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Comic-Con 2014: Preview Night Wrap-Up

By James DeRuvo (doddleNEWS)

On the eve of Comic-Con, known affectionately as Preview Night, was the 7th annual premiere of episodes of new shows from Warner Brothers Television. In particular, as we sat down in Ballroom 20, we were looking forward mostly to the pilot episode of The Flash, which started as kind of soft spinoff on the CW’s hit show Arrow, and grew into its own series, complete with an origin story of the Flash’s own Barry Allen. He gets struck by lightning during a freak accident caused by Star City Labs, which would turn this winded sprinter into the fastest man alive. And you know what? It works.

 

Some spoilers ahead… The origin story for The Flash starts with series star Greg Gustin (who plays Barry Allen) telling the story of how he became the fastest man alive. In voiceover, Allen goes back to when he was 10 years old and he simply couldn’t outrun the bullies who would pick on him. But he also has a heart of gold and brings a lot of the bullies’ ire on himself, as he defends weaker friends to get them out of harm’s way. He comes home and that night, he’s awoke by a strange noise, coming downstairs he sees his mother surrounded by a meteoric circle of light, which would end up killing her, and Allen swears that someone was in it. This all perfectly in line with the comic book origin story. It fast forwards to modern day, and Allen is the sole crime scene investigator for the Center City Police Department. He’s also the ward of a police detective (played by Law and Order’s Jesse L. Martin) who’s daughter is his best friend.

When the accident happens that gives Allen his lightning speed, it’s due to a malfunction of Star City Labs particle accelerator, which explodes, sending tons of energy up in the sky and triggering the lightning bolt that strikes Allen as he’s alone in his CSI lab trying to piece together the clues to who really killed his mother. A mystery that nobody believes, since his father was convicted of the crime. But Barry knows better.?Barry awakens from a coma 9 months later with super speed. He also learns that he isn’t the only “meta human” who ended up with special powers, and one is using his for evil. And Barry has to stop him, all while trying to get a handle on his new found speed.

I won’t go deeper into the story, but it’s got all the charm of a character that fits somewhere in between the cocky self assuredness of Tony Stark, and the fish-out-of-water in over your head charm of The Greatest American Hero. And it sets up what looks to be parallel stories of Allen literally running back and forth between trying to solve the mystery of who killed his mother, so he can get his dad out of prison, and tracking down other meta humans like himself that are using their new found powers for evil. And there’s also a soft underbelly of a mystery based on someone he trusts not being who they actually claim they are. And at the end, we see that all the while, he hasn’t been talking to us, but the only person he knows who can relate to his struggle with his new found responsibility.

All in all, it works and it should be yet another new found hit on the CW Network, and Warner Brothers Television. Wish I could say the same for Teen Titans Go, which looks like they took a stellar superhero cartoon from the 90′s and gave it to a gaggle of monkeys with typewriters. And then there was Constantine, which NBC hopes to be another hit for their supernatural drama lineup.

All in all, today was nuts and bolts, checking in, waiting in lines and getting the lay of the land. And the previews were definitely a bonus. ?But tomorrow, is where the real work begins with panels and meandering through a showroom floor that will be shoulder to shoulder with fans of movies, tv, video games and ... oh yeah, comics. As they try and get exclusives, giveaways, and memories. It’s going to be a wild week, but I can’t escape the feeling that it’s not going to be as large as it was ?in previous years, not that you could tell, but with all the really huge films coming next year, it seems to me that studios are keeping their powder dry this year. Only time will tell..

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