That was certainly a lot to take in, for just under three minutes! Fresh from CinemaCon, The Flash movie hitting theaters June 16th just released its biggest trailer yet, and we’re not even sure how to start breaking down everything we saw today. There’s enough action, pathos and star-studded appearances for everyone to come away from this with something to be excited about. So, we’re just going to highlight, oh, I don’t know…just eleven or twelve of our favorite moments from these 171 seconds. (And, like any good trailer, they saved our favorite moment for the very end.) If you haven’t seen it yet, then watch it yourself and meet us back here for some analysis.
Let’s get this Cosmic Treadmill rolling!
Cozy Bruce
The iconography of Wayne Manor, the unfolding library and the array of cowls all helps set the tone for just what kind of Batman we can expect from The Flash, but the piece de resistance as far as we’re concerned is that comfy sweater sleeve in the trailer’s early longing shot over Bruce’s parents. What kind of sweater are we going to see here? Dare we hope for a turtleneck? A cable knit? With Michael Keaton, it’s all on the table.
Trauma Bonding
Ever since Geoff Johns reinvented the hero’s backstory in 2009’s The Flash: Rebirth, Barry Allen and Bruce Wayne have had a lot in common. Both lost their families to a terrible tragedy. Both have dedicated themselves to balancing the moral scales of that horrible day by any means necessary. But rarely in the past fourteen years have Bruce and Barry ever gotten to really talk about that shared trauma. Keaton’s Bruce Wayne opens up to Ezra Miller’s Barry Allen in this trailer on exactly those terms, ready to get into the emotional meat of the story—and prove why Batman is exactly the right partner Flash can have for this parentally motivated odyssey.
Barry Breaks It
“I went back in time to save my parents…but instead, I completely broke the universe.”
This is a subtle thing if you’re not looking for it, but to us, enormously indicative of the differences between this movie and the 2011 comic book which inspired it, Flashpoint. In Flashpoint, Barry Allen awakens in an entirely different timeline where his mother lives and everything around him has changed. The culprit, he suspects, is his nemesis Reverse-Flash…only to learn to his horror that all the consequences of Flashpoint were his own fault. The trailer suggests here that Barry begins with that baseline knowledge, pointing the blame at himself from the start. So now that we’ve started the story with Flashpoint’s climactic revelation, where do we go from here? How do we explain Reverse-Flash’s conspicuous absence? And if he’s not here…then who killed Nora Allen?
“Do you know what this symbol stands for?”
Like Flashpoint before it in the comics, it’s no secret that The Flash is serving as a major status quo changer for the larger universe that contains it, bringing one chapter to a close as it opens another. The debut of Sasha Calle in this trailer as Supergirl appropriately harkens back to the famous introduction of Superman’s crest in Man of Steel where this cinematic universe began, and what the concept means. The symbol is more than just a man, but a creed, and one which lives through her.
Say the Line, Bruce
“You wanna get nuts? Let’s get nuts.”
I was gonna get popcorn, but sure, Bruce. As long as we’re doing the callback to the 1989 Batman film, nuts will do just fine.
A Different Trinity
Flanking either side of Supergirl standing front and center like Wonder Woman’s triumphant debut in Batman v Superman is Barry Allen and…Barry Allen. Wearing a very strange suit of armor, the likes of which we’ve never seen before. How did we get two Flashes? And what exactly is the other one wearing? Which one is our Flash? It’s the kind of reveal that only raises more questions.
Benny and the Batpod
No matter which era of Batman cinema is your favorite, it’s represented here in The Flash. Ben Affleck is back for one last ride, complete with a motorcycle reminiscent of the Batpod in the most iconic scenes of 2008’s The Dark Knight. Looking forward to seeing this one on toy shelves everywhere immediately. I wanna build that bike.
Barry…Electrocuting Himself?
One of the main points of drama in Flashpoint was that for the first half of it, Barry couldn’t access his powers at all—because he had been moved to a timeline where the accident that caused them never happened. Barry eventually gets his powers back by replicating the lightning storm which caused them in the first place with the help of the Flashpoint universe’s Batman. We could be seeing an attempt to recreate that same experiment here. It may or may not restore Barry’s speed, but one thing it will clearly generate is some incredible Ezra Miller faces.
Barry vs. Barry
Could the true villain of The Flash be…the Flash? All is not well between the two Barrys as they come into ideological conflict. Exactly how this second Barry came to be and where he comes from remains a mystery, but what we know for sure is that it will be the differences between these two Flashes which define them.
*Chef Kiss* Cinema
I mean, just look at it that final shot of Batman skydiving with the Batplane and the moon. It’s straight out of the 1989 Batman soundtrack album cover. All that’s missing is the iconic Danny Elfman theme.
But, as promised, the best part of the trailer is the very end. As exciting as everything else was, none of it—not the return of Michael Keaton or Ben Affleck, not the debut of a new Supergirl, not even the Batplane silhouetted against the moon, could compare for us to the single greatest moment in the entire trailer…
THE COMICS PROMO!
To see these movies that will be watched by millions supporting the stories where it all began truly brings a tear to our comic-reading eyes. The three titles featured here make for an excellent starter pack to get you ready for The Flash movie: The Flash: The Fastest Man Alive, an official comic book prequel setting up the film; Flashpoint, the 2011 event which provides the blueprint for the movie’s story; and start of the New 52 Flash series by Francis Manapul and Brian Buccellato, featuring some of the most dynamic art in the Scarlet Speedster’s history.
As the screen says, you can find all these fine titles and more at your local comics shop, bookstore…or you can read them all RIGHT NOW with a DC UNIVERSE INFINITE subscription. Plenty to keep you speed-reading until The Flash arrives in theaters on June 16th.
Get up to speed on The Flash right now at our official Flash hub page!
What did you think of the latest trailer? Did you catch anything we missed? Let us know right now in the DC Community!
Alex Jaffe is the author of our monthly "Ask the Question" column and writes about TV, movies, comics and superhero history for DC.com. Follow him on Twitter at @AlexJaffe and find him in the DC Community as HubCityQuestion.
NOTE: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of Alex Jaffe and do not necessarily reflect those of DC Entertainment or Warner Bros., nor should they be read as confirmation or denial of future DC plans.
