WARNING: Spoilers for The Flash season 9, episode 6
The Flash is finally making use of one of the biggest changes “Crisis on Infinite Earths” made to the Arrowverse. The CW series made liberal use of the many benefits that come with the Crisis, particularly in the immediate aftermath of the event. However, the show hasn’t taken full advantage of every post-Crisis rule.
Like all the Arrowverse shows airing at the time of the crossover, The Flash was heavily impacted by the Crisis. Multiple ramifications, both positive and negative, followed the rebirth of the multiverse. For instance, Barry not vanishing in the Crisis resulted in the creation of a timeline where Nora West-Allen still exists. Another example of how it has affected people’s lives occurred in The Flash season 9 when it was discovered that the Crisis somehow robbed the Gorilla City apes of their sentience.
The Flash Resurrected A Dead Pre-Crisis Character
Curiously, one of the biggest changes made to the Arrowverse had been largely neglected by The Flash prior to Becky Sharpe’s return. In The Flash season 9, episode 6, titled “The Good, the Bad, and the Lucky,” it was confirmed that Becky, who was killed by the Thinker in season 4, is alive because of the Crisis. For the Arrowverse as a whole, this isn’t unprecedented; thanks to the birth of Earth-Prime, Arrowverse shows are able to pretend as if certain characters never died and freely use them again. That said, The Flash had yet to actually use the post-Crisis rules to feature one of its dead villains.
The Flash has alluded to some of Barry’s villains being back among the living, but that’s as far it’s gone with the concept. By using Cisco’s binder and other references, the series has indicated that characters who died before the Crisis, such as Null and Girder, aren’t dead on Earth-Prime. But none of these villains, aside from season 4’s Becky, have actually come back to the series. Instead, The Flash has primarily used the Crisis to reinvent old villains, alter their backstories, and create brand-new versions of existing Arrowverse villains, like the Turtle, Rainbow Raider, and most recently, Captain Boomerang.
Will The Flash Bring Back Any More Dead Villains?
With this being The Flash’s ninth and final season, it wouldn’t be a huge surprise if Becky isn’t the last character to receive this sort of treatment in the series. It’s of course expected for the show to fill its remaining episodes with callbacks to previous seasons, so more dead villains, like Weather Wizard or Plastique, returning to the show isn’t unfeasible. As evidenced by Becky’s surprise season 9 guest appearance, Crisis allows the Arrowverse a tremendous amount of narrative freedom. If The Flash season 9 wants to retcon an early-season villain death for a trip down memory lane in one of the show’s last episodes, it certainly has the tools it would need to pull that off.