The Flash star John Wesley Shipp is suggesting fans take to Twitter to voice their desire to see him don the red and gold costume he wore when he starred as Barry Allen in the 1990 series about the scarlet speedster.
In the wake of Tim Burton’s 1989 box office smash Batman, DC decided to give one of their heroes a small screen spin, which resulted in CBS’s 1990 iteration of The Flash. The show borrowed stylistically from Burton’s Batman, even bringing in composer Danny Elfman (Elfman can’t seem to stay away from the DC Universe, as he’ll be scoring this November’s Justice League film), and featured a memorable guest appearance from the once and future Luke Skywalker, Mark Hamill, as the villain The Trickster, which would go a long way toward informing his later portrayal of The Joker on Batman: The Animated Series. The Flash lasted only one season, but Shipp gave a memorable performance, and his Flash costume is still impressive 27 years later.
Shipp is playfully suggesting he’d be game to don his old Flash costume again. Per Heroic Hollywood’s Jeff Grantz, Shipp suggested at a panel at this weekend’s DragonCon that fans just take to social media if they’d like to see him reprise his classic look on The CW’s Flash series.
JWS says if you want to see him in the old 1990 Flash costume again: “If you wanna see it, tweet it.” #TheFlash panel #DragonCon— Jeff Grantz (@Jeff_Grantz) September 1, 2017
Shipp is almost certainly making this plea with tongue firmly in cheek, but it’s not the most outlandish idea. The Flash has established the longstanding DC Universe concept of the multiverse, where several different versions of characters exist in different dimensions. The multiverse has even led to Shipp’s continued presence on the show: he originally portrayed Henry Allen, Barry Allen’s wrongly incarcerated father. Henry Allen was eventually killed by the season 2 big bad Zoom, but Shipp continued on the show as Earth-3’s Flash, Jay Garrick. The show’s third season even made something of a reference to the classic CBS series, as Shipp’s Garrick was seen thwarting a decidedly Joker-esque version of The Trickster, once again played by Hamill.
The CW shows have made plenty of references to past DC series, usually via casting. In addition to Shipp, Supergirl has featured both Teri Hatcher and Dean Cain, who were the titular stars of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman in the mid ’90s, as well as Helen Slater, who played Supergirl in an unfortunate 1984 feature film. Explicitly importing an old version of Barry Allen might be a bridge too far, but it’s nice to know Shipp is game.
Next: The Flash Set Photos: Barry Gets A New Suit in Season 4
The Flash season 4 premieres October 10, 2017 on The CW.
Source: Jeff Grantz
