I know enough about Hal to recognise that Reynolds' character missed the mark in the 2011 movie. Taking into account when that film came out, I could well believe that they were trying to copy Downey's Stark when they characterised GL as a sarcastic narcissistic quipster.

The only reason why I'm excited for this movie, is because of Keaton returning. That's it.

I'd expect nothing less from The King.

As far as I'm concerned, this is Keaton's Batman III. As a Flash movie, it may be a lost cause. But as a Batman multiverse film, is could still be awesome. That's why I'm looking forward to it. They should re-title the movie Flashpoint or Batman: Flashpoint and market it with Keaton as the star.

[DocLathropBrown]

John Wesley Shipp (The Flash, 1990-91, & Arrowverse)

Absolutely agreed about John. It's not even close, the other portrayals. Sure, he's a touch more grim than pre-Crisis Barry was (since the show was trying to evoke Batman, after all), but other than that his only flaw is that he isn't blonde. Shipp is far-and-away the best Barry Allen, and when he got to have a variation on the COIE death in CW's Crisis, I shed hot nerd tears. It was what I'd dreamed of seeing for years--Shipp's show introduced me to the Flash, and reading Barry's sacrifice in COIE years later really blew my mind and cemented my Flash fandom. The fact that remembered to use Elfman's theme and had a flashback to Barry and Tina? I get chills just typing it now.

Even if the CW COIE wasn't all that hot, getting more of Routh as Superman and seeing Shipp going out like the perfect Barry Allen he was made the entire thing worth it to me.

[BatmanFurst]

Hey Silver, did the Snyder Cut help to fix any of the issues you initially had with Ezra?

[The Laughing Fish]

Ezra Miller now has a court date and has a temporary restraining order against him.

https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/actor-ezra-miller-ordered-stay-hawaii-couple-83793977

I reckon personal thoughts about Miller as an actor are irrelevant at this stage. If these allegations are true then it shows what a seriously disturbed individual he is. I don't know what the relationship is between Miller and this couple, but death threats are not something to take lightly. First, there was the choking incident, and now these incidents in the last couple of days. There is a self-destructive pattern going on here, I wouldn't be surprised if he's addicted to something.

[The Dark Knight]

As far as I'm concerned, this is Keaton's Batman III. As a Flash movie, it may be a lost cause. But as a Batman multiverse film, is could still be awesome.

I agree. I imagine it's the pure Burton Batman we first meet that apparently has become 'mad', for want of a better word. With the variant being something more balanced going forward.

I'm not well versed on The Flash as a character, but I haven't disliked Ezra in the role. It's disturbing to see what he gets up to in everyday life though, and it raises questions about what the root cause is. When I see him, especially now, I can't help but think of his conduct.

[thecolorsblend]

Ethan Van Sciver (co-creator of Flash: Rebirth, which was one of the primary influences on the DCEU Flash) quite rightly criticised Ezra's Flash for not resembling any version of Barry Allen from the comics. You can hear his criticisms of Ezra's Flash at the 4:04 mark and the 7:23 mark in the following video:

He's absolutely correct. You could maybe – maybe – pass Ezra's Flash off as a very distorted version of Wally West or Bart Allen, and even then he'd still be a terrible representation of those characters. But as Barry Allen? Not even close. Sure, they referenced Barry's revised back story from Geoff Johns' run. But his personality and temperament are totally unrecognisable as those of the Barry from the comics. It just isn't the same character. That's partly down to bad writing, but a lot of it's also down to the miscasting of Miller.

If the studio refuses to recast the part and insists on keeping Ezra in the DCEU, then they should at least produce a separate standalone series of Flash films with a different actor. A series that would be as self-contained and disconnected from the DCEU as Matt Reeves' Batman movies and which would stick closer to the classic Pre-Crisis comics. Flash fans deserve that much at least.

I've got a theory that the clownish portrayal of the Flash in most Justice League media stems from casual fans not knowing the difference between Barry Allen and Wally West. Back in the nineties, Wally was the Flash in the JLA comics. And Wally's personality was always lighter and jokier than Barry's. Then the 1997 Justice League of America TV movie went and portrayed Barry as a dozy workshy slacker whose personality was seemingly based on Joey Tribbiani from Friends. That's the only live action version of Barry that I'd rate lower than Miller's, since his personality and character arc in that film had literally nothing in common with the Barry from the comics. Then we got the Justice League animated series, which portrayed the Flash as the funny member of the JLA. Which is fine, since that was Wally and not Barry. But I sense a lot of people aren't aware of that distinction, and consequently expect the Flash to always be portrayed as the funny JLA member even when it isn't Wally under the mask.

This confusion, if it's as widespread as I suspect, might also explain why Barry is portrayed as being so much younger than most of the other JL members in the DCEU. In the comics Barry is of the same generation as Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent, whereas Wally is of the same generation as Dick Grayson. But there seems to be a misconception some people have that the Flash should be one of the younger members of the Justice League. That's only true if we're talking about Wally. If it's Barry, he should be roughly the same age as Bruce and Clark and should display a comparable level of experience, intelligence and maturity.

As I see it, there are two (possibly three) issues going on here.

First, Snyder and co. had to balance the characterization of Barry against the fact that ZSJL is an ensemble piece. Batman, Cyborg, Superman, Wonder Woman and Aquaman are largely pretty serious characters who are individually wrestling with some pretty serious challenges. Barry's life in the Snyderverse isn't exactly a bowl of cherries either. But of all the League members, he can be the most lighthearted. In a story as serious/dark as ZSJL, some levity is needed. It might not benefit Barry specifically but it does benefit the balance of all the characters in the movie.

Second, with all due respect to Barry's fans, he's always been a pretty bland character. There's no there there. There's no "flawless" outsider perspective like Superman, no conflicting sense of duties like Aquaman, no deep and abiding thirst for vengeance like Batman, etc. Pre-Crisis Barry is a guy who did the right thing because it was the right thing to do. While that makes for an admirable character, it also makes him challenging to write. Johns attempted to remedy that by retconning Nora's death at Thawne's hands, hence Barry's quest to become a CSI investigator. But at the end of the day, Barry is a pretty thinly sketched character.

Speaking of Johns, I can't help thinking that his influence was exerted in ZSJL's depiction of Barry. Off-hand, my memory of Johns's Barry stuff has been writing him as a bit more of a laid back, fun-loving guy. I find it interesting that Johns has/had even more influence over the CW Flash and while that Barry is definitely a man of conscience, he is still not quite in line with Pre-Crisis Barry.

The thing about all the tendency to write Barry more like Wally is that it misses the forest for the trees. From the late Eighties up through the early Nineties, Wally was written as kind of an a-hole. He charged money for super feats, he boffed a married woman, etc. He was just a prick sometimes. But Mark Waid transitioned him away from that to, well, Wally as most people know him now.

But if Wally can grow and change, why can't Barry? Except nobody seems willing to invest that kind of effort into Barry. It's like they just look at Wally's characterization, they see something that (mostly) works and so they try applying elements of Wally to Barry by splitting the difference between Pre-Crisis Barry's maturity and sense of responsibility and Post-Waid Wally's freewheeling, slightly reckless tendencies. Which doesn't leave much creative space for Wally to exist, honestly, unless the plan is to butcher Wally as a character altogether.

[Silver Nemesis]

Hey Silver, did the Snyder Cut help to fix any of the issues you initially had with Ezra?

To a degree. The absence of Whedon's dialogue was an improvement. Whedon's written some good scripts in the past, but his work on Justice League was not his best.

I appreciate Snyder laying some groundwork for Flashpoint that was absent from the theatrical cut: introducing the fact that the Flash can travel through time, and introducing Iris West. The importance of the first point is obvious, since the basic plot of Flashpoint hinges on time travel. The introduction of Iris, while perhaps seeming unimportant at face value, is also significant. Barry has a life populated by supporting characters that are well known among his readers. Apart from his dad, Henry, none of those characters have been introduced in the theatrically-released DCEU films. His friends haven't been introduced, his rogues haven't been properly introduced (unless you count Captain Boomerang in Suicide Squad, which I don't since he barely interacted with the Flash), and Central City hasn't been developed as a character in itself.

Flashpoint is a story in which the Flash wakes up one day and realises that the world around him is no longer the world he knew, and that the people around him are no longer the people he knew. But how can that sense of unfamiliarity be conveyed in the DCEU when the DCEU has yet to establish what Barry's world is ordinarily like? This goes back to what I wrote earlier in the thread about the studio failing to set up Flashpoint and properly introduce Barry and the people in his life. But at least the Snyder Cut brought in Iris. I wish they'd taken time to develop a relationship between her and Barry, but the JLSC was already packed to the gills and wasn't really the place to do it. Snyder was picking up the slack for the studio's mishandling of the Flash, but he couldn't fix everything in one movie.

Ezra's Flash made his debut six years ago and has made numerous appearances since then. But aside from Justice League, all of those appearances were cameos: in BvS, Suicide Squad, COIE and most recently Peacemaker. He really needed at least one proper solo film to himself during those six years. But so far, I find the JL Snyder Cut to be the most tolerable depiction of Ezra's Flash.

Second, with all due respect to Barry's fans, he's always been a pretty bland character. There's no there there. There's no "flawless" outsider perspective like Superman, no conflicting sense of duties like Aquaman, no deep and abiding thirst for vengeance like Batman, etc. Pre-Crisis Barry is a guy who did the right thing because it was the right thing to do. While that makes for an admirable character, it also makes him challenging to write. Johns attempted to remedy that by retconning Nora's death at Thawne's hands, hence Barry's quest to become a CSI investigator. But at the end of the day, Barry is a pretty thinly sketched character.

You're not wrong. But in an age when every cinematic superhero is either a brooding badass or a quirky quipster, I think a more straightforward old-fashioned kind of hero might be something of a novelty. Barry does try to do the right thing, and some of his best stories have shown him suffering the negative consequences of that. Like the epic Trial of the Flash arc (Flash V1 #323-350, July 1983-October 1985), in which everything Barry did backfired on him to the point that he had to abandon his life altogether and start a fresh life in the 30th century. He then didn't appear again until Crisis on Infinite Earths, when he died.

For Barry, the period from July 1979 to November 1985 was a relentless stream of suffering that saw his good nature tested to breaking point. It started with the murder of his wife and it ended with his own death. There's a lot of drama to be had from watching a straight-laced good guy like Barry come apart at the seams as he suffers through those ordeals. The relative simplicity of his character makes his emotional disintegration all the more startling. So I think the Pre-Crisis Barry could still work in a modern movie, given the right storyline.

Speaking of Johns, I can't help thinking that his influence was exerted in ZSJL's depiction of Barry. Off-hand, my memory of Johns's Barry stuff has been writing him as a bit more of a laid back, fun-loving guy. I find it interesting that Johns has/had even more influence over the CW Flash and while that Barry is definitely a man of conscience, he is still not quite in line with Pre-Crisis Barry.

The thing about all the tendency to write Barry more like Wally is that it misses the forest for the trees. From the late Eighties up through the early Nineties, Wally was written as kind of an a-hole. He charged money for super feats, he boffed a married woman, etc. He was just a prick sometimes. But Mark Waid transitioned him away from that to, well, Wally as most people know him now.

But if Wally can grow and change, why can't Barry? Except nobody seems willing to invest that kind of effort into Barry. It's like they just look at Wally's characterization, they see something that (mostly) works and so they try applying elements of Wally to Barry by splitting the difference between Pre-Crisis Barry's maturity and sense of responsibility and Post-Waid Wally's freewheeling, slightly reckless tendencies. Which doesn't leave much creative space for Wally to exist, honestly, unless the plan is to butcher Wally as a character altogether.

I get the need to update the character, but Barry's relative simplicity is one of the things I like about him. I loved Geoff Johns' Rebirth storyline when it first came out, and I still think it's one of the best modern Barry Allen stories. But I don't like how it's come to define every subsequent take on Barry, including the New 52, DCEU, CW and DCAU versions.

I prefer the Pre-Crisis era, when both of Barry's parents were alive and well and featured as supporting characters in his stories. Johns' revised back story about Reverse Flash murdering Nora and framing Henry was a neat way of giving Barry the tragic origin he previously lacked (the makers of the nineties TV show used the death of his brother in a similar way), and his desire to prove his father's innocence also offered a good motive for why he became a police forensic scientist. But personally, I think they should have run with that storyline for a few years – perhaps until Flashpoint – and then reverted to the previous status quo. There are other ways of adding depth to the character without burdening him with the cliché of a childhood tragedy. And by giving him that troubled childhood, Johns' deprived Barry of some of the relaxed self-assurance he had in the Pre-Crisis era. Now he's forever haunted by the trauma of what happened to his family. This brings him in line with a more typical modern superhero, but I'm just not keen on it. I prefer the old Barry.   

I have some ideas about how Barry's characterisation could be developed for a future film. Instead of playing his super speed for laughs, the way the X-Men films portrayed Quicksilver's powers, I'd depict them in a more existential and soulful manner. As Barry's velocity approaches the speed of light, time moves more slowly for him (Einstein's theory of relativity), and consequently he experiences time differently from everyone else. Whenever he uses his powers, he places himself out of synch with the rest of the world. That's why he's always late for appointments. There's an amusing story that explores this concept in Flash V1 #141 (December 1963) called 'Slowdown in Time!' in which Iris' father, Professor Ira West, figures out Barry's secret using the theory of relativity. Ira synchronises his watch with Barry's, then monitors the Flash's activities and makes note of his changes in speed. He then uses this data to calculate the time differential and predict exactly how late Barry will be for his next appointment.

There's a lot of dramatic potential to be had from this idea: that the more Barry uses his powers to help people, the faster his loved ones would age before his eyes. The time differential would be tiny at first – a matter of a few seconds or minutes – but it would increase exponentially as the years went by and he used his powers more extensively. I'd play that for drama instead of laughs. I don't mean turn him into a brooding vampire, but rather depict him as someone who's experiencing time differently from his loved ones, and whose worldview is burdened by perceptions of complex chains of causality and 'what ifs' that other people can never see. Johns touched upon this a little during his run, but the idea could be developed further. That way he wouldn't really need a defining element of tragedy in his past, because he'd be living with an element of tragedy every day of his life: namely the sadness of living life at a different rate to his friends and family, and placing himself even further out of synch with them each time he uses his powers to do good.

[Silver Nemesis]

To expand on my previous post, I think a good template for a cinematic Barry Allen would be Matthew McConaughey's character in Interstellar (2014). Here we have a straight-laced, moral hero with no glaringly obvious character defects. A scientist whose quest to save his family, and humanity as a whole, result in him experiencing time differently from the people of Earth and even undergoing a form of time travel at one point. He ends up temporally displaced from his own life and has to sacrifice the precious years he would have otherwise spent with his children.

Come to think of it, McConaughey would have been the perfect actor to have played Barry if WB had made a Flash movie back in the 2000s. Take his character from Interstellar and mix him with Jim Caviezel's character from Frequency (2000) and you've got an excellent model for how to faithfully depict the Pre-Crisis Barry Allen in a live action film.

Focusing on how Barry's heroics affect the important people in his life is the key to getting him right in a movie. Those connections are where the emotional drama comes from.

The more I think about it, the more I want to see a standalone Flash movie trilogy set in its own universe. I've got an idea for how I'd do it, taking visual and stylistic cues from old Tony Scott movies like Top Gun (1986) and Days of Thunder (1990). Like Scott's cinematographers, I'd make heavy use of neutral-density filters to imbue the sky with a moody orange overcast that threatens lightning at any moment. This would help define the look of the films.

I might even reference the soundtracks from those older movies to give the Flash score a cool yet slightly melancholy ambience.

The tone of the Flash movies should be lighter than the Batman films, but not as comedic as the MCU. They should be mostly dramatic science fiction/crime adventure films with humour used strategically and discreetly, but never at the expense of the drama (e.g. the tired MCU trope of someone saying or doing something inappropriate during a dramatic moment to get a cheap laugh from the audience and offset the tension). In general, the Flash films shouldn't be dark except when necessitated by the plot.

Another cinematic influence I'd draw from is Ron Fricke, and specifically his cinéma pur trilogy of Chronos (1985), Baraka (1992) and Samsara (2011). Fricke's breathtaking use of time-lapse photography showcases the ideal technique for conveying the passage of time in purely cinematic language. I'd fill the Flash movies with similar imagery of lightning storms over deserts, solar eclipses and racing cloudscapes. And I'd capture this footage in camera instead of creating it digitally.

I'd give the Flash an iconic and heroic musical theme to match those of Donner's Superman and Burton's Batman. I'd base it on Vangelis' Oscar-winning score for Chariots of Fire (1981).

The first film in the trilogy would be based on the Silver Age stories of Robert Kanigher, John Broome and Gardner Fox. It would have a fairly balanced and optimistic tone without veering into full comedy. Most of the classic Rogues would appear (Captain Cold, Mirror Master, Pied Piper, Captain Boomerang, Trickster, etc), with Grodd being the main villain who takes control of their minds to use them as his agents against the Flash. Barry's romance with Iris West would feature prominently, as would his relationship with Nora and Henry Allen.

The second film would be a lot darker and would take its cues from Cary Bates' Bronze Age run, and specifically the 1979-1985 period that led up to Barry's death. Reverse Flash would be the main villain, with a dominant presence similar to that of the Joker in The Dark Knight. Wally West would be introduced as Kid Flash, both Nora and Iris would be killed by Thawne, and Henry would be falsely imprisoned for his wife's murder. The movie would end with Barry sacrificing himself to stop Thawne and the teenage Wally stepping up to become the new Flash.

The final film in the trilogy would take place after a ten-year time jump, with the adult Wally now firmly established as the Flash. Halfway through the movie, Barry would emerge from the Speed Force to reclaim his mantle and settle his score with Eobard Thawne, who by now has become Black Flash. Barry would travel through time to prevent Thawne from killing Iris and Nora – without giving rise to the Flashpoint universe – and everything would be set right. This film would take its comic book influences from Mark Waid's Post-Crisis run and Geoff Johns' Rebirth storyline, and it would end the trilogy on a note of closure similar to The Dark Knight Rises. Any Rogues who didn't appear in the first two films would make appearances in this one, but Black Flash would be the central antagonist.