The Flash (CW)

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Name: The Flash
Abbreviation(s):
Creator: Greg Berlanti, Geoff Johns
Date(s): December 4, 2013 (First appearance on Arrow [1])
October 7, 2014 - May 24, 2023 (Series run)
Medium: Live-action television show
Country of Origin: United States
External Links: Wikipedia official website official Facebook official tumblr IMDB
The Flash promotional image of Season 1 characters.
Related Concepts, Fandoms, Terms, Fanworks
See also Arrow, Legends of Tomorrow, Vixen, Constantine, Supergirl
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

The Flash is a 2014 CW live-action television series about the DC Comics superhero of the same name. It is a spin-off show of Arrow.

Canon

An advanced particle accelerator created by Harrison Wells malfunctions during its public unveiling, bathing the city center with a previously unknown form of radiation during a severe thunderstorm. Barry Allen is struck by lightning from the storm and is put into a coma. After a nine months, Barry awakens to discover that he has acquired the ability to move at superhuman speeds. Barry vows to use his powers to protect Central City from metahuman criminals that were exposed to same radiation he had along with day-to-day criminals. He is helped by Caitlin Snow and Cisco Ramon in his hero duties. Also, with the confirmation that metahumans do exist, Barry searches for the person who mysteriously killed his mother when he was ten (a murder which was blamed on his father, who is now in prison for the crime).

Main Characters

Actor Character Seasons
Grant Gustin Bartholomew "Barry" Allen/The Flash Season 1—present
Candice Patton Iris Ann West Season 1—present
Danielle Panabaker Dr. Caitlin Snow/Killer Frost Season 1—present
Carlos Valdes Cisco Ramon/Vibe Season 1—present
Tom Cavanagh Dr. Harrison "Harry" Wells (Earth-2) Season 2, 4
Season 3 (guest)
Jesse L. Martin Detective Joseph "Joe" West Season 1—present
Hartley Sawyer Ralph Dibny/Elongated Man Season 4—present
Danielle Nicolet DA Cecile Horton Season 5—present
Season 3—4 (recurring)
Season 1 (guest)
Jessica Parker Kennedy Nora Dawn Allen Season 5—present
Season 4 (guest)
Keiynan Lonsdale Wallace "Wally" West/Kid Flash Season 2-3
Season 4 (recurring)
Season 5 (guest)
Tom Cavanagh Eobard Thawne/The Reverse-Flash Season 1
Season 2—3 (guest)
Rick Cosnett Detective Edward "Eddie" Thawne Season 1
Season 2—3 (guest)
Teddy Sears Hunter Zolomon/Zoom/"Jay Garrick"/"The Flash" Season 2
Tom Cavanagh Harrison "H.R." Wells (Earth-19) Season 3
Tom Felton Julian Albert Desmond Season 3

Recurring Characters

  • Robbie Amell as Ronnie Raymond/Firestorm, an engineer at S.T.A.R. Labs and Caitlin's fiancé (They later married in the S1 finale) and one-half of Firestorm. He disappeared during the singularity event, presumed dead.
  • Victor Garber as Professor Martin Stein/Firestorm, a nuclear physicist focused on transmutation and is one-half of Firestorm. Joins Legends of Tomorrow.
  • Wentworth Miller as Leonard Snart/Captain Cold, criminal that uses a stolen cryonic technology weapon developed by Cisco to become Captain Cold. Joined Legends of Tomorrow.
  • Patrick Sabongui as David Singh, the Central City Police Captain.
  • John Wesley Shipp as Henry Allen, Barry's father, who was imprisoned for his wife's murder. In Season 2, he was released and left Central City to travel, but was killed by Zoom at the end of the season.
    • Shipp also portrayed the real Jay Garrick from Earth-3, whom Zoom had trapped and hidden in Earth-2.
  • Dominic Purcell as Mick Rory/Heat Wave, an arsonist and accomplice of Snart who in contrast to his partner, uses a heat gun capable of burning almost anything. Joined Legends of Tomorrow.
  • Michelle Harrison as Nora Allen, Barry Allen's mother, who was murdered by The Reverse-Flash. In Earth-2, she's alive and still married to Henry. After dealing with Zoom, Barry decides to go back in time and rescue his mother and succeeds despite other times he tries and failed creating Flashpoint. He eventually goes back and stops himself from saving her, reverting to a new slightly different timeline in Season 3.
  • Amanda Pays as Dr. Christina "Tina" McGee, a physicist and the head of Mercury Labs. She knew the real Harrison Wells and his wife, Tess. She often helps Barry Allen and the rest of Team Flash, even giving Caitlin Snow a job before she went back to S.T.A.R. labs.
    • This is the second time Pays portrayed Tina, the first being in 90's The Flash TV series
  • Shantel VanSanten as Patty Spivot (Season 2), Detective West's new protégée and briefly dates Barry before moving away.

Fandom

The fandom for The Flash began to grow even before the series actually premiered, since it takes place in the same universe as Arrow and three of the main characters had already made guest appearances on that show (Barry Allen[1], Caitlin Snow and Cisco Ramon[2]). From May 15, 2014, with the release of the official trailer of the series, Tumblr exploded with fan reactions[3].

In 2016, The Flash was ranked number eighteen in the Top 20 "most reblogged" live-action television show on Tumblr, one of three Arrowverse fandoms and one of five CW fandoms[4].

Common Tropes, Themes and Storylines

  • Crossovers with Arrow, nicknamed Flarrow, are quite popular.
  • Time Travel, which is canon within the show, is often used as a plot device within fics. There are also many Futurefics. Similarly the addition of multiple parallel Earths in Season 2 has been used as device to put familiar characters in different situations.
  • Metahuman is a term for a human with special abilities within the Flash canon. Within fics, characters without powers can be given metahuman abilities or a metahuman can be given different powers. Metahuman antagonists can also be used to bring in traditional Fanfic tropes like bodyswap, fuck or die, amnesia etc.
  • Many fics, rather than being a full AU, are instead Canon Divergence AUs where the characters still have powers and similar backstories, but their romantic entanglements change, or an event occurs to change the canon slightly. Some fans use Canon Divergence AUs as fix-its, saving a much loved character from their canonical death.
  • Soulmates AUs are popular in both The Flash and Arrow.
  • Role Reversal AUs can involve characters swapping jobs, personality traits or powers with someone else. These sometimes place Barry Allen in the role of the villain or one of the Rogues.
  • No Powers AUs often place Barry Allen in his original role, as bumbling forensic scientist. These fics are not limited to pre-canon.
  • Due to the age of the characters, College AUs are also popular within the fandom.
  • The Multiverse refers to the canon existence of multiple Earths, featuring alternate version of familiar characters. This often appears in fanworks with characters from different Earths interacting, often including fan imagined alternate versions of main characters. The multiverse can be used to explain AU settings, and crossovers with other fandoms.

Shipping

The main shipping prior to the release of the series was based on events in the Arrow series: Barry Allen/Felicity Smoak and Barry Allen/Iris West (which was hinted at being semi-canon in Barry's first appearance with and later reaffirmed by Cisco). However the pairing of Caitlin Snow/Barry Allen took off after the series trailer was released [5][6][7] - much to chagrin of Iris/Barry fans [8][9] while others compare the Caitlin/Barry ship to Olicity (of Arrow).[10] As a result, a lot of wank has happened on tumblr and twitter causing a Ship War between the two groups of shippers[11]. As the season continued, the pairings Iris West/Eddie Thawne and Ronnie Raymond/Caitlin Snow became fairly common.

In season one, Barry Allen/Harrison Wells was one of the major slash pairings. Barry Allen/Eddie Thawne was also common. Another slash pairing arising from season one was Barry Allen/Leonard Snart, which started off as quite uncommon but gained popularity in the fandom and eventually became the most popular pairing in the fandom. The slash pairing of Barry/Cisco also appears in season 1, and slowly gained more support, especially with Cisco's powers developing during Season 2, garnering the ship name "Flashvibe".

Due to the popularity of Barry/Iris, Barry/Eddie and Eddie/Iris, one of the more popular threesomes in the fandom was Barry/Iris/Eddie. In later seasons, the pairing of Barry/Iris/Leonard (Coldwestallen) appeared and grew in popularity for similar reasons.

Minor pairings from Season 1 include: Cisco/Caitlin, Caitlin/Iris, Linda/Iris, Caitlin/Harrison, Cisco/Lisa, Cisco/Harry, and Joe/Caitlin.

Since Season 2 started, a few new ships to the fandom appeared: Caitlin/Jay, Barry/Patty, Jay/Barry, Jay/Harrison, and Cisco/Kendra. Other rarer pairings include: Mick/Caitlin, Caitlin/Leonard, Harrison/Jesse, Jesse/Wally, Wally/Iris, Caitlin/Lisa.

For Season 3, various new pairings appeared: Savitar/Caitlin, Caitlin/Julian, Joe/Cecile, Cisco/Cynthia Reynolds, Cisco/H.R. and H.R./Tracy.

Crossovers with Arrow are fairly common; thus pairing Flash characters with Arrow's characters have appeared. Although Barry/Felicity remains the most popular along with Barry/Oliver, others have appeared such as Barry/Laurel, Barry/Oliver/Felicity, Caitlin/Felicity, Iris/Oliver, and Eddie/Oliver. Due to Barry's crossover episode with Supergirl, some fans took to shipping Barry with Kara Danvers (Supergirl) and Winn Schott along with Winn/Cisco and Kara/Iris (along with the gen versions of those pairings).

See List of Arrowverse Relationship Names.

Notable Fanworks

Fics

  • Rogue Z by bealeciphers, Two months after a mysterious villain started the zombie apocalypse and all of North America has been trapped in an unnaturally cold winter, the Flash has been forced to travel with Captain Cold, Golden Glider, and Heatwave to make it back to Central City and find his friends and family. A ColdFlash zombie AU with lots of Rogues Gallery friendship
  • Everything Changes by DeMarcos, Re-imagines the canon of the show if Thallen had been the endgame couple.
  • And I'm Crashing Into You by poisonivory, Barry/Cisco, Cisco fixes things that are broken, like super-suits and hearts. It's what friends do, right?
  • Waiting for Time To Run Out series by Mikkal, Barry/Iris/Eddie, In an inadvertent, roundabout way, Oliver brings Iris and Barry back together, stronger than ever, and Eddie is brought along for the ride. Soon the three of them form something unbreakable, but there are a great many things that would like to prove that wrong.
  • The Girlfriend Caper by Esmenet, Iris/Lisa, Barry/Iris, Instead of killing the Flash's girlfriend, Lisa Snart is going to STEAL the Flash's girlfriend! IN A DATING WAY. or, to put it another way: Featuring Lisa Snart’s transition from “I’m going to KILL the Flash’s girlfriend like he killed my boyfriend!” through “I’m going to STEAL THE FLASH’S GIRLFRIEND like he STOLE ROSCOE FROM ME” to “I’m going to completely ignore Barry Allen’s existence and DATE HIS WIFE”. (On balance, even Barry will admit this is probably better.)
  • Veritas by Crimson1, Len gets hit with a truth spell while helping Barry take care of a wayward sorceress.
  • To Catch a Thief by error401, A Coldflash No Powers AU.

Arts

Vids

Archives and Fannish Links

Fansites

DeviantART

Tumblr

See individual pages for more Pairing and Character links.

Tumblr Tags: the flash cw, cw the flash, cw's the flash, theflashcw

Character specific:

Ship specific:

Forums

Recs

LiveJournal

Resources

References


  1. ^ a b Arrow Season 2 Episode 8 "The Scientist" - Barry first appears on the series. He also appears in the next episode "Three Ghosts".
  2. ^ Arrow Season 2 Episode 19 "The Man Under the Hood" - Caitlin and Cisco make their first appearance.
  3. ^ The CW’S The Flash On Tumblr, A Summary. wilderbiz. Published May 20, 2014. (Accessed 24 May 2014)
  4. ^ 2016′s Top TV Shows - Live Action
  5. ^ [1]
  6. ^ [2]
  7. ^ [3]
  8. ^ [4]
  9. ^ [5]
  10. ^ [6]
  11. ^ WestAllen vs. Snowbarry:
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