When DC announced that Barry Allen's first year as a superhero would finally be told in The Flash: Year One, the tribute to Frank Miller's Batman origin of the same name was obvious. What fans didn't know was that The Flash's origin would also re-tell Miller's greatest Batman story--The Dark Knight Returns--at the exact same time.
That might seem impossible for comic fans who know both of Miller's stories. The first following Bruce as his struggling Batman mission begins to take shape, the second as Gotham City falls apart without him, forcing him to come out of retirement to pull it back from the brink. The stories are in a certain sense bookends--starring two different men, with two different goals, at two different points of their lives. But if there's any hero who can prove nothing is impossible, it's The Flash. Which is exactly how writer Joshua Williamson created his own Year One, watching Barry Allen struggle to become the hero readers know he must… until an older Barry Allen shows himself the way forward.
The Flash's Year One is What Fans Expect
As Frank Miller fans know, Batman's first year on the vigilante beat was spent finding the best way to monitor the underworld, evade police, and strike fear into the hearts of Gotham's criminals. As a flesh and blood human, Bruce's biggest challenge was figuring out how to not get killed. For Barry, things are… a little bit different. Learning the ropes of possessing superhuman speed comes with its own pitfalls and dangers. Where Bruce builds out the Batsuit one design solution at a time, Barry struggles to keep his shoes from melting after a handful of steps. In fact, it's Batman who gets explicit credit in The Flash: Year One for supplying firefighters with cutting edge, heatproof uniforms--just one panel before Barry appears wearing his own bright yellow, handmade Flash boots.
But the real hook of The Flash: Year One comes when Barry Allen shows that his origin story, like his powers, are unlike anyone else's. When most vigilantes struggle to make progress or screw up, they do some brooding over bruises or broken bones. But when Barry gets frustrated and tries to force his superhero evolution, he winds up taking his first trip through time, completely by accident. Into a future version of Central City, no less--one in which an aging Flash is the only hero trying to hold his world together. Sound familiar?
The Flash's Version of 'The Dark Knight Returns'
When we got the chance to speak with Williamson during Comic-Con, he explained that the Batman similarities first attributed to his origin story went much, much deeper. Sure, the "Year One" storyline in The Flash was a chance to do for Barry what Frank Miller did for Bruce Wayne. But with Barry's ability to fold time on itself, Williamson saw a chance to double the homage. If the two best Batman stories explore Bruce at the beginning and end of his superhero career… could a time traveling hero turn that timeline to a loop, and be in both places at once?
Readers got a first glimpse of this older, bearded Barry (and his disastrous future) in The Flash #26, but Williamson already had far bigger plans by then. Nobody knew that this 'Old Man Barry' would be part of the book's dual homage to Miller's grizzled Batman, and given his sunny demeanor that's easy to understand--and it's also the point Williamson was driving at:
I was thinking a lot about his origin and there were a couple things that happened. I was looking at Batman: Year One, and then I was looking at Dark Knight Returns. Which I think are the two best Batman works, Frank Miller's best works. And I thought, 'What if I do them both at the same time?' So I don't just do Year One, I do Year One and Dark Knight. But here's the difference: Batman and Barry are not the same.
It's true that while Batman and Flash May be DC's two best detectives, they exist at opposite ends of a spectrum when it comes to their view of the world. When imagining the two versions of Bruce Wayne that Williamson refers to, picturing the words of warning or advice Dark Knight Returns Batman would give to Year One Batman is… well, less than inspiring, at the very least. But slot Barry Allen into those same positions, giving Old Man Barry the chance to have words with his naive self, and it's hard to believe the scene didn't exist already. A problem Williamson remedied by collapsing the two stories into one:
I felt like Barry could be in the worst future possible, but he would be the most optimistic person you would meet. So when we meet him he's laughing, and just like, 'Man this is so bad, but we're great. This is fine. it'll be okay.' I wanted that flip because I wanted Barry to be at one of his darkest moments, and be pessimistic in the past with the Year One stuff. Then meet this version of himself who says, 'Listen kid, everything is going to be okay. Tomorrow is going to be okay.' Then you see behind him that tomorrow is on fire! But he's still like, 'It's going to be okay.'
When you explain it like that, it almost seems like the simplest approach is to have Barry Allen play Miller's Dark Knight to his younger, Year One self. Although we're willing to bet the fans unable to wrap their minds around this time travel might actually be glad that The Flash's Speed Force is about to die in DC's Universe. Here's hoping we haven't seen the last of Old Man Barry.
The Flash #77 is available now at your local comic book shop, or direct from DC Comics. And be sure to read our full interview with Joshua Williamson here!