While this only occurred because of the Cosmic Retcon at the end of the previous season, Wally eventually gains his powers 'for real' in the post-Flashpoint timeline as well. Wally becoming Kid Flash in the premiere, since he went all through Season Two without getting powers.Being played by John Wesley Shipp also helped. By the season's finale, however, it turns out that his real name is Hunter Zolomon (the identity of the second Zoom in comics), while the real Jay Garrick is a hero, whose age and costume are much closer to the comics version. And he was revealed to be the season's villain Zoom. The character initially presented as Jay Garrick not only was much younger than his comics counterpart, but also has a very different costume (the bright yellow lightning symbol was reduced to a barely visible outline).For added measure, while Laurel's counterpart is a criminal and goes by the alias Black Siren, she is a metahuman and her outfit downplays Black Canary's Adaptational Modesty in Arrow. Similar to Deadshot above, an Earth-2 version of Laurel Lance appears only a few weeks after the Earth-1 character was killed off on Arrow to massive backlash.Well, 'Flash Back' is basically one long apology for that and retcons Hartley's current personality into what fans wanted, so he's now a stable guy who helps the Flash and is far less of an asshole even in the 'original' story. In Season One, Hartley got a lot of hate for being a far cry from the Hartley people wanted to see: namely one who was a good guy or at least Affably Evil and a friend of the Flash.

It was later revealed that Zoom, like Trajectory, is using the deadly V9 drug to increase his speed, while Reverse-Flash fueled his powers with a tachyon device, meaning that Barry may well be faster than they without their enhancements. Barry has caught a lot of flak from fans for claiming to be 'the fastest man alive' while every enemy speedster introduced so far has been much faster than he.Due to the outrage of Deadshot's death due to blatant Executive Meddling during Arrow Season 3, an Earth-2 version of him shows up.'The Reverse-Flash Returns' takes the time to do exactly that, with Thawne's motives being almost identical to his origin from the comics. A common complaint after Season One's finale is that the writers killed off Eobard Thawne without explaining the origins of his grudge against Barry.They seem to be using Earth-2 as a placeholder to introduce elements they couldn't squeeze into Season One, like Atlantis (although the character associated with it might still get Exiled from Continuity) and Gorilla City (an important part of the Flash mythos in general and Grodd's backstory in particular).Barry is now far less cavalier about his secret identity than in the first season, to the point where Caitlin almost blowing it to Lisa Snart is treated as a shocking moment.In his first appearance in Season Two, he finally gets sent to Iron Heights and stays there a good long time until the mid-winter finale. Many complained that Cold was just too powerful in Season One, as he always managed to wriggle his way out of justice in every one of his appearances.Characters comment on the lax security of STAR Labs, which viewers and reviewers noticed, and Cisco claims to have made improvements to the system so nobody can just walk in.The Flash gets a white background on his logo in place of red, as many had clamored for the suit to be closer to the comics.After Iris finally finds out the big secret, she unloads on Barry and Joe with everything the fans had been saying for months about how silly and counter-intuitive their insistence on keeping her in the dark had gotten, for which we're clearly supposed to be on her side.For those who think Barry is depicted as too young compared to the comics, 'Tricksters' reveals the in-universe justification for this, as Thawne completed the Particle Accelerator - and caused Barry to become the Flash - at least 7 years earlier (2013) than the real Wells did in his original timeline (2020).He gets to be a supervillain like he wanted, and doesn't tell Barry's secret, but he won't kill anyone anymore. In 'Rogue Time' after learning Barry's Secret Identity, Captain Cold makes a deal with Flash.However, in the second episode, we learn she's taking a journalism class for an elective, and she's soon doing articles about the Flash, ultimately being offered a job as a reporter. Iris West is changed from a journalist to a criminal psychologist, likely to avoid Lois Lane comparisons.

Savitar comics