‘The Flash’: Is Barry Allen Really Going to Die?

Pretty much since the beginning of The CW’s The Flash, we’ve known that Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) was going to disappear during some sort of capital “C” Crisis. Initially, that date was the increasingly less far-off April 25, 2024, but over time it moved up. And as of the Season 6 premiere, we now know that by the end of this year, in order to save the multiverse, The Flash must die.

…But is he really going to die? Is The Flash seriously a goner? Is Grant Gustin leaving The Flash???? That’s exactly what tonight’s episode, “A Flash of Lightning,” tackles head on as we continue our march towards this Winter’s event, “Crisis on Infinite Earths.”

Spoilers for The Flash Season 6, Episode 2 “A Flash of Lightning” past this point.

In the stinger of last week’s premiere, Barry was confronted by The Monitor (LaMonica Garrett), a near omnipotent being who first popped up in last year’s “Elseworlds” event in order to test the heroes of multiple Earths, preparing them for the coming Crisis. Now, he’s back with ominous news for Barry: he’s been to the future, and Barry ultimately ends up sacrificing himself to save the multiverse.

True to form — and thanks to some staunch encouragement from Iris West-Allen (Candice Patton) — Barry decides to investigate the future himself, and see if there’s a way of changing things. After all, the date on the newspaper headline that trumpeted his disappearance changed, so why not change it some more? Only thing, when Barry runs to the future, he encounters a wall of anti-matter energy that nearly destroys him (though ultimately just gives him a boo-boo on his knee).

For comics fans, it’s clear what’s going on here. The threat from “Crisis On Infinite Earths” is called the Anti-Monitor (also played by Garrett in the upcoming TV event), a being from the Anti-matter universe, devoted to the destruction of the regular matter multiverse. Later in the episode, Barry uses a brain-enhancing helmet to pull a Dr. Strange and see billions of possible futures. In one of them, a wall of red/white antimatter straight out of the comics dissolves all of Barry’s friends and family… And at the end of everything, we see Barry himself running as fast as he can until he ultimately breaks into pieces and disappears.

That last part isn’t straight out of the comics, but it’s a rough approximation. In the books by Marv Wolfman and George Pérez, Barry heroically sacrifices his life just like this, running as fast as he can to prevent the Anti-Monitor from finishing his plan to erase all universes. Essentially, Barry holds the multiverse together with the Speed Force (the energy source he gets his powers from), and dies in the process. That’s seemingly what we’re heading towards here, and despite Iris’s pleading later in the episode, it doesn’t look like Barry has many options to escape his fate.

Except, there are two very big question marks here. The first one is textual: during “Elseworlds,” Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) made a deal with The Monitor to sacrifice his own life in order to save The Flash and Supergirl (Melissa Benoist). Granted, that was from a similar speed induced death during that event, but it seems pretty crappy behavior on the part of ol’ three hairs to make the Green Arrow his multiversal servant, if The Flash and Supergirl are just going die anyway (of note, they are the two big deaths from the original comic books).

The second question mark is that… Uh… Grant Gustin is the star of the TV show The Flash. And more than that, there’s at least half a season to go after “Crisis on Infinite Earths” airs. The series isn’t called Killer Frost and her Amazing Frenemies, though I sort of wish it was. Gustin, and Barry Allen, is the lynchpin of the show.

Are there other options there? Sure. Prediction time, but I fully expect that “Crisis” will end on TV the same way it did in the comics, with a newly formed, completely merged Earth, bringing together the disparate threads of The CW’s superhero series (currently, both Supergirl and Black Lightning take place on different Earths than The Flash, Arrow, Batwoman and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow). That also probably means new looks for the heroes, and new histories and backstories for almost everyone.

So could The Flash “die” and then come back again once the universe is reborn? Surely. Could Grant Gustin end up playing a different character? Why not. Could any of the other Flash’s in the multiverse end up on the newly reformed Earth in Barry’s stead? Yeah, that’s basically what they do with Tom Cavanagh every season.

Or, more likely, The Flash could sacrifice himself in “Crisis” as planned, and then come back via the same device used in the comic book “The Flash: Rebirth.” Technically, Barry returned to comics after a two decade plus absence in the crossover “Final Crisis.” But “Rebirth,” by writer Geoff Johns and an artist I’m not going to mention here because he’s become the leader of a group of alt-right online trolls, finally established how he came back. Short version? It was a plan by Barry’s arch-enemy, Professor Zoom, a.k.a. The Reverse Flash. Since TV Barry’s arch-enemy is also Zoom, it stands to reason we’ll see Barry similarly disappear in the back half of the season, only to mysteriously return to battle his nemesis.

Again, this is all speculation, but the short version is: yes, Barry will probably die; but don’t worry, he’ll also probably be back, sooner or later. And Gustin ain’t going anywhere.

The Flash airs Tuesdays at 8/7c on The CW.

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