TV's Flash Isn't the Hero He Thinks He Is

In the recent TV show The Flash, Barry Allen aka The Flash is presented as the real hero but it's also sending us a subversive message about the real nature of heroics. The way the show is playing with the audience's expectations makes us believe that it is one of the most promising superhero TV shows right now.

Readers should know that the rest of this piece contains heavy spoilers from the TV show, The Flash. If you haven't seen the show yet, or are concerned about spoilers, then stop reading now.

DC Comics' superhero, The Flash, is one of the older heroes in comic-book canon, but most people today are probably most familiar with the 90s version, whom you say in The Justice League. Now in live action, the Flash is still Barry Allen, a nice guy with incredible speed powers. When its first episode aired on the television in the US, The Flash became the most watched television show there. In the show, Barry Allen is struck by lightning and gains the 'meta-human' capability of running faster than the speed of light, taking on the name The Flash.

Ostensibly, he's the hero of the show, putting away bad guys and saving the day, but there is another guy who can run faster than The Flash, and that too without the 'meta-human' capabilities. The man-in-the-yellow-suit, Dr Harrison Wells, was experimenting with a particle accelerator to create meta-humans, and a lab-accident gives him super powers. He's seen as the villain of the piece, but while The Flash is a kind-hearted, superpower gifted guy, the Reverse Flash is the one who is really in charge of everything.

The-man-in-the-yellow-suit is the one who really provides momentum to the plot - while Barry Allen's father was blamed for the death of Barry's mother, the blame actually lies with the Reverse Flash, who needed to seize the tachyon particle generator in Mercury Labs. In the flashback, we see Dr Wells concealing himself in a secret vault inside STAR Labs, where he asks his computer AI Gideon about the end and sudden disappearance of The Flash. This suggests that he knows the future and later we come to know that he actually came from the future to kill The Flash.

As the story develops, the role of Thawne starts to be a primary driver for the show. When our "heroes" try and trap him in STAR Labs, they're not successful, and people try and shoot the Reverse Flash. He doesn't retaliate, and we learn over time that this was because he doesn't want to risk harming his own ancestors, or he might have never been born. Heading towards the climax of the season, we see the Reverse Flash tells the Flash he [Thawne] was manipulating him [Allen] all along. The Reverse Flash actually ensured Allen's safety throughout his adventures so that the future that he has been foreseeing remains intact. While the Flash struggles to figure out who the Reverse Flash is, and the real motives of the Reverse Flash are, Dr Wells the Reverse Flash is guiding his entire development as a hero.

While the Flash has been catching and incarcerating the "bad" meta-humans, this was also something that Dr Wells orchestrated. Every superpower that all those meta-humans possessed turns out to be the tools Dr Wells needed to bring about his "foreseen future". The Flash has been the hero for everyone since the show started but everything he's done has actually just been to help the Reverse Flash. So stop cheering for the Scarlet Speedster, because he's been nothing but the Reverse Flash's puppet. Dr Wells has been the puppeteer, who has always controlled Barry Allen's life. We can't wait to see what strings he's going to pull for Season 2.