The Flash, for all its flaws, is still the progenitor of the New Age TV superheroes. Netflix may have teamed up with Marvel now but it was The Arrow and The Flash that truly popularized the genre in the small screens. The popular Arrowverse and its ever-growing fan-base owe it to The Flash for their primetime entertainment since years.
The mark of a true superhero is his suit. The color, the shape, and the design all contribute to the hero’s identity and popularity among the masses. If the suit is too shabby the hero will be termed not as a loser more than a hero. In the comics, saying the Flash has gone through quite an amount of change will be the understatement of the century. While the hardback has graced those changes with panache, the Flash suit in the TV show since 2014 has gone through it’s own personal “rebirth” each season.
For me, the personal favorite would be the season 1 suit. Not too shabby, not to bright, the perfect balance that screamed ‘A new superhero is in town’. While personal choices are one thing, some things in each reboot of the suit have had some trademark characteristics that never did change. The classic scarlet red and the lightning bolt insignia are just to name a few. These are the signature attributes that define Barry Allen, both in the show and the comics. But in arrowverse, nothing is certain after the end of a season.
A new concept art reveals that The Flash’s trademark suit characteristics could have changed drastically. The suit in question never made the cut and it’s way into the show. But the armored Flash Suit design by the artist Andy Poon could have changed the way we look at the Scarlet Speedster forever had he had his way with the show runners.
This was the new suit design put forth by Andy Poon, an art director and illustrator from Vancouver.
His Instagram feed reads:
The bust of one of the earlier concepts of the new Flash suit I did during season 3 that has more of a armored feel. We eventually went back to a more iconic and true to comic book look but I really like the lenses so I’m glad that they gave him a one off lenses upgrade in the second episode of season 4. It’s great that costume designer Maya Mani allows me to explore some of these crazier ideas and then helps wrangle me back to a zone where I don’t go full fan boy on the design. Full concept coming soon.
When Barry Allen fought the Revere Flash aka Harrison Wells (the evil one, it’s kinda confusing now) in season 1, he was wearing a simpler version of the suit, albeit with no further visual or internal upgrades. Then in the same season, Barry sports another suit with a design that has a more tactical approach to metahuman combat. Season 2 features another different suit as Barry fights Zoom to save the world. While the fan favorite is still the very first one, the suits never did match the imprint in terms of design and comic book accuracy (case in point the red lightning symbol on his chest – In the comics The Flash’s lightning bolt is yellow in color). It was only in season 4 that Barry Allen was reunited back with his Yellow bolt. Season 3 has the distinction of being the only season in all four seasons of the The Flash to never have changed the previous season’s suit design. Glad to see things changed in season 4.
What’s interesting to note here is that Andy Poon’s original design never did make it to the original cut but some of his concepts did. Poon is credited with designing the ‘comic book accurate’ Season 4 suit. His armored plated design never got the get-go but the infamous yellow shades that serve as The Flash suit’s inbuilt HUD did make it to the final iteration when Cisco made some insane updates to it.
An armored Flash could have helped Barry look even cooler as he ran through the streets of Central City foiling Devoe’s plans once and for all. The Season 4 suit ain’t half bad but had Barry got his hands on this little bad boy in Season 3, battling Savitar would have been a hell of a lot easier. For better or for worse, the stage has been set for the Thinker and the Flash to duke it out. The new scarlet suit is here to stay.
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