Warning! SPOILERS for The Flash season 8, episode 14, "Funeral For A Friend."
A new version of the Hulk-like villain Blockbuster was introduced into the Arrowverse by The Flash, presenting both a post-Crisis retcon of the villain from Arrow and a shift away from the character's original concept in the comics. It seems likely this change was made so as not to invite comparisons between Blockbuster and the Incredible Hulk in the minds of viewers. It may also have been done so as not to inspire confusion with a different DC Comics villain who uses the name Blockbuster, who has gone on to greater fame as the archenemy of Dick "Nightwing" Grayson.
The opening scene of The Flash season 8, episode 14, "Funeral For A Friend" pits Team Flash against bank robber Mark Desmond, who has stolen an armored exo-suit from Ivo Labs that enhanced the wearer's biochemistry, making them stronger even as they became more emotionally unbalanced. Ordinarily Desmond would have posed little challenge to Team Flash, but the entire team were off their game, due to the recent death of Frost Snow. This failure fueled the central storyline of "Funeral For A Friend," as each team member tried to find a way to grieve Frost to be ready for their next encounter with Blockbuster.
This was the first appearance of Blockbuster following the Crisis of Infinite Earths event that reset the Arrowverse timeline. However, a villain called Blockbuster had been mentioned before in Arrow season 7. In the episode "Star City Slayer," Black Canary, or Dinah Drake, made reference to her time as an undercover police officer and how she once infiltrated the organization of a crime-boss called Blockbuster, who was based in Blüdhaven and had tried expanding his operations into Central City. This was a nod to the second version of Blockbuster from the comics, Roland Desmond, who was the archenemy of Nightwing and leader of a powerful criminal syndicate. It seems likely that the writers of The Flash changed their version of Blockbuster into a tech-based supervillain so as to avoid comparisons to this version of Blockbuster, or the original Mark Desmond Blockbuster from the comics, who was a thinly-veiled homage to Marvel Comics' Incredible Hulk.
First appearing in Detective Comics #345 in November 1965, the Mark Desmond Blockbuster was a chemist who sought to increase his physical strength. He was successful, but his newfound strength also made him mindlessly aggressive and easy prey for his criminal brother Roland, who recruited him as dumb muscle for his own schemes. Mark was similarly exploited by the Rogues and the Suicide Squad, before his death fighting the Apokolyptian construct Brimstone. Comparisons to the Hulk were inevitable given their super-strength, short-tempers, and origin stories involving scientific accidents—even ignoring both characters' fondness for torn purple pants.
The second Blockbuster, Roland Desmond, coincidentally developed the same condition as his brother after being treated with an experimental steroid formula. This suggests that the brothers shared a common metagene that was triggered by their respective treatments. Roland was eventually able to recover his lost intelligence thanks to a bargain with the Demon Neron, which gave him an intellect as powerful as his massive form. He reinvented himself as a crime-boss and ruled Blüdhaven unopposed until Nightwing adopted the city as his new home.
While it is understandable that the writers of The Flash would want to avoid accusations of ripping off Hulk, the new version of Blockbuster is hardly threatening and was finally thwarted off-camera once Team Flash got their heads together. It would have been far more interesting for the crime-boss version of Blockbuster mentioned in Arrow to make an appearance. Thankfully, for the sake of those Nightwing fans hoping the villain might show up in HBO Max's Titans, it seems that version of Blockbuster is being held in reserve.
The Flash releases new episodes on Wednesdays on the CW.