As the fastest man alive streaks across our TV screens anew in a glossy reboot, The CW Network – home to wildly popular youth-friendly confections such as The Vampire Diaries, Arrow and Reign – hopes you'll dawdle in front of your telly long enough to enjoy the blur of The Flash.
For many fans of comic books – and DC Comics in particular – Superman and Batman have hogged the limelight for long enough.
They’re rooting wildly for The Flash to run rings around them in this spin-off from Arrow, based on the DC Comics hero Green Arrow, set in the same TV universe.
Arrow fans have already met the actor Grant Gustin's light-hearted, good-humoured incarnation of Barry Allen/The Flash in the two-parter, The Scientist, on Arrow last season.
"When I auditioned for [Arrow], I knew that [The Flash] was a potential spin-off," says Gustin, whose incandescent smile previously lit up Glee. "At that point, I thought it was a backdoor pilot. I was excited about this show long before I had anything to do with it, so I think everyone kind of knew that we'd probably at least get a season, just because it's such an iconic character."
While Superman can thank our yellow sun for his powers and Batman has honed his human skills to perfection to satisfy his dark craving for vengeance on evildoers, the TV version of The Flash enjoys super- speed thanks to a cutting-edge particle accelerator – created by the visionary physicist Harrison Wells (Tom Cavanaugh) and his S.T.A.R. Labs team – that blows up and fries him with freak lightning.
Of course, just like Superman and Batman, you can’t be a superhero, it seems, unless you’re an orphan. Barry Allen was only 11 when his mother was killed in a terrifying incident and his father was falsely convicted of her murder. With his life changed forever by the tragedy, Barry was taken in and raised by Detective Joe West (Jesse L Martin).
Fast-forward to the present and Allen is a scathingly brilliant but nerdy CSI investigator, whose determination to uncover the truth about his mother’s mysterious death has him chasing down urban legends and scientific advancements as he blazes through Central City like a guardian angel.
But being a superhero isn’t as easy as it seems, and Gustin says it will take Barry time to control his new powers and to discover just what he’s capable of.
“He can do so much in the comics and hopefully we’ll have seasons to develop some of the powers,” he says. “I think I’ll get a handle on at least the speed aspect of it pretty quickly. There are new problems, however, that are happening in episode two with my body and how the speed is affecting my body.”
The "crimson comet" from the DC Comics universe first appeared in the guise of Jay Garrick, wearing a silver helmet with gold wings, in Flash comics in January 1941, but didn't evolve into Barry Allen's red-suited speedster we recognise today until 1955, when the character was updated, and became the first hero of the Silver Age of comic books.
Since then, The Flash and his science-whizz alter-ego Barry Allen have appeared in various media – and on a T-shirt worn by the uber-geek physicist Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons) on The Big Bang Theory.
It's taken The Flash 23 years, however, to get up to speed for another run at primetime television, after a 1990-1991 live-action series was cancelled by CBS. In retrospect, its competitors for the time slot were The Cosby Show and The Simpsons – two colossal hits with the ratings mojo to stop even The Flash dead in his tracks.
But in TV land’s recyclable, cameo culture, the speed demon who wore the red costume then, the double-Emmy winner John Wesley Shipp, is back to play the Flash’s dad, Henry Allen, in the new CW series.
Another good reason to watch The Flash this go-round is that David Nutter – who directed some of The CW's best pilots for shows such as Smallville, Supernatural, Roswell and Arrow – is behind the camera for the series opener.
Other guest stars this season include the sci-fi stalwart Clancy Brown as General Wade Eiling, Prison Break stars Wentworth Miller and Dominic Purcell as villains Captain Cold and Heat Wave, and Amanda Pays, who reprises her role from the 1990 series as S.T.A.R. Labs researcher Dr Tina McGee.
• The Flash debuts tomorrow at 9pm on OSN First HD
artslife@thenational.ae