A new Flash trailer is here, and with it, a better picture of what to expect from this multiversal mashup meant to close out the current phase of the DCEU before its new chapter begins. And what should we expect? A lot of Batman and Kryptonians, apparently. Here’s everything we spotted in the manic new trailer.
Welcome to Wayne Manor
The trailer begins with Barry Allen (Ezra Miller) and, uh, Barry Allen (uh, Ezra Miller) walking through the mist to an iconic locale: Wayne Manor. No surprises as to who’ll they’ll find there, because he opens the trailer’s narration.
Oh Damn, Batman’s Parents *Died*???
Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but Batman might have some kind of tragic past. “I lost my parents. That pain made me who I am,” Bruce Wayne (the returning Michael Keaton) says in voice-over, as we see him brush a picture of Thomas and Martha Wayne.
Batwing Begins
Our first real look at the Batcave between Bruce’s maudlin musings reveals the Batwing — last seen in its former form in Batman Forever, abandoned when it was shot down by the Riddler. Bruce has been busy since, it seems.
Where Does He Get Those Wonderful Toys?
Back above ground, we cut back to Bruce — with very long hair, so it seems like he’s been out of action as Batman for a while before this — opening up a display of Batsuits hidden behind the bookshelf and display where that picture of Thomas and Martha was.
We saw this shot in the first trailer but there’s some fun alternate suits here, aside from the updated ‘89 suit made for The Flash. There’s the Returns and Forever updates, a Batman 1966-inspired classic suit, a more armoured get-up that is almost reminiscent of the Knightfall suit, and even a blue-and-grey classic comics take.
Bruce Wants What Barry Has
After reflecting on how a lifetime of crimefighting hasn’t brought his parents back, we actually cut to the conversation Bruce and Barry are having down in the cave: he’s impressed. “You actually did it,” Bruce says, speaking of Barry’s decision to go back in time and save his mother from her untimely end.
Happier Times…
Speaking of! We get to see a young Barry and his mother Nora (Maribel Verdú). “I can’t imagine what you’ve been through,” an unknown voice says, presumably to Barry. “You lost both parents in one day.”
… And Not So Happier Ones
As we cut to that moment: Nora bleeding out in the Allen household in front of Barry, as his father Henry (Ron Livingstone, replacing Billy Crudup’s turn as the imprisoned Henry in Justice League) begs Barry to call 911.
Enter the Speed Force
As Barry explains that trying to save his parents from their fate has led to him breaking the universe, we get a brief shot of Barry’s interdimensional racing through the Speed Force, the energy that grants him his metahuman superspeed.
Man of Steel 2 (Sorta)
How did Barry break the universe? By doing the most horrifying thing imaginable: bringing us back to Man of Steel. Well, gags aside, the real point here is that in this future Barry has made by saving his mother, Superman is not around to stop a rogue group of Kryptonians from assaulting earth with the World Engine, old technology designed to terraform the world into a New Krypton.
Kneel Before Zod
Which means, of course, Zod is back, and Michael Shannon returns to his role, despite apparently being very confused as to how. Our first look at him sees him emerging from a Kryptonian ship to see an arid desert landscape we get to visit a lot in the trailer — it too appears to be from Man of Steel, where the Army first confronted Superman.
The S Stands for Hope
After a brief shot of her blasting off from the top of Wayne Manor, our first real glimpse of Supergirl (Sasha Calle) in the trailer comes in the Batcave, where she asks the Barrys if they know what the S emblem on her outfit’s chestpiece stands for. Thank god one of them watched Man of Steel already, because this trailer hilariously implies that knowing the answer is how Supergirl agrees to team up with team BatFlash to fight Zod.
You Wanna Get Nuts?
Look! It’s Michael Keaton! In a batsuit! And he says the line from the 1989 Batman movie! It doesn’t make any sense here outside of reference! But also bats dramatically fly by!
A New Trinity
Meanwhile back in the desert of Big Action Setpice, the Barrys and Kara dramatically zoom into a hero pose as the Army makes its move against Zod. This is our first real good look at Barry-2’s Flash costume outside of merchandise, which is, essentially, a Keaton Batsuit cut up and painted red. It’s nice that we get the distinction of each Barry having their own Speed Force lightning colour though.
A Toasty Hand
We see one hand reach out to another… and one is looking very much worse for wear. But who’s is it? Some later shots in the trailer may give us an unfortunate hint, especially with Barry ominously saying “I have to undo what I did…” over this sequence of shots.
Shaped By Scars
“These scars we have… make us who we are,” the other Bruce of the piece says, as we get to see Ben Affleck’s Bruce Wayne for the first time in this trailer. Batman: trauma advocate.
Batman Hits the Road
Speaking of Batfleck, we get to see him hit the road in a beefy new Batcycle, dropped out of the hangar bay of his plane from Justice League, the Flying Fox.
Crisis on Infinite Barrys
In what feels like an inverse homage to the iconic shot of Superman carrying Supergirl’s body on the cover of Crisis on Infinite Earths #7, Supergirl rockets into the sky carrying a wounded Barry. But… which Barry is it?
Batwing Battle
Keaton’s Batman takes to the skies in the Batwing as part of the larger Army vs. Zod battle, handily disposing of two Kryptonian ships.
Kryptonian v Kryptonian
Meanwhile, Kara is going through it. After a shot of her screaming “what did you do!?” at someone, we cut to this brutal shot of her just flinging a metal pole right at Zod’s head so hard it embeds him into a wall. Good job he’s wearing a helmet, because yee-owch.
Talk to the Cape
Keaton’s Batman comes to the rescue in a dark tunnel, unfurling his bulletproof cape to shield Barry and a few other unknown people from a wave of gunfire. It’s very brief but you can see at least “our” Barry is in his upgraded Flash suit, but there’s three more people behind him Bruce is also protecting. We’ve previously seen footage of Supergirl in some kind of white smock — is she being imprisoned in the snowy facility we saw the Batwing flying over earlier? Are Bruce and the Barrys on a rescue mission?
Super Speed
This sequence is presumably from the World Engine attack, as we see time slow down to highlight Barry leaping his way up a crumbling building. It’s interesting to note the colour choice here — the whole scene is saturated golden-yellow, the same colour of the Speed Force lightning we saw associated with “our” Barry earlier. The Speed Force sequences with him in Justice League — and even seen in this trailer — have previously had a cooler palette associated with him, but maybe this is part of the stylistic differentiation between the multiple Barrys at work.
The Other Dark Knight Rises
Batfleck dramatically takes to the skies to avoid an explosion, and it leaves us asking: when is this sequence all taking place? It doesn’t appear to be the World Engine attack, because there’s shots of him being shot at by mercenaries here too.
Zzap!
“No matter what we do, we’re not going to be able to fix this!” Barry 1 tells Barry 2, as we see a Barry being absolutely wrecked by blasts of lightning strapped to what appears to be some kind of getup in Bruce’s batcave, absolute shattering it to pieces with all the bolts tearing him up. But once again the question is which Barry is which here. One Barry has longer, messier hair than the other, which would peg this electrified one as potentially being “our” Barry. But is he the toasty hand we saw earlier, post electrification? Is he the one we saw Supergirl dramatically lifting into the sky?
He Just Needs a Minute
Speaking of things being rough for our heroes, back in that climactic desert battle, we see a bloodied Keaton Batman fall to his knees as war breaks out around him. Look, we get it, he’s having a bit of a rough day.
Batman v. Super Man
… Especially as it looks like the reason he’s beaten up is in this following shot, where we see a fully-armoured Kryptonian (with a black helmet obscuring their face — it looks different to Zod’s see-through techno helmet we saw earlier) bound across the battlefield, leap onto the Batwing, and smash the cockpit clean open.
He’s All Right, Folks!
That’s no problem for Batman though, who simply rockets the Batwing upwards, abandons ship, and casually glides to safety as the Batwing (and its attacker) plummets to the ground.
Parachute Pals
The trailer concludes by cutting back to that nighttime sequence at the snowy prison facility — as Keaton Batman prepares the Barrys to jump out of the Batwing, aided by parachutes. Interesting to note here: one is “our” new Flash suit, the other simply appears to be in winter weather gear. And he’s got the short hair we previously associated with “our” Barry, matching the one we saw frazzling up and being carried skyward by Supergirl. This isn’t the long-haired Barry we saw in the carved-up Keaton Flash suit at the battle.
Is there a third Barry in this movie? Does he die at some point and that’s why we see the toasty hand? I mean, if we’ve already got one alt-Barry, why not more? My head hurts.
You’ll Believe a Batman Can Fly
Anyway, Bruce plummets out of the Batwing, and much to one of the Barry’s surprise, he does so without a parachute. Because why parachute when you can fall in style, aka glide? Also, note the very cool framing of the moon and the Batwing here.
The Flash arrives in theatres June 15.