The Season One finale of ‘The Flash’ was peppered with Easter Eggs that only astute fans of the comics would catch, but the most obvious was the appearance of a certain gold and silver helmet which came clattering out of the time portal that Barry entered in an effort to stop his nemesis The Reverse-Flash. To anyone unfamiliar with the comics, this was a total mystery, but even casual readers immediately recognized the Mercury-inspired helmet as belonging to Jay Garrick, DC Comics’ first Flash from the 1940s.
At the panel as SDCC, in reference to the helmet, publisher/writer Geoff Johns flat out stated, “That’s not an Easter Egg, that’s a story point. We’re going to see Jay.”
Now all of DC’s continuity can be hazy, since they reboot their universe every decade or so, but Jay Garrick first appeared in 1940’s ‘Flash Comics’ #1 and served as the fleet-footed member of the Justice Society of America. In the mid-1950s, after DC had quit publishing most of its super hero comics, they decided to start back up and the first character they introduced was also named The Flash, but was a separate character, Barry Allen. Eventually, Barry discovered a way to travel between parallel worlds and the first he visited was dubbed Earth-2, home of Jay and his WWII era allies. In more recent comics, Jay has served as a mentor to not just Barry, but subsequent speedsters, Wally West and Bart Allen. (A bit too much to get into here.)
Jay protected his hometown Keystone City, while Barry obviously lives in Central City. But in the 1985 event ‘Crisis on Infinite Earths’ the parallel worlds merged and Keystone and Central co-existed as Twin Cities just a few miles apart. It should be noted that Keystone City has already been casually mentioned on ‘The Flash.’
No further information was given as to how big a role Jay Garrick will play or even how many episodes he would be in. He doesn’t really have a mentor role to fill, seeing as how Barry already has a birth father, Henry (John Wesley Shipp) and an adoptive father Joe. I will say however, I love John Wesley Shipp in any capacity, but it is a little bit regretful that he was already cast as Henry. The original TV Flash would have been the ONLY candidate in my book to play Jay!
Runner up? You think Dennis Quaid’s free?
Mmmm, DILF-y. And he knows how to rock a hat!
What do you think? Who should play Jay Garrick? And how should he factor into ‘The Flash’?
Source: Comic Book Movie
