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The Flash must prepare for “Armageddon.” When the Arrowverse series returns, it will kick off Season 8 with a five-part event that calls in such heroes as Batwoman, Black Lightning, Sentinel, The Atom and Green Arrow. Barry Allen’s Arrowverse compatriots will stop by The Flash to help him stand up against Despero, a powerful alien with deadly intentions for the Scarlet Speedster. In the process, Barry and his friends will face his darkest day, which will impact the whole rest of the season moving forward.
Speaking to CBR, The Flash showrunner Eric Wallace explained exactly why “Armageddon” is Barry’s most intimate story yet. He made it clear that “Armageddon” is an event, not a crossover, and broke down what that means for the guest stars who appear in the storyline. He revealed Cloverfield‘s influence on his approach to “Armageddon,” as well as what makes Despero the perfect villain for this event. He also teased Eddie Thawne’s return, some of Barry’s new tricks, a scene between Iris and Batwoman and much, much more.
CBR: How did Season 8’s premiere evolve into this larger, cross-show event? Take me back to the drawing board.
Eric Wallace: Oh my goodness. The journey begins four years ago, at the end of “Crisis on Earth-X,” which was in Season 4. That was the first year I was on The Flash. I had a crazy idea after finishing the crossover. It was the first crossover I’d ever been a part of from a production and writing side. I said, “Wow, what if blank happened as a result of some of the events,” right? I just thought it would be cool and it kind of developed into a story, but obviously they had other missions or crossovers. We had other things to do: “Elseworlds” and “Crisis on Infinite Earths.” So I just kind of put it in a drawer and didn’t think about it for four years.
Cut to this spring, and The CW calls up. [Greg] Berlanti said, “Hey, The CW has a special request. I think you’re gonna like it.” And I said, “Okay,” and I talked to The CW and they said, “We know we can’t do a crossover because of COVID protocols. We can’t have scenes where all of the leads of all our shows are on one set, because it’s just not safe, quite frankly. But we want to do something different. We know you use these graphic novels to tell shorter, contained stories. What about an even shorter graphic novel? Let’s call it a special event series in five parts that tells an incredibly memorable story that’s Flash-centric. How would you feel about that?” And I said, [laughs] “Boy, do I have a story for you!” And I pulled out my file, right? It was right there!
Now, the villain who was originally going to be part of the “Armageddon” storyline was not Despero. So I had to change that, but that turned out to be much better. I had to realize, “Oh, when I originally thought of this story, it was a cast of thousands across five nights, with epic special effects, and 20 heroes in one scene all getting their lines, and we can’t do any of that. How do I tell a cosmic story with an alien who is here to wreak havoc, and the fate of the world is at stake? How do I tell that in such a small manner?”
Then I remembered the movie Cloverfield, which is about an incredible monster destroying New York, but it’s told in a really small manner, because it focuses on the characters and their emotional journey and what they’re going through that night. I realized that was the key to telling the story. That made me go, “Alright, we have to dig in and deepen the emotion and just focus in on Barry’s journey. That’s what this is about,” which then had me tweak the original “Armageddon” story.
Again, the central villain changed from a villain I’m still hoping to bring back onto the show at some point. I’m gonna just not reveal who that is, because I’m gonna save it. But Despero turned out to have the perfect emotional want, that matched in opposition with Barry’s emotional want and Barry’s emotional journey. So you have two people who both think they’re in the right, you know what I mean? But obviously, only one can survive, because the fate of the world is at stake. So that worked really, really nicely.
From there, it all just started to come together: the way to tell the story, the idea which I had had earlier, but now making it fresh, because it turns out, this was the time to tell the “Armageddon” story. It would not have worked nearly as well back in Season 5. Now, really, it kicks off the whole season, because as you’ll see in “Armageddon, Part 1,” two things have to happen: we have to pick off the Armageddon storyline. So Despero has got to do his thing. He’s got to fight and all that good stuff. So that’s half the story. But the other half is, I have to set up an entire Season 8 of The Flash. I have to start all the characters on their emotional journeys. I have to kick off all their arcs.
It turned out writing “Part 1” was far more complex than than I had anticipated, but it made for, I think, a really great episode and not only a really great kickoff to “Armageddon,” but all the seeds for all the remaining graphic novels and emotional journeys for all of our main cast are all planted and all spin out of the five-part “Armageddon” storyline.
How did you update Despero to help him fit into the Arrowverse? How quickly do we find out what he wants from them?
Okay, I’ll answer that in reverse. You’re gonna find out “Part 1” exactly what Despero wants and what’s driving him. We’re not hiding it. It’s right there, because it kicks off the story. It kicks off pretty darn fast by the end of “Part 1.” So you’ll know why he is here, what he wants and what he is willing to do in order to get what he wants, which — as you might imagine — is in opposition to what our heroes want, which is just to survive! [laughs] So that’s the first thing.
Then, to answer your first question, which is how do we deal with Despero, Despero is my favorite all-time JLA villain. Despero and Amazo, those are my two all-time favorites. I realized, when I was putting the story together, well, we’d already done Amazo in “Elseworlds,” in Season 5, and as you notice with Amazo, we changed him a little differently too. I mean, he still has adapting powers, but his look was slightly changed because it’s live action; we have to do different things.
I knew I had to have a truly great actor bringing this kind of a larger-than-life character to the screen. That’s where I remembered Tony Curran from Doctor Who, who played Vincent Van Gogh and how he made me cry in that episode. I said, “This guy has the dramatic chops, but he also has a larger-than-life presence, because he’s a vampire in Underworld. Ooo!” Put those two things together, and you get a great villain, right?
Plus, I had run into him at a Starbucks a couple years ago and I met him personally. I’m like, “You are the nicest guy ever.” And I put him on a list — “I’ve got to work with this guy at some point” — and you just forget about it. So when this came up, it was like, “Alright, because of the nature of the story, he’s going to have a lot of dialogue.” He’s going to have a lot of scenes with Grant [Gustin], obviously — not just fighting, because there’s obviously fighting.
There’s quite an epic fight between Despero and Flash at the climax of “Armageddon,” as you would expect. That is something I hope the audience enjoys, because we’re all super proud of it. A lot of hard work and love went into that on all levels, in all production departments in the middle of the COVID pandemic.
But really, adapting him was simple, because we just followed what the character wants — which again, I can’t tell you, but you’ll see it in the first episode. When we did that, it kind of all just came together.
Then it was a matter of what does he look like? He’s still an alien from the planet Kalanor. What do people on Kalanor actually look like? So I had to think about that. I recruited, obviously, our wonderful costume designers and production designers and they helped out with that and brought their amazing ideas. It started to take on a life of its own. So I think what you’ll see — and mind you, because he’s an alien, he has alien technology; that actually helped a lot. So there’s a lot of ways to get around the fact that he might not exactly be the person that you see in the comic.
We’ve got a whole bunch of Arrowverse heroes guest starring in Armageddon. While I understand a lot of it comes down to scheduling, how did you narrow down which ones you wanted to use? Who were you most excited to use? Was there anyone you wanted but couldn’t get?
Wow! They all excited me equally. I know that sounds like a cop out, but literally, when we were putting the story together — and this is the story of Barry’s worst day ever. Literally. It’s a very emotional story for Barry himself as he goes through this five-part journey.
But when I looked at what Barry’s journey was, I realized there were two characters that had to be in the episode and I started there. The story of “Armageddon” cannot be told about Black Lightning and without Batwoman. They had to be in it. So that’s really where we started, right? It turned out better than I even imagined, because now we have these wonderful scenes between Cress [Williams] and Grant, which we saw a little bit of in Season 6, that are taken to a whole new level.
Also, quite frankly, I wanted to see two powerful Black women in the Arrowverse meeting for the first time and interacting. So that meant, “How would Iris West-Allen finally meet Ryan Wilder?” and I’m happy to say — I won’t tell you how, but not only is it just wonderful and their chemistry is incredible, but it’s also funny… They’re just terrific together. So that’s where we started, because Batwoman and Black Lightning were integral to the story.
Then it became a, “What other characters are available?” because unfortunately, a lot of folks weren’t because of COVID protocols. Other number ones on their shows could not come over to our shows. They just couldn’t. I mean, getting Javicia [Leslie] — coordinating her schedule — she left her show in the morning, on Batwoman, filming, and picked up right in the afternoon on our show filming on “Armageddon.” It was incredibly challenging. She was really the only lead of a show that we could really afford to — well, not afford — but we could really do that with. So that meant, “Okay, that takes people like White Canary, Superman, it just takes them off the table.”
Plus, also, the series finale of Supergirl was shooting. It was finishing up right as we were shooting “Armageddon.” So we couldn’t get Kara, because she physically cannot be in two places at once. But once you take away those practical realities, it goes back to, “Who’s best to tell the story we want to tell with Armageddon?”
It became very obvious that we had to have Mia Queen. She was third. Literally, I called up Warner Brothers and I said, “Somebody call Kat [McNamara].” I don’t know her. I only met her, I think, once before that, and she’s delightful. But this story, she’s the third component. It has to be with her. And thank goodness, she agreed to come reprise the role.
Then that left Chyler [Leigh], who — thank goodness, I didn’t know we were gonna get Chyler. God bless her. She’s such a trooper. She was so busy shooting the Supergirl finale, that I was very worried we wouldn’t be able to make it work. But thank goodness, we barely were able to. She’s, again, an integral part of the story.
Then the wildcard was, “Hm! I know we’re going to have Ray Palmer here. He is indispensable in ‘Part 1,’ as you’ve seen in the photographs. Wouldn’t it be cool — because I like to give the audience surprises. Wouldn’t it be cool to have two Atoms instead of one?” [laughs] Well, that led me to Ryan Choi, who I felt had not gotten his due to shine, really. He’s just in one episode of our show, and then those three episodes in the crossover. What’s he been up to for — whatever — two years? So I kind of indulged my inner geek fanboy, and now we have not one Atom, but two.
I think everybody’s gonna find it pretty amusing. Even though they’re not necessarily together in the same section of the story or the same storyline, they both have their own unique journeys and paths that they’re on during “Armageddon,” but we get to see two sides of the same kind of power set, and it’s really funny and really exciting.
I know that I am most excited to see the Atoms again — both of them!
Now mind you, I want to temper your expectations. I never used the word team up, mind you. Be very mindful of that. I said they’re in the same story; that’s two different things. I don’t want to give any spoilers away. What people should realize is, this is not a crossover. So a lot of times, we simply cannot. Due to COVID protocols, we can’t have a whole bunch of heroes in the same scene together. So we had to find very clever ways of pairing and people talking to each other in different ways. So you might not necessarily have a pairing of two characters, but they are part of the larger storyline.
The reason we can do that is because it’s Barry’s journey. Every crossover that’s ever happened has always been Barry, Kara and Oliver’s story. This is not about the trinity in the Arrowverse. This is just Barry’s emotional journey, his worst day, and therefore, we tell the story in a very different way. So it’s more, “Who is Barry teaming up with?” rather than, “Who are teaming up together?” I know it seems like a little bit of difference, but it created some very exciting combinations that we haven’t been able to do since “Flash vs Arrow” all the way back in Season 1.
I’m happy to report a lot of parts of “Armageddon” feel just like Season 1 of The Flash and that very first meeting of heroes. That, I think, is some of the magic of “Armageddon” — not in a scene with all the heroes together as the Justice League, but in quieter moments of, “How do these two people get through this part of the story alive?”
We left Reverse-Flash in the wind last season, and we know Rick Cosnett is due back as Eddie Thawne this year. What’s in store for the Thawne family as we move into Season 8?
Well, first of all, to temper expectations, Eddie is not in “Armageddon.” Eddie is part of a separate graphic novel. We have three graphic novels this year in Season 8. Knock on wood if we can pull off this gargantuan feat, but they all spin out of “Armageddon.”
So at the end of last season, Reverse-Flash — he’s a pretty pissed-off dude. Why? Because The Flash is faster now. If there’s one question that “Armageddon” answers, it’s, “Well, if you can’t outrun your foe, what do you do to beat him?” That’s where Eobard Thawne will start in “Armageddon.” That’s really the question for him, and that question gets answered throughout all of Season 8, in weird and unexpected ways.
What is one moment or scene from Armageddon that you just can’t wait for fans to see?
Oh my God! I can’t limit it to one. There’s five parts to “Armageddon,” but there’s a moment or a scene in every one of these parts that I can’t believe we’re going to be able to show and I can’t wait to share with you. For example, it’s no secret that in “Part 5,” there’s probably a big Flash and Despero battle. Boy, I can’t wait for you guys to see it, because we upped our game, I believe, where it’s not like fights in the past, because Barry doesn’t have all of his friends necessarily. He may have some allies, but remember, this is not Kara, Barry and Oliver. This is Barry-centric, so he’s got to take the lead. So that’s very exciting.
I will say one of the most exciting moments in one of the episodes — I want to tell you which — that I can’t wait for the audience to see is when two very powerful Black woman in the Arrowverse finally meet for the first time, and it’s Iris and it’s Ryan Wilder. I cannot wait for people to see that moment and to share it with them. It’s not, I think, what people are expecting.
I think, if there’s anything I can get across, it’s this is not a crossover. I use the example of Cloverfield. Cloverfield is a movie that kind of inspired the way we’re telling this story — not the story about a monster destroying New York City and it’s really big and it’s huge, but it’s told in a very intimate, small way. You don’t hardly see the monster; it’s all about the characters. It’s very interior. They visualize those interior emotions very deeply. That’s the approach we have to take during the restrictions that the COVID pandemic has placed on us.
In “Armageddon,” you’re never going to see a moment with 20 heroes and villains all fighting at once. We just can’t do it. It’s not safe. That’s why this is not a crossover. This is a five-part special Flash event, which means it’s a Flash story, a Flash graphic novel that’s a little bit bigger, a little bit wilder. I think it’s the most emotional story yet for Barry, especially because of the ramifications of what happens as a result of “Armageddon.”
Then I would also say, get ready to see the Flash — maybe as soon as in “Part 1” — do some things that you’ve been waiting for him to do for eight years, because I know I have. [laughs]
The Flash’s special five-part event “Armageddon” kicks off Tuesday, Nov. 16 at 8 pm ET/PT on The CW.
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