Meet The Flash Again In This Extended Trailer
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One of the CW’s biggest shows, Arrow, is based on the classic DC Comics title Green Arrow. Next season, however, they’re getting even deeper into business with iZombie and The Flash. Framed as an Arrow spin-off, the network has already started pushing The Flash hard. We’ve seen a poster and teaser, but now their back with an extended trailer.
While I like the idea of a new Flash series, what we’ve seen so far hasn’t exactly inspired me to great expectations. This trailer, however, makes the series look rather promising. Clocking in at more than five minutes, this basically crams an entire episode’s worth of backstory and origin into a few minutes. Like any superhero worth his salt, the key moment in the life of Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) is the death of a parent, in this case his mother, who was murdered by what appeared to be a man in a ball of lightning.
As a grownup, Barry is a scientist, one who works with the police department in some capacity. A stray bolt of lightning, which may or may not be actual lightning, puts him into a coma for nine months—like he’s being reborn—and when he wakes up he has abs. Little known fact about comas, it’s just like doing one million sit ups. Okay, that’s not true, but Barry does have new powers. He sees things so fast that everything seems to be happening in slow motion. His metabolism is also all out of whack—hence the six-pack—and he can run really, really quick. Now he has to figure out what happened to him, if it happened for a reason, and how to put these new skills to the best use.
Barry is also not the only so-called meta-human, and not all of them have good intentions, like that guy who can control the weather. Luckily he’s a good dude, driven by a desire to do good, and he’s bros with the Green Arrow (Stephen Amell). When you’re just starting out in the superhero game, it definitely helps to have a mentor. Where else would you get practical advice like “wear a mask?”
Story wise, The Flash looks pretty solid in this new footage. Some of the special effects, especially the running scenes, aren’t so great, but that isn’t too surprising. For some reason anytime a character has to run really fast, no one ever makes it look natural or even plausible. It always winds up looking like something from a Road Runner cartoon.
Here’s the official synopsis for The Flash:
Barry Allen was just 11 years old when his mother was killed in a bizarre and terrifying incident and his father was falsely convicted of the murder. With his life changed forever by the tragedy, Barry was taken in and raised by Detective Joe West, the father of Barry’s best friend, Iris. Now, Barry has become a brilliant, driven and endearingly geeky CSI investigator, whose determination to uncover the truth about his mother’s strange death leads him to follow up on every unexplained urban legend and scientific advancement that comes along.
Barry’s latest obsession is a cutting edge particle accelerator, created by visionary physicist Harrison Wells and his S.T.A.R. Labs team, who claim that this invention will bring about unimaginable advancements in power and medicine. However, something goes horribly wrong during the public unveiling, and when the devastating explosion causes a freak storm, many lives are lost and Barry is struck by lightning. After nine months in a coma, Barry awakens to find his life has changed once again – the accident has given him the power of super speed, granting him the ability to move through Central City like an unseen guardian angel.
Though initially excited by his newfound powers, Barry is shocked to discover he is not the only “meta-human” who was created in the wake of the accelerator explosion – and not everyone is using their new powers for good. In the months since the accident, the city has seen a sharp increase in missing people, unexplained deaths and other strange phenomena. Barry now has a renewed purpose – using his gift of speed to protect the innocent, while never giving up on his quest to solve his mother’s murder and clear his father’s name. For now, only a few close friends and associates know that Barry is literally the fastest man alive, but it won’t be long before the world learns what Barry Allen has become…The Flash.
The CW has picked up at least 13 episodes of The Flash, which will air on Tuesday nights at 8:00 pm starting this fall.
