Grant Gustin & ARROW Producers Discuss The Flash's Future

Pretty good midseason finale for Arrow, wasn't it?

At the end of last night's episode of the CW series, "Three Ghosts," fans of DC Comics superhero The Flash got to geek out a little when Grant Gustin's character Barry Allen returned home to Central City, only to be struck by lightning and sent crashing into a rack of chemicals.  This, of course, is the fateful event that gives Barry his powers of super-speed, but in our last glimpse of him, he's left unconscious in his lab and crackling with small discharges of electrical energy.

So what happens next?

In a new article by Comic Book Resources, Arrow executive producers Greg Berlanti and Andrew Kreisberg, DC Comics' chief creative officer Geoff Johns, and Gustin discussed the episode and the Flash's future with reporters during a press event at the CW headquarters in Burbank, California.

Gustin was asked what he's looking forward to most in the upcoming pilot for The Flash spinoff series, which was originally slated to be episode 20 of Arrow's second season.  "I'm mostly looking forward to getting the pilot script and seeing how Barry's going to handle this happening to him," said Gustin.  "He's not just excited.  It's scary.  That's what I loved about the character in the audition process -- it's not just he loves superheroes, and he's a fanboy, and all of a sudden he's like, 'I'm going to be one, I'm really stoked about it.'  It's kind of like, 'This is terrifying. This is really happening to me.'  I'm really excited to play more of that."

Meanwhile, Kreisberg commented on The Flash introducing more characters from the DC Universe the way Arrow has.  "In the same way that Arrow was conducive to bringing on characters like Deadshot and the Huntress and some of the more grounded people," said Kreisberg, "hopefully with The Flash, there's a way to bring on some of the more fantastical characters, that will probably still go through the grounding lens with which we view everything.  But we could tackle some of the bigger villains, and possibly heroes.  There's a hint of a major character in the pilot.

"But it's always important to remember -- like with Arrow, everybody wants Batman to come on and whatnot, but Arrow has to be the coolest person on Arrow.  The same thing with The Flash -- Barry has to be the coolest person.  If we're lucky enough to get to do more past the pilot, it'll really be about making sure that the audience loves The Flash, and Barry Allen, and Grant Gustin, as much as we do."

That "major character" could possibly be Barry's archnemesis The Reverse-Flash, who murdered Barry's mother Nora Allen and framed Barry's father in the process.  Barry hinted at the Reverse-Flash in the Arrow episode "The Scientist," telling Felicity Smoak of seeing a strange blur that resembled a person when his mother was killed.  Johns remarked on this, saying "We're using a lot of mythology, a lot of characters from the comics in the development of the Flash show.  I don't want to get too specific yet, but you'll see a lot of characters, a lot of elements from that.  It's very much The Flash."