The Flash, Barry Allen.
Most of us know his story by now.
His arch nemesis, Eobard Thawne A.K.A.
Professor Zoom, went back in time, killed Barry’s mom, his dad was blamed for the
murder, and Allen dedicated his life to finding the true killer which is why he became a forensic
scientist.
This leads to him getting struck by lightning in his lab while mixing some chemicals which
transformed him into The Flash.
To prevent the death of his mother, The Flash traveled to the past to stop Thawne from ever
hurting her, but as a result, the entire universe was messed up, creating the world of Flashpoint.
WRONG!
So many of you guys are probably thinking “Drake, how could this possibly be wrong?
It’s literally there in the comics, TV show, and animated movie!”
Like okay yes, this IS what actually happened, but Barry going back in time shouldn’t have
had such disastrous results, especially since Allen’s mom was alive for decades!
And to explain why, we need to rewind.
But before we get too far into things, I want to give a big thank you to our sponsor for
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Now I’m going to be throwing a lot of events and dates at you so in order to keep track
of things, I made this handy dandy chart.
So the origin of Professor Zoom killing Barry’s mom was introduced in 2009 in a series called
The Flash: Rebirth.
Before then, Barry actually had both of his parents and can we just take a second to appreciate
just how rare that is for a DC hero?
No Crime Alley, no Krypton, no exploding plane.
The Allen’s family life was actually pretty good.
Now The Flash was seemingly killed off in the iconic event, Crisis on Infinite Earths,
a story that rebooted the DC multiverse for the first of the two times that it ever has.
This led to two distinct periods of continuity, Pre-Crisis and Post-Crisis.
In this new continuity, a LOT changed so some readers might just think that Thawne being
involved in The Flash’s origin is just the Post-Crisis lore.
After all, Barry was pretty much gone from all of comics from his apparent death in 1985
before fully coming back in 2008.
However, this is incorrect.
Let me introduce you to Malcolm Thawne.
He is, and I kid you not, Barry Allen’s secret twin brother!
So yeah, when Barry was born, he was delivered by a doctor who had come into work drunk.
That same night, the doctor messed up the birth of another woman who came in named Charlene
Thawne.
Well Nora Allen was able to give birth to healthy twin boys, but the doctor decided
to “set his mistake right” by telling the Allens that one of their babies was stillborn
and secretly gave him to the Thawnes.
This was Malcolm.
Malcolm’s family abused him while he was growing up, but they eventually told Malcolm
that he was adopted, which prompted him to run away and find the identity of his true
parentage for himself.
When Malcolm tracked down the Allen’s house, he could see all three of them having a wonderful
time, showcasing the life that he was deprived of.
Now while I would love to go on and on and on about how Malcolm later went on to become
a supervillain named Cobalt Blue, that would be better saved for a different video.
What’s important for this subject is that age that that Malcolm saw the Allens alive
and well.
He was seventeen.
And since Barry and Malcolm are twins, this clearly means that Henry and Nora Allen were
alive when Barry was seventeen years old.
In every single depiction that we get of Professor Zoom killing Nora, Barry is a little kid,
not a nearly legal adult.
Now I COULD see the argument that Thawne could have still killed Nora after this scene of
seventeen year old Barry, but then DC later retconned it to make Barry even younger, but
there’s just one small problem with that idea.
It was already cemented in canon that both of The Flash’s parents died AFTER he was
lost in Crisis on Infinite Earths which also means that this new origin isn’t a result
of the new Post-Crisis continuity.
However, even though it would be decades before the DC universe was rebooted for the second
time, there were still other events that changed its continuity such as an event called Zero
Hour.
Yet that came out in 1994 and with the Malcolm story happening in 1999, that would be impossible
for this to be the event that changed The Flash’s origin.
Could the change have been a ripple effect from Superboy Prime punching reality year
later?
Maybe.
I mean, it brought Jason Todd back to life so I guess anything’s possible, but there’s
been no word from DC that even slightly implies that this would be what happened so this seems
like grasping at straws.
Okay so I know I have been throwing out a lot names and details so let’s take a look
back at the timeline and review real quick.
Post-Crisis continuity, check.
Barry’s mom was alive at 17.
Check.
The first time that we hear about Thawne killing Nora Allen was after The Flash came back.
Check.
With this data, I think it’s safe to say that Professor Zoom did the deed around this
time and as a result, this new origin snapped into place and rewrote all of history.
That’s pretty sound logic so far.
Then in 2011, The Flash goes back in time, saves his mom, and then he creates the brand
new and crazy Flashpoint timeline.
Simple enough, but here’s my question.
Why is that when Professor Zoom went back in time, the only significant change was just
the death of Nora Allen?
Is it because Thawne is just that much better at time traveling and affected the timeline
with the precision of a scapple?
I mean, yeah, that’s possible.
Yet, if this was the case then logic would dictate that since this was the only change
to the timeline, then The Flash saving his mom would bring the world back to how it was
BEFORE the retcon, not create a MASSIVELY altered universe.
When The Flash TV show had a Flashpoint of their own, they kind of met in the middle.
Barry changed the past to save his mom, which led to multiple changes in the world, but
nothing was so significant that it would affect the lives of normal everyday civilians.
Oh wow, Wally West is The Flash and Cisco is rich now.
That is nothing close to like Atlantis and Themyscira going to war!
Now, the canon explanation is that The Flash was very sloppy when he changed time and like
a bullet going through a windshield, the cracks that he left in the timeline affected the
lives of those closest to him and since they’re these big powerful superheroes that take part
in massive global events, then the world changed dramatically as a result, but to me, this
is kind of just inconsistent writing.
You see, Barry’s been able to time travel before and we have never seen ripple effects
on this scale and I mean this is at the very beginning of The Flash’s career when he
would be the most sloppy and this is even BEFORE he invented the Cosmic Treadmill, which
is a device that allowed him to have better control over his time travel abilities.
Unless DC is retconning all of that too then it would be ridiculous that The Flash would
be such an amateur time travel and changing the past!
When Barry went back in time to save his mom, the Flashpoint timeline should have never
existed.
He should have just saved her life and then the timeline would have reverted back to what
it was before Thawne’s initial meddling.
But look, we all know that the main reason as to why this happened is that this is what
the writers and editors over at DC wanted to be canon and those demands are simply just
a lot more powerful than any previous abilities.
With a little bit of technobabble, they can justify whatever actions in the canon regardless
of any previous books.
I mean, if we really wanted to nitpick things further then I guess we could say that Barry’s
emotions were high and that’s why the time travel was sloppy or hell, you could just
say that time travel is so wonky that there’s no certain rules or consistency to it in the
first place.
But before I get angry DC fanboys all up in my comments, as if they haven’t already
done that, let me make something very clear.
I’m not saying that Flashpoint is a bad story or anything like that.
I mean heck, I really like it!
And I know this entire video is just me being a mega nerd that’s obsessing over continuity,
but I really do enjoy this updated backstory for The Flash.
It’s certainly a unique origin story, was a solid foundation for the TV show, and it
led to a legitimately entertaining comic book and movie adaptation.
I’ve read Flashpoint several times and this thought only just now occurred to me on my
most recent read through.
This entire video could be (and honestly, probably is) a complete load of crap, but
the fact that it made me think about all this this much is one of the reasons why I enjoy
comic books that are set in these old and dense continuities.
I wholeheartedly think that DC and Marvel comics get better and better the more you
read because as I become more knowledgeable about these worlds, I find myself taking away
new thoughts and details upon re-reading.
I mean sure, there are plenty of movies where I notice things on subsequent watches or I
have wildly different playthroughs on some video games, but the experience of comics
unfolding themselves more and more as you learn about their worlds, characters, and
even editorial histories is an experience that I have never felt replicated in any other
medium and this is one of the many reasons why I have this channel, to encourage people
to give comics a shot.
That's all I've got for today, but if you liked this video then why not consider subscribing
or even watching another one?
And if you enjoyed this then chances are that you like The Flash so you might want to check
out this playlist that I have on every single one of my Flash videos, but anyway, I hope
you learned at least a little something new and hopefully, I’ll see you next time!