Flash showrunner teases deaths, ‘tectonic shifts’ to the Arrowverse in wake of Crisis

It might be called the Arrowverse, but don’t think The Flash won’t be doing it’s share of heavy-lifting to set-up to the Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover event later this year.

New showrunner Eric Wallace told Collider they’re figuring out exactly what type of implications the universe-shattering event will have when it hits later this season — and they’re being very thoughtful to try and evoke the same kind of shock and scope that comic fans remember so fondly from the mid-1980s event that inspired it all.

Though Wallace admits they obviously can’t kill off a pile of their A-listers (both The Flash and Supergirl died in the original comic event), he said they’re still trying to honor the spirit of what the event meant to the comics world at large. It was a world-changer, and it’ll be the same for the Arrowverse. Of course, that doesn’t mean there won’t be a few deaths to spice things up.

“[W]e can’t just kill all of our number ones on our shows. That’s insane. You can kill a couple of them, and we do, but you have to find the balance,” he said. “What it meant to me was that we should tap into that feeling that the readers in 1985 would have had, when reading that story, with the tectonic shifts in the comic world, underneath. When you watch the crossover, you’re going to feel those tectonic shifts, especially at the end. It’s not small. It’s game-changer, in the same way that the ending of ‘Crisis,’ the comic book, was a game changer, and it opens up to a whole new world.”

Outside of that tease, Wallace did drop a few other tantalizing morsels: Fans can likely expect fellow journo Iris to meet up with Lois Lane at some point; the new version of Wells is described as a “man of adventure”; he hopes to have Keiynan Lonsdale’s Wally West back for a couple episodes where he’ll face off with a classic comic baddie; John Wesley Shipp’s Jay Garrick will be back around Episode 2; expect some teases related to Nora to pop up; and we might actually see a spin on the Bronze Age comic story that reveals Iris is secretly from the 30th century (yes, really). 

The Flash is back on The CW for its sixth season on October 8.