The Flash: Ezra Miller Is Reborn In The Breathtaking Super Bowl Trailer!
The first trailer for The Flash finally arrived on the night of the Super Bowl, overturning everything we knew about Andy Muschietti’s film and introducing several familiar faces and some absolute novelties of enormous weight for the DCEU. The video, lasting just under three minutes, allows us to take a first look at the new DC Extended Universe film, laying the foundations for its understanding: within a few seconds, the trailer explains how the time travel in the DCEU, bringing back to the big screen beloved characters such as the two Batmans of Michael Keaton and Ben Affleck, who will join the two (!) Flashes of Ezra Miller and even an unpublished Kara Zor-El, better known as Supergirl, who peeks out in the last moments of the video and even wears his iconic blue and red costume.
The Multiverse Also Opens Up in The DC House
The trailer opens with The Flash wearing his iconic costume just outside his home. Here echoes the voice of Luca Biagini, the Italian voice actor of Michael Keaton’s Batman (and the Vulture!), who asks Barry Allen: “tell me one thing. You can go anywhere: in another timeline, in another universe. Because do you want to stay to save this?”. Flash’s answer is almost obvious: ” Because this is where my mother lives “. In the main universe of the DCEt, Barry’s mother was killed when he was still a child and, even worse, her killer was the father of the young Flash. Therefore, we can hypothesize that the plot of the film sees Flash travel to another universe, or in another timeline (assuming that the two things do not coincide), in search of his mother. Barry Allen’s travels, however, risk putting a strain on the very hold of the Multiverse:
The Flash himself explains that ” certain people, certain worlds, tend to attract each other like magnets”Whathat we will see in the rest of the trailer seems nothing more than a descent into chaos for The Flash universe, which should eventually lead to the maxi-reboot of almost the entire DCEU, to then start again with the new DC Universe of James Gunn and Peter Safran. The basis of the plot, as already announced in the first synopsis of the film, confirms that The Flash will be inspired by Flashpoint, a comic run in which The Flash explores different alternative realities in a desperate attempt to save his mother. The Flash, Flashpoint also housed several cameos of the most famous superheroes of the Distinguished Competition, such as Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and Cyborg. It’s unlikely that the entire Justice League will be bothered by the standalone Flash film, but from what the trailer lets us glimpse, it seems that some well-known faces will return, and will have a predominant role in the film.
Returning for a moment to The Flash‘s travels, it is evident that these will end up upsetting the fabric of the Multiverse: the hero seems to be able to find a universe in which his mother does not die, but in doing so he ends up creating a world where the metahumans do not exist. No Superman, no Aquaman, no Wonder Woman, no superheroes. Batman, who has no superpowers, is saved, and for this reason, his “variants” of him seem to have a predominant role in the film.
Two Flashes, Two Batmans, and… Supergirl?
The lack of meta-humans on Earth where Flash finds himself has serious consequences for the planet: General Zod’s invasion, which occurred during the events of Henry Cavill’s Man of Steel, is successful since there is no one to stop her. Flash, therefore, finds himself reliving the events of the first Man of Steel, this time without Henry Cavill’s Supes to resolve the situation. Not only that: it seems that Zod was “waiting” for Barry Allen, at least according to what the villain explains to the hero after drawing his sword to fight him. So, will Zod be The Flash‘s true enemy throughout the film? Impossible to say for sure, but the eventuality seems remote. Surely the Kryptonian will have an antagonistic role, but it is difficult to think that this is the only enemy that Flash will fight, if only because he has already been defeated in the past by Henry Cavill’s Superman.
According to the rumors of the last few months, however, the villain of The Flash will be The Flash himself, in a “Dark” version. Two different Barry Allens appear in the trailer, which also seems to have two completely different characters from each other. However, the (few) scenes in which the two appear together present them to us more as allies than enemies. Magic of editing or the real villain of the film has not yet been shown by Warner Bros.? In addition to The Flash, there is another superhero who “doubles” in the film: we are talking about Batman, who in the trailer is shown with both Ben Affleck’s and Michael Keaton’s faces. The justification for the actor change seems simple: Affleck is the Batman of the original Flash universe (that of the events of Batman vs. Superman and Justice League); Keaton is the Batman of the arrival universe of the hero, the one in which his mother is not killed when Barry is still a child. However, it seems that Ben Affleck’s will be little more than a cameo, while, in line with the rumors, Michael Keaton’s Batman will have a central role in the film.
For this, we see him fight with the intruders in the Batcave and make an effective entrance, with the famous catchphrase “I am Batman” and the theme music by Danny Elfman in the background. Of course, it seems that this Bat Man struggles to fight crime in a world where there are no superhumans to help him: not surprisingly, Keaton explains to The Flash that his strategy is to “try not to die” at the hands of enemies whether terrestrial or alien. Here another question arises: who are the soldiers who stormed the Batcave? Are they related to Zod or were they sent by another enemy of Bruce Wayne?
In the following action sequences, which lead straight to the trailer’s surprise ending, we see the appearance of a character similar to Superman, who shares his powers but who appears to have a profoundly different physique from that of Clark Kent. The ability to fly, super-strength, and even laser beams shooting out of his eyes are all there—he’s a Kryptonian, no question about it. Only in the last sequence does Batman reveal that the heroine is Kara Zor-El, better known as Supergirl, Superman’s cousin. Supergirl will receive a standalone film between 2025 and 2027, but it is not certain that she will be the same heroine introduced in The Flash. However, her presence in the film does not seem accidental: Supergirl will take the place of Superman, who for some reason does not seem to exist in this world.
How Supes’ absence will be justified remains to be seen: if Kara wasn’t “erased” along with the meta-humans, why did the Man of Steel disappear? Why wasn’t she present during Zod’s invasion? All questions that we will receive an answer to in the future. Finally, in a couple of short final sequences, we see Supergirl wearing her iconic costume, the blue tights with the red cape, proving how the character is heavily inspired by his comic book counterpart. However, we know that Kara is much less stable, from a psychological point of view, compared to her cousin: what will be her narrative arc in The Flash? For now, it is not known whether we will have to wait until June 14, when The Flash arrives at the cinema, to find out.
