SATURDAY MORNING SUPER HEROES (MORE OR LESS)

 

'The Flash' (the latest incarnation in the Television Multiverse) is certainly not suffering from a sophomore slump. After a great first season in which Barry Allen explored his new powers, tangled with the Reverse Flash, added new members to his Rogues Gallery, and dabbled in time travel, the series didn't waste any time in jumping into a new, major story arc - the Multiverse.

So far, we've had the classic tale of Flash meeting his Earth-2 counterpart Jay Garrick, which culminated with the iconic recreation of the cover illustration for "Flash Of Two Worlds". And plenty of new recipients for Cisco's catchy code-names have been crossing over from that world as well - Atom Smasher, Sand Demon, Tokamak, and a young female Dr. Light (who does exist in the comic books, but I preferred the original Michael Rennie clone.)

But the best of all had to be the minute long (at most?) appearance by King Shark, whose appearance was probably just to set up the introduction of the Harrison Welles from Earth-2.



I don't know if Welles killed King Shark in order to save the Flash, or merely stunned him, but it was an incredible CGI display on a television budget just for that quick scene. I'm hoping we get to see him again.

It also made me wonder if King Shark exists (existed?) in the main Toobworld. (This remake of 'The Flash' exists in Comic Book Toobworld.) He never showed up in the TV series from the early 1990s; very few of the Rogues Gallery did - maybe just the Trickster? But if King Shark does exist in Toobnworld, I wonder if his origin story would be the same as that to be found in the comics. I know I don't adhere to all of the origin stories for various comic book characters - the Joker, for example. (And I'm talking about the Clown Prince of Crime from the 1966 'Batman', not from 'Gotham.' I think mine is better, from a strictly TV POV, with references to 'Get Smart' and 'The Man From UNCLE'.) And definitely the writers for the various comic book-inspired TV shows don't either. (Just check out this season's 'Flash' episode "The Fury of Firestorm' and then match it to the DC Comics database file on Tokamak.)

So with King Shark, perhaps he's an evolutionary descendant of some kind of Mega-Shark from the age of the 'Dinosaurs!' - who knows?



BCnU!