Flash Flashback: How Does the New Costume Stack Up to the Old?
It stacks up pretty well. Not gonna lie. Personally, I don’t like the rubberiness of it, or the way it bunches up, and I think the colors are too dark. But I think the creators of the new Flash pilot, a spinoff from the CW’s popular Arrow series starring Grant Gustin as the Flash, have their hearts in the right place judging by what they told The Hollywood Reporter.
“I hope the fans who treasure the character are as excited as we are by what costume designer Colleen Atwood has achieved with this latest version of The Flash’s iconic suit,” said pilot director/executive producer David Nutter.
And anyway, it could be worse. Let’s take a look back through other attempts to bring the Flash to your living room in live-action, in increasing order of WTF.
John Wesley Shipp’s Flash costume from the original 1990 The Flash TV show is not too shabby. It’s a remarkably straight take on the comic book costume, except for slightly darker colors. But the fake molded muscles looked a bit silly and stiff. The producers of the new Flash pilot seem to be aware that there is nostalgia for this version of the Flash, they’re bringing Shipp back for a role in the pilot.
Meh. I’m only putting this here for completeness. It’s technically Kyle Gallner as Barry Allen from Smallville, first introduced on the show in 2004, but he called himself Impulse and, well, just look at it. It’s a hoodie. But it’s just a little too weird and flamboyant a hoodie for anyone to wear it in real life. It’s not bad, it’s just boring. Moving on.
Okay now, we are getting into the embarrassing stuff. This is poor Kenny Johnston in the failed 1997 Justice League of America pilot. This costume tries to be comic faithful, but it looks like something you’d get at Party City. You can see why they padded Shipp with fake muscles. Spandex is not flattering.
One picture won’t do.
Okay, one more.
And we’re done.
Finally, live action Flash goes back further than you think. In 1979, ABC produced two live-action superhero specials featuring the DC superheroes under the title Legends of the Superheroes. One was a superhero adventure, one was a “roast” of superheroes, they were loosely based on the Super Friends, and they were anything but dignified. I guess “loosely based on the Super Friends” makes any statements about dignity unnecessary, though.
Rod Haase played the Flash, and he looked like this.
Yeah, the good old days weren’t always so good. So bring on the new Flash.