The CW’s version of The Flash hung up its boots earlier this week after a nine-season run. During its time on the air, the show — and the Arrowverse at large — tackled several comic book storylines like Crisis on Infinite Earths and Worlds Finest. And naturally, the creative talent behind the show had other big stories they wanted to turn into crossovers that they’re now talking about.
In a post-mortem on the show, showrunner Eric Wallace told Entertainment Weekly that an arc he wanted to tackle was The Forever War, one of the “crazy things” he says he’d been hinting at for years. The villain of that would’ve been the Chronarch, a comic book baddie from the year 2064 that was previously mentioned by Abra Kadabra (David Dastmalchian) in season 7. “It has to do with Barry and Iris because eternity is falling apart and forever is getting taken away,” said Wallace. “That would’ve kicked off season 10 with a couple of special guest stars that we would have seen.”
Another comic book story he wanted to do? Blackest Night, the 2009 storyline by Geoff Johns and Ivan Reis. According to Wallace, the catalyst for this would’ve been in season 8 with the character of Deathstorm and his eventual defeat. The villain’s death would’ve caused “emotional vibrations [that] went all the way back to the Netherverse and another dimension to Nekron, who’s right out of the comic books.” This crossover would’ve seen characters from Superman & Lois appear, along with HBO Max’s Titans (which recently ended) and the CW’s Stargirl. But which specific ones, and whether they would’ve been allies to Team Flash or part of Nekron’s undead Black Lantern army, Wallace didn’t say.
Other than the big crossovers, Wallace opened up on what could’ve been for Team Flash’s corner of the Arrowverse. Things like the return of season 3’s Julian Albert (Tom Felton) and season 2’s Patty Spivot (Shantel VanSanten) as a crime-fighting couple named Hot Pursuit was something he wanted to do if the final season wasn’t truncated. Similarly, a full ninth season would’ve featured a “huge storyline” involving Chester P. Runk (Brandon McKnight) and a villain teased in season 8. He and Allegra (Kayla Compton) would’ve been involved in their own arc “in the middle of season 9 originally with a villain that we didn’t even get to introduce. There’s a computer and a cryptic thing comes up and someone downloads all of Chester’s files,” Wallace recalled. “Sadly, that doesn’t get resolved anymore because the whole storyline had to be cut.”
It’s clear that Wallace had enough ideas for The Flash to keep it and the Arrowverse going for a few more years. Whether the show would’ve been able to match those ambitions is another matter entirely, but given how the entire enterprise managed to run for over a decade on being more charming than it should’ve been, there would’ve been some fun in watching the CW adapt something that would probably work better as a movie than a TV miniseries. Who knows, maybe we’ll end up getting a Blackest Night thing after the first phase of new DC movies.
All nine seasons of The Flash, along with other Arrowverse shows like Arrow and Legends of Tomorrow, can be watched on Netflix.
Want more Gizmodo news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.