Why The Flash Revived An Abandoned Crisis On Infinite Earths Character - Screen Rant

WARNING: This article features spoilers from The Flash season 7, episode 13, "Masquerade."

In a surprise move, The Flash season 7 revisited Psycho-Pirate, an Arrowverse character initially meant to be in the Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover, given their role in the original comic. While the last major Arrowverse crossover was in 2020, The CW's DC TV shows have still been exploring the aftereffects of the game-changing Multiverse storyline. When Earth-Prime was created, it marked as a reboot of the Arrowverse's continuity, allowing the franchise's longevity to be extended and retooled. As a result, multiple changes have been spotted across the DC shows throughout the ongoing season. Given how significant Crisis on Infinite Earths was for the Arrowverse, more retcons will likely be established in years to come.

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While Superman & Lois has primarily been the show to unveil new changes, The Flash season 7 has also shown how its continuity has been altered. Since The Flash was the Arrowverse show to seed Crisis on Infinite Earths in 2014, it makes sense for the series to be still dealing with the last crossover. In The Flash season 7, episode 13, "Masquerade," an unexpected character got revisited as Psycho-Pirate came back into play. The previous episode, "Good-Bye Vibrations," ended on a cliffhanger with Cecile Horton wearing the iconic gold mask. That sparked speculation that The Flash was reintroducing Psycho-Pirate, which turned out to be the case. However, like most post-Crisis changes, the show had tinkered with the DC villain, giving the mask a new backstory.

Roger Hayden, a.k.a. the first Psycho-Pirate, was originally introduced in Arrowverse's 2018 crossover, Elseworlds, as an Arkham Asylum inmate. While Roger had a small role, he was seen wearing his gold mask, including at the end of Elseworlds. Bob Frazer's character closed out the crossover by dropping the infamous Crisis on Infinite Earths tag, which led to the announcement that the Arrowverse would be doing the iconic storyline in 2019. What's more, Iris West-Allen's Central City Citizen 2049 article mentioned how Psycho-Pirate played a role in the original Crisis back in The Flash season 5. So why was Roger Hayden nowhere to be seen in the five-part Crisis crossover?

According to executive producer Marc Guggenheim, who was leading the Crisis writing team, Psycho-Pirate was in early drafts of the Arrowverse crossover. Guggenheim stressed there were plot points and moments with Psycho-Pirate included. Ultimately, Psycho-Pirate got taken out because the writers felt it was a forced move to have Roger in what was already a massively packed crossover. Given how many special DC guest stars they had booked, combined with five productions coming together, it makes sense why they ultimately removed Psycho-Pirate.

After all, even Reverse-Flash, despite his Crisis setup in The Flash season 1, was also nowhere to be seen in the actual crossover. Despite Psycho-Pirate not getting his Crisis on Infinite Earths payoff, The Flash found a creative way to incorporate him almost two years later. This is the Arrowverse's advantage of having soft retconned its continuity where it can make sense for Psycho-Pirate's mask to have a mind of its own. It's also not often that an object gets to be the villain of the week, which allowed Cecile to be at the center of The Flash's latest episode.

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Andy Behbakht (782 Articles Published)

Andy has covered the world of entertainment journalism since 2010, mostly superheroes and comic book media. In addition to his work as a reporter, Andy co-hosts The Flash Podcast, Titans Podcast while running the entire DC TV Podcasts network. He is also the founder/editor-in-chief of The Marvel Report since Fall 2015.