CW’s Flash is one of the marquee shows of the network and enjoys decent TRP’s (not insanely high off late) from loyal fans spread across the world. The show picked up great momentum with the debut season as Reverse Flash or Thawne as speedster villain captured the imagination of Flash fans and comic book lovers in general that propelled the TV series to number 1 spot among the superhero shows on TV. Tom Cavanagh as Prof. Wells aka Reverse Flash just knocked it out of the park and showed us what a great villain he was.
In season 2, another speedster was cast as the villain, this time it was Zoom who had a very traumatic childhood and made him a hardened criminal out for blood. He became a speedster and wanted to conquer worlds and destroy the multi-verse for good, but Team Flash managed to beat him just in time. But he managed to draw some blood as he killed Barry’s father Henry Allen right in front of him.
In season 3, a speedster named Savitar, who is an evil version of Barry’s future-self coming back in time to avenge the wrongs done to him. In the future, Savitar will kill Barry’s girlfriend Iris West and Flash is running out of time and ideas on how to save her. At last, Savitar’s evil designs were thwarted and Iris was saved.
But the show-makers realized that the TRP’s are dipping and the show’s popularity is waning as compared to the season 1. They have to do something different for season 4, they got to introduce a game changer to bring its massive fanbase back into the fold and BOOM….we have the first ever non-speedster villain into the mix who goes by the name Clifford DeVoe aka The Thinker. Clifford was the university professor who became a super meta or The Thinker once he came in contact with dark matter released from particle accelerator explosion. His end game is still not clear but he wants a new world order.
He has proven to be the most dangerous and terrifying adversary that Team Flash has ever faced. He is testing Flash not physically nut mentally. He is the smartest man alive who also has the powers of 6 Bus metas which really makes him invincible except for one thing, his body is on a clock unless he finds one that can heal rapidly and has an exceptionally high metabolism.
There have been several enemies of the Flash for three full seasons now and half of season 4. The Villain of the Day approach to each episode has given us a list of villains, some memorable, some too damn forgettable. While not every guy or girl got to the level of Reverse Flash or Zoom, to say Flash’s Rogues Gallery ain’t good enough will be completely untrue.
The showrunners have always used the Flash and his Rogues to introduce newer easter eggs into the Arrowverse. The two shows of CW that are intricately linked with one another has to be Arrow and The Flash who have crossed over in the past, teamed up against an immortal tyrant Vandal Savage, The Dominators etc. The latest episode was no different. A Well Known Green Arrow Villain is introduced in the latest episode of The Flash Season 4.
Spoiler Alert: The following paragraphs contain major spoilers for The Flash Season 4 Episode ‘Enter Flashtime’. If you haven’t seen it yet, you know what to do…
The Latest Episode of The Flash saw Barry literally racing against time to save Central City from a nuclear explosion of massive proportions. The two speedsters from Earth-2 and Earth-3 i.e Jesse Quick and Jay Garrick also came to help Flash in defusing this nuke. First, they thought, Cisco could just breach it to the dead Earth but he could not, secondly, Killer Frost tried to freeze the temperatures but she could not, thirdly the three speedsters together tried to produce 3 Billion joules of energy but failed.
He has only a little time left before the bomb explodes, so he accesses a speedster specific dimension, where time is drastically slowed down, called Flash time. There the Flash aims to come up with an idea before the bomb detonates and kills scores of innocent civilians. He meets Iris West in Flashtime who gave him the idea that he could go into the speedforce and throw a lightning rod and voila it worked. While saving the city, he also finds out the name of the Villain behind all this chaos.
A woman by the name of Veronica Dale had detonated the atomic bomb in Central City and video recorded herself claiming to have done this heinous act in the name of Eden Corps. While the Video Manifesto may not have been enough for most of the viewers to recognize who she is, diehard fans of DC will know the name the instant they hear it. Veronica Dale made a significantly memorable appearance in Green Arrow’s 1995 run in DC Comics.
In the comic book story arc ‘Where Angels Fear to Tread’, Green Arrow is tasked with infiltrating an eco-terrorist organization called the Eden Corps. The leader of that group is Veronica Dale, otherwise called Hyrax. Dale and Oliver develop feelings for each other which further clouds Oliver’s judgment and makes the situation overly complicated. Hyrax finds about Oliver being a spy and then straps him to a bomb launched over Metropolis. Oliver sacrifices himself by detonating the bomb before it could reach ground zero and saves the day.
The fans of the Arrowverse first caught wind of the character of Veronica Dale debuting in the TV Show much before. In fact, her appearance was confirmed pretty earlier this year. While her live-action debut did happen, she affected the protagonist of the story in a pretty similar way she did in the comic books. In the comics, she put Oliver through an impossible situation out of which the only way to escape was by doing the improbable. In The Flash, Barry Allen was also put through a nigh impossible situation. He only got out of it because he had friends to help him with this situation and all of his friends, including Barry, had speedster superpowers.
In the comics, Eden Corps is more like a fanatic cult-like organization that is not below resorting to violence if that’s what it takes to free the animal kingdom from the tyranny of mankind. They will kill human beings to save monkeys. And they believe Veronica Dale to be their leader and savior.
The Flash TV Show showed her as the rather insane and bonkers leader of a homegrown eco-terrorist organization with access to high tech weaponry. The insanity was portrayed on point. The cult-like following of Eden Corps in the comic books could have been used to take a leaf from in the TV Show. Sadly, it didn’t happen. The Villain of the day was good but had the potential to be even better.
Veronica will be going to jail after her plans were foiled by The Flash of three worlds (pun intended). Will she return? The Trickster recently broke out of jail and caused double the havoc he did the previous time he was out. If Veronica Dale will indeed return to the show, it will be fascinating to see if the show will introduce the larger Eden Corps and their extremist, eco-friendly terrorists. Watch out, Central City!! You ain’t seen nothing yet!!!
The next episode will be aired on March 13, Tuesday at 8:00 PM on CW. The title of the episode is “Run, Iris, Run” and here is the brief synopsis of it:
“Iris is given Barry’s speed when the team fights a bus meta who has the ability to swap people’s DNA”.
Don’t forget to check it out. Keep reading QuirkyByte for more on Flash upcoming episodes. CHEERS!
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