Reasons for why I dislike the Flash (2014-2023)
Alright, so this is going to be very similar to a previous post I made about The Dark Knight Trilogy. I'm going to rant about this topic in several sections in a non-organized way because this is my blog and I get to choose what I'm dislike. Also, please don't hate me for any of what I'm about to say. I have a right to my opinion and if you actually like the Flash tv show, good for you! I just don't like it. I used to, but then I read Joshua Williamson's Flash run and I realized Grant Gustin's Barry is nothing like how he's supposed to be.
Also, I will referencing seasons 1-6 as I have not watched seasons 7-9 mostly because I couldn't care less about them at that point and the show wasn't how it used to be.
Enjoy my whining!
---
The Problem with Grant's Barry Allen
There have been 3 live action Barry Allens. The first being John Wesley Shipp, the second being Grant Gustin, and the third being the infamous Ezra Miller. Surprisingly, I consider Ezra being the second best at playing Barry Allen. At least in their Flash movie, their appearances in both Justice Leagues are basically Barry's awkwardness multiplied by Wally West's everything. Oh, Flash Fact: whenever Barry gets an adaptation outside of his main comic run, he has most if not all of Wally West's personality. But Grant? Grant has some things in common with Comic Barry and Comic Wally in terms of personality, but other than that, he's just a crummy Spider-Man with a team shouting in his ears.
Barry is meant to be the independent police scientist who seems like a boring nerd at first until he changes into the Flash, the light-hearted hero who is clever enough to not just use his super speed for more than running. Grant's Barry Allen isn't independent, he relies on the help of others to think of creative ways to use his speed. Comic Barry built the cosmic treadmill along with other gadgetry, TV Barry does some of the work but team flash builds most of the devices Barry uses. Its akin to how most haters of MCU Spider-Man perceive Tom Holland's version of the character. Let him make his own shit.
The other part of Grant's Flash that makes him like Spider-Man is the love interests. Barry has only been with a hand full of people in comics, and Iris is the one he's been with for the longest. Sure, Patty Spivot dated Flash, there was also Jessica Cruz, Meena Dhawan, but most of the context behind those relationships happened in summary or while the show was running. And in the show...he still doesn't date that many people in the show. But my point is the show builds up to the relationship. Barry and Iris were already dating in the silver age comics when he was introduced. Barry did not need to spend 2-ish seasons for him to date and get engaged to Iris.
And just to add to the spider-man parallel. You know who else had a love interest that was a childhood crush? Peter Parker with Mary Jane Watson. At least it didn't get as weird as WestAllen did in the show.
Another thing to note is that Grant was not a good cast to play Barry Allen. Barry got his powers at a significantly older age than he did in the show. And I know thats alluded to, but it doesn't help.
One more thing: Barry keeps his life as the flash very separate from his civillian life.
The Other Guys, Gals, and other pals!
There is no "Team Flash" in the comics. Team Flash is used in the show to provide exposition that Barry could give if he were being independent but he isn't. It is also of note that almost none of these characters come from the Flash comics. Vibe debuted in a 1982 Justice League comic. Killer Frost is an enemy of Firestorm. And Harrison Wells doesn't even exist in the comics. STAR Labs isn't even a base of operation for Barry, thats where Superman goes for the alien stuff
If there were an actual team flash and a base of operations he had, it would be at the CCPD with his coworkers that got introduced later on like Forest.
WestAllen...why...why is it borderline incest?
Simply put, Barry and Iris are borderline step-siblings. They grew up together in the same house, Joe is like a dad to him, they may have accidentally shared a toothbrush (sibling canon event). It is so fucking weird. Not the first time that WestAllen has just been uncomfortable. I've pointed that in the old tv show and in the DCEU, Barry's relationship with Iris is kinda weird. But the tv show just makes it uncomfortable. The whole reason why its borderline is because Joe never adopted Barry, he was only his care-taker
The West Family in general
Now, I would like to state I do not have a problem with the Wests being black. Would I prefer Iris and Wally to look like themselves? Absolutely, but that isn't a problem to me. What is a problem is everything else. Joe West does not exist in the comics, Wally isn't Iris' brother, he's her nephew, and Iris and Barry's kids are the tornado twins, Don and Dawn Allen not Bart and Nora West-Allen. Speaking of which, Bart Allen and Nora Allen are supposed to be the grandchildren of Iris West. And Nora's actual name is Jenni Ognats, the showrunners just gave Nora the name of XS because of her being from the future.
In the comics, Iris' adopted dad is either Ira West, a scientist who helped the Flash or William West, an abusive drunk. Her real father's name is Eric Russel. None of them to my knowledge were cops or held the alias of Joe.
Iris' brothers are Rudolph "Rudy" West and Daniel West. She did have a sister before Flashpoint named Charlotte. Rudolph is the real father of the first Wally West we all came to know and love but technically was previously the father to the second before that got retconned into Daniel West being the real father. All of this is to say, Iris had more than one sibling.
Iris is also from the future. Although this was a retcon about her death at the hands of Eobard Thawne, she was sent to the past for some reason and when she "died", she was saved by being brought back to the future. Adding this part of her would have made Iris a little more unique compared to characters such as Lois Lane.
Wally's conundrom
And then there's Wally...poor Wally. He never stood a chance in this adaptation of the Flash. Because the New 52 had already gone on for 3 years as of the Flash tv show's airing, Wally West II had already been reintroduced as a black teen being taken care of by his aunt, Iris West. And because Iris had no siblings seen in the show's flashbacks to her and Barry's childhood, it was clear that Rudy wasn't going to appear. So, Wally was made into Iris's brother, and his personality doesn't really reflect how he is in the comics. And I mean both versions of Wally as Tv Wally only has one thing in common with both of them: cars and mechanics.
Tv Wally's personality, if memory serves correct is more in line with Wally West II rather than the first Wally as he has a similar accusatory and emotional attitude. But Tv Wally has plot beats similar to that of the first Wally as he briefly took up the mantle of the Flash. But then again, later on, tv Wally has the unique trait of being more like speed force guru, Max Mercury, as he gains more knowledge over the speed force than Barry does. So Tv Wally is more different than either version of comic Wally.
And then there's show Wally's origin...which I don't remember at all. After a quick search on the wiki page, his origin is reminiscent of how Wally II gets his powers via an alternate history having those powers already, but is still completely different. Flashpoint TV Wally gets powers by having lightning strike him near a nitro engine. That part of his origin is also similar to comic Wally's origin of being struck by lightning and thrown into chemicals. But its also just completely different as main timeline tv Wally gets his speed force connection back via Philosopher stone.
This time, I'm not as upset with Wally being adapted as with the others as Wally had no chance of being adapted thanks to the mess he was in at the time in the comics.
Metahumans, Metahumans from another Earth, Bus Metas? Metatech???
In the comics, Metahumans exist, not through dark matter, but through the metagene. The metagene activates when a person undergoes extreme amounts of stress causing their powers to awaken. Now i assume this wasn't implemented because the x-gene from Marvel comics and because they wanted to find some way of containing all of the metahumans to central city. But that just leads to more problems that I don't like.
For example: some of the Rogues such as Weather Wizard, who was never even a metahuman even when the other rogues got powers (if my memory serves correctly of course).
Fastest man alive?
Its almost comedic at this point, but for the first three seasons (and I assume the same thing happened when Reverse Flash and Godspeed were the main villains of the show again), Barry had to fight three speedsters who were faster than him. One of which was his own self. But heres the thing: what makes Flash unique is that he doesn't just use his speed for running but for doing everything else faster. Stripping it all down to repetitive chase sequences undermines that. And repeating the same type of villain for three seasons gets monotonous pretty quickly (pun unintended).
(Underutilized) Rogues Gallery
Within the series, the number of Flash's villains that are used are notable, but there are some that are just not his villains to begin with. For example: Multiplex. The guy who could split his body to create multiples of himself. Yeah, he's a Firestorm villain. In season 2, there was Atom Smasher, who IS a Flash villain who would later go by Professor Fallout, but the version of Atom Smasher they used was modeled after the hero version of the character. There's also characters such as King Shark, Simon Stagg, General Eiling, Clock King, Everyman, and The Mist that don't belong in the Flash and thats just in season 1.
Flash has more enemies than just the rogues, and even then, the showrunner could have utilized more than just one episode with the Rogues in it! Flash's main arch villains are usually Captain Cold, Gorilla Grodd, and Reverse Flash. Why does only one of them get the spotlight half of the time? Sure, Grodd was made of CGI, but heres the thing, he had a human form in the comics back in the silver age.
The (Underutilized) Rogues
Having one episode dedicated to a Rogue is not fun. It especially isn't fun when the entire team isn't together. The Rogues usually consist of Captain Cold, Heatwave, Weather Wizard, the Trickster, Captain Boomerang, Golden Glider, Mirror Master, and maybe one or two more or less. From what I remember, not a single episode about the Rogues featured more than one rogue.
Weather Wizard only gets a handful of episodes. Captain Boomerang is mischaracterized as this "cool" (I'd say forgetable) bounty hunter or whatever from australia when in truth, he's a loud mouth cheapskate and a loser. Golden Glider also gets two-ish episodes, and she isn't even done justice with her abilities? Wheres the ice skates? Wheres the gliding? Why does she have a hot glue gun that shoots gold!? Captain Cold and Heatwave kinda got screwed over by being thrown into having redemption arcs in Legends of Tomorrow (Although I will say, I do love their characterizations in both shows. Especially when Cold came back with the "Legion" of Doom).
Crisis on Infinite Earths
You mean to tell me that something that was set up for several seasons was wasted on a different Flash? What the hell were the writers smoking?
Flashpoint
Now I know that the tv show sort of fixed this with the Armageddon event, but Flashpoint should have been its own event and not just have one episode in season 3. Because Flashpoint affected DC tremendously, creating the New 52, taking away so many beloved characters and rewriting some of them to be edgy as hell. And don't get me started on what they did to Lobo.
Adapting the source material
Barry had plenty of unique adventures that dove into sci-fi elements. Usually these elements were about alternate dimensions, sentient cloud creatures, another world deep beneath the world's crust. And while we don't get to see that stuff as much anymore with Barry's current runs, it is what made Barry's adventures unique compared to other heroes. And in the show, while Barry does go to alternate timelines, explore some sci-fi concepts, they're more tied to the villain of the week or the villain of the series. Comic Barry would often just stumble across these, and if they were the villain of the week, at least they did something interesting with the concept.
Illegally Brunette
This is just a nitpick, but why are the characters who were blonde/ginger in comics are either brunette or black haired? Are you trying to else us something CW Flash showrunners? Are you trying to tell me and the audience that blonde or gingers don't exist? Because you're right with the gingers, not with the blondes. People with golden hair exist too y'know! (I say as I stroke my brown hair).
---
Thank you for reading my nitpicking and whining. If theres anything I got wrong, please let me know. It has been a while since I've seen the Flash tv show and I'm not watching that shit again, so some notes could help. And if I got anything from the comics wrong, again, notes would help.
The entire last section is mostly a joke. I know there are multiple blonde-haired people that exist in the show, its just Barry is blonde in the comics, and we've all heard the complaints over Iris not having red hair (which by the way, wasn't even a thing until later. She's brunette you guys, c'mon).
If you're offended by my immense hatred for the show's faults, tough luck. I'm allowed to have an opinion over this.
I may update this later with more things I dislike about the show if I remember to.
