‘The Flash’ Closes the Book on Zack Snyder’s DC Superhero Experiment
It’s around the midway mark of the long-awaited, long-delayed new DC superhero movie The Flash that Bruce Wayne, a.k.a. Batman, attempts to explain the complicated sci-fi hooey that's swallowed him and the film whole. You see, by going back in time and changing things, Barry Allen (Ezra Miller), a.k.a. The Flash, has effectively rewritten the past, the present, and the future. It's why Wayne now looks like a seventysomething Michael Keaton instead of a fiftysomething Ben Affleck. The Flash has erased the status quo and created an entirely new one in its place.
For Barry, that’s a calamity. For the suits at Warner Bros., it looks more like an opportunity. Here, to the chagrin of the DC Extended Universe-faithful, is a chance to finally wipe clean the troubled mess the studio’s made for its flagship heroes, the most popular titans of DC comics lore.
Did we say mess? Them’s fighting words for the fervent fans. They’ve spent the better part of a decade marching, trolling, and persistently hashtagging for the revival of what they've come to call the SnyderVerse, the movie franchise of steroidal gods and monsters launched by Zack Snyder. In all likelihood, The Flash will not be the official final chapter in the crossover event the director began; its actual end will probably be December’s Aquaman and The Lost Kingdom, which James Gunn, the Marvel defector recently hired to reboot the entire DC game plan, insists will function as a transition into a new take on this world and its beloved characters.