Why You Should Get Excited About 'The Flash'

In the wake of this week's news that CW pilot pitch and Arrow spin-off The Flash had been picked up to series, the US network wasted no time at all in putting out as much material as it could to raise the pulses and excitement levels of existing and potential fans around the world.

First came the minute-long teaser that was released following Arrow's season-two finale overseas yesterday, which features Stephen Amell's emerald archer in a tantalising hint of an inevitable crossover. Then, while Australia was sleeping, CW released the full, five-and-a-bit-minute extended trailer (which did more than just hint):

As you might have guessed, fanboys lost their shit – with good reason. It's important to realise that, for fans of the Flash, this represents the first time they'll have a chance to see their hero in a live-action setting that is not completely mortifying for everyone involved.

So, why should you care about the Fastest Man Alive? Well, for starters …

He ushers in a new era for comic-book TV shows

Since Smallville ended in 2011, TV derived from graphic fiction has generally steered away from meta-humans in the classic sense: Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. puts most of its focus on the everymen and women who have to deal with metahumans, while Arrow has gone to great lengths to show how painfully normal everyone is (Oliver Queen himself has no powers, his villains throughout the first and most of the second season are similarly powerless, and they even de-power some characters, such as Black Canary), at least until the arrival of Deathstroke and his super-powered blood serum.

Which is why The Flash's gleeful admission from the get-go that, yes, this is going to be a show about meta-humans is actually kind of refreshing, and comes at a time at the cusp of an era when we'll likely see people with powers take centre stage once more, with likes of Preacher, Constantine and Hourman on the horizon. But Grant Gustin's perpetually put-upon Central City Police forensic scientist Barry Allen isn't the only person on The Flash who promises to have powers.

As you can see in the trailer, one of his first villains is going to be Clyde (Mark, in the comics) Mardon, aka the Weather Wizard. Oh, yes. Shit's about to get real.

His rogues gallery is amazing

Other than Batman, The Flash has the single greatest array of villains in DC's canon. Some – like The Trickster – may seem at first glance like little more than cheap pastiches of better villains, but when you've got guys with names like Mirror Master, Heat Wave, Captain Cold, Pied Piper, Abra Kadabra, Gorilla Grodd, The Top (yes, this was a villain obsessed with spinning tops) and fucking Captain Boomerang running around, you know you are in for a hell of a party.

Oh, and his arch-villain is a time-travelling sociopath who wears an inversely coloured version of The Flash's costume and calls himself Professor Zoom. So, there's that.

He's fun

In contrast to the grit and gristle of Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy, far away from the neck-snapping tendencies of Zack Snyder's bleak-ass Superman, and even skirting around the edges of Arrow's obsession with the nighttime and the freakshows that run around in its shadows, The Flash has always unapologetically been a hero of the people.

Across the various incarnations and cities in which he has dwelled (the main two being Central and Keystone), he is the sort of hero that Spider-Man dreams of being – the citizens he protects love him, and love him vocally, even putting up a fucking museum in his honour.

Like his buddy Green Lantern, and even Kal-El of Krypton until Snyder made him get all snap-happy, The Flash is a symbol of hope and courage and everything decent in the world. He doesn't suffer the fate inflicted upon ordinary men such as Green Arrow and Batman, who are alternately feared and eyed with suspicion by their cities, branded as “vigilantes” and made the target of police strikes and government manhunts – but not The Flash. He's goodness. He's brightness. He's hope.

He revels in being a hero, and it's hard not to revel in it with him, so if for no other reason, it's worth caring about this show because it has the potential to pull us out of the grit and grime of the graphic fiction ghetto and give us a hero that reflects what heroes used to be.