The Flash Brings Back A Season 1 Villain (Thanks To Crisis’ Changes)
The Flash season 6 saw the return of a familiar villain, yet another result of the changes made by the Arrowverse’s Crisis on Infinite Earths.
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WARNING: Spoilers for The Flash season 6, episode 13 “Grodd Friended Me”
The Flash just had another major Crisis on Infinite Earths effect revealed as one of Barry Allen’s earliest villains reemerged in the latest episode. Season 1 introduced Hartley Rathaway (Andy Mientus), who is better known to Flash and DC fans as Pied Piper. In the Arrowverse incarnation, he worked for Earth-1’s Harrison Wells (Tom Cavanagh) but didn’t respond well to Cisco Ramon (Carlos Valdes) joining STAR Labs. Eventually, he became his comic book counterpart as one of the villains that the Scarlet Speedster battled in season 1. Despite their dynamic in the first season, that version of Hartley would soon be erased.
The Flash season 2 had Barry go back in time in the episode “Flash Back” when trying to learn how to get faster. Barry travels to the day when he first battled the Pied Piper. Knowing how Hartley escaped during their season 1 interaction, Barry warns his friends in the past about his exploding hearing aids. As Barry was being chased by a Time Wraith, he tells the team of the past to use their one year to build a weapon to stop it. Once back in the present, the biggest change from Barry’s time-travel is revealed when Hartley is the one to stop the Time Wraith. In this timeline, Hartley was now an ally of Team Flash rather than the Pied Piper.
However, Crisis on Infinite Earths changed all of that as “Grodd Friended Me” had a surprise appearance of Mientus’ DC character. But this time, Pied Piper was back to being a villain as he was seen stealing diamonds. As Barry asks him why he is doing this, Hartley angrily says ‘Are you really going to ask me that after what you and your friends did to me?’ which leaves the fastest man alive even more confused. Since he doesn’t know what happened between them in the post-Crisis timeline, Barry is also now aware of another change to Hartley. Despite having taken his gauntlets, Hartley suddenly flies away as he now has sonic-based powers.
That’s the last that is seen of Hartley as “Grodd Friended Me” proceeds to focus on the A-story with Gorilla Grodd’s return since his last appearance in season 5. It remains unclear what it is that Barry and the team did to him that caused Hartley to grow such hatred towards them. Only time will tell if something happened between them after Barry’s time-traveling in season 2 that caused Hartley to turn a new page. Despite having been established as a regular human, The Flash used Crisis on Infinite Earths to change one of its iconic rogues into a metahuman, matching his comic counterpart. Through this episode, it opens up the idea of other previous villains getting rewritten where they may or may not powers anymore.
Someone like Golden Glider (Peyton List) could theoretically return in future episodes or seasons and have her metahuman powers from the comics. The second half of The Flash season 6 has, surprisingly, leaned into bringing back past villains such as Amunet Black (Katee Sackhoff), Goldface (Damion Poitier), and now Pied Piper. As the series continues with the Black Hole saga and the Mirror World mystery, The Flash is also allowing room for past characters to return which might be a big indicator for what season 7 will look like. Whether or not Pied Piper will be back this season remains to be seen, but given his getaway this week, chances are that he will be back at least once more before The Flash ends its sixth season.
Link Source : https://screenrant.com/flash-pied-piper-hartley-villain-return-crisis-infinite-earths-change/