Who Is Cobalt Blue: Everything You Need To Know About The Flash's Evil Twin
DC Comics has introduced many powerful villains to The Flash's rogues gallery over his storied history. However, few have made their evil intentions more explicit than Cobalt Blue when it comes to enemies with a personal grudge.
Co-created by Mark Waid and Bryan Augustyn, the supervillain makes an immediate and significant impact on Wally West's life in "The Flash" #143 (by Waid, Augustyn, Pop Mhan, Chris Ivy, Tom McCraw, and Gaspar Saladino) by decimating Central City's Flash Museum. Using a magical gem to gain the powers of blue flame energy, Cobalt Blue attacks DC's speedster heroes, utilizing the mysterious artifact to try to steal their speed. After realizing he previously fought Cobalt Blue in the past alongside the then-deceased Barry Allen (who sacrificed himself years earlier during the multiverse-altering "Crisis on Infinite Earths") and that the villain wants to take out the hero's closest allies, Wally baits the new bad guy into a fight. When Cobalt Blue takes off his mask, Wally is stunned to see that the man he's fighting looks exactly like his deceased mentor, Barry — but he refers to himself as Malcolm Thawne.
In a game-changing moment, Cobalt Blue is revealed to be Barry's long-lost twin, who has made it his mission to defeat the speedster he believes stole his life. In doing so, Cobalt Blue proves to be one of the most menacing threats Wally and the rest of the Flash Family has ever faced. The villain's ambitions run deep across both space and time, leading DC's speedster heroes to take on not just him but his long line of ancestors, all of whom wield similar powers.
How did Cobalt Blue get his powers?
Cobalt Blue is the biological son of Norah and Henry Allen, but he didn't grow up alongside his twin brother Barry. In "The Flash" #144 (by Mark Waid, Brian Augustyn, Pop Mhan, Chris Ivy, Tom McCraw, and Gaspar Saladino), the story flashes back to Malcolm Thawne confronting Dr. Gilmore, the man who helped birth him. Malcolm learns that after the doctor's negligence cost Charlene and Hugo Thawne (ancestors of Professor Zoom) the life of their biological son, he replaced them with one of Norah's twin sons, telling the Allens that one of their children died at birth. As a result, Charlene and Hugo never knew their son was dead, and Barry's parents believed he was the only one of their twins to survive.
Malcolm's rough life saw him being forced to work alongside his con artist parents, as his father's deceptive use of blue light energy made people believe he was healing them. Upon learning the truth about his heritage, Malcolm took his first step towards villainy by brutally murdering Dr. Gilmore. The realization that Barry became a hero sent Malcolm on a quest for power, leading him to connect with his sorceress grandmother, where he learns about the blue flame harnessed inside a blue gem.
The talisman gives Malcolm a wide array of powers, including blue flame projection, absorption, and construct creation, among others. Perhaps most importantly, his grandmother tells him the magical stone will grant him whatever he desires. This leads to Malcolm channeling his hatred for Barry into the gem, allowing him to steal his heroic brother's speed during their confrontations. His transformation into Cobalt Blue is now complete, and he won't stop hunting Flashes until an ancient prophecy is fulfilled.
Is Cobalt Blue good or bad?
Cobalt Blue is a straight-up bad guy in the comics, determined to get revenge on Barry Allen for stealing his life. Malcolm Thawne spends most of his adult life following Barry, watching him from the shadows and even becoming a janitor at Central City Police Station where his twin works as a forensic scientist. Malcolm is revealed to have witnessed the accident giving Barry his speed powers, which only further angers him as he believes the Speed Force abilities are rightfully his. That resentment eliminates any chance of a happy reunion between Barry and Malcolm, the latter of whom has no idea his long-lost twin even exists.
After discovering the blue flame and creating the gem containing his powers, Malcolm learns about a prophecy where he's destined to kill two Flashes before defeating Barry — a complicated matter due to the hero dying during DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths. Malcolm is enraged when he learns Barry is dead in the present day and turns his focus on fulfilling the prophecy by finding Barry during one of his missions in the future, a mission that leads to his capture by Wally.
However, Wally and his fellow Flashes — Jay Garrick, Impulse, Max Mercury, and Jesse Quick — discover Cobalt Blue's quest extends far beyond their timeline as the blue flame burns throughout history. To stop future versions of Cobalt Blue, the heroes use the Speed Force to travel to various spots across time, taking down the villain's descendants while encountering multiple speedsters along the way.
Cobalt Blue brought all the Flashes together
With Malcolm Thawne's descendants targeting Flashes from all different times for the next thousand years, team Flash splits into several groups to stop the legion of Cobalt Blues and warn future speedsters of what's coming.
Wally West travels to the 853rd Century to visit John Fox, the Flash of DC's far future, recruiting him to spread the word of Cobalt Blue's attack across time. Jay Garrick arrives in the 21st Century, taking on a version of Cobalt Blue wearing glass armor and later encountering Iris West, Wally's future daughter. In the year 2223, Max Mercury learns of a version of Cobalt Blue, a deadly being who killed this era's Flash's family. Max watches the future Flash die after the gem falls into the wrong hands before recruiting Sela Allen, a descendant of Barry Allen's, to the fight. Impulse jumps across time and is joined by the massive speedster Thondor Allen to take on a group of Cobalt Blues who have formed a small army. Meanwhile, Jesse Quick works with Jace Allen in 2764 to take down a female version of Cobalt Blue.
These interactions culminate in a massive battle against Professor Zoom, who seeks to use the gem's power for himself. This clash leads to it being destroyed in the far future, essentially removing it from future timelines. Wally teams up with Barry against the original Cobalt Blue, who has possessed other Flashes. The epic clash sees Wally defeat the villain by channeling Speed Force energy into the gem. Unfortunately, Wally is unable to stop Barry's death, fulfilling the prophecy Thawne has been obsessed with. This creates a time paradox that sends Wally into the Speed Force, resulting in another version of the hero from an alternate reality temporarily taking his place.
Cobalt Blue in live action
"The Flash" live-action series version of Cobalt Blue differs greatly from his comic book counterpart.
In the long-running CW series, Eddie Thawne (Rick Cosnett) is a Central City detective who kills himself in Season 1 to save Team Flash from the Reverse-Flash (Tom Cavanagh). However, when Eddie returns in Season 9, he reveals he was resurrected by the Negative Speed Force and became a villain. While this version isn't Barry Allen's twin, his story shares several similar beats with his DC Comics counterpart, such as jealousy over The Flash stealing his life (with Iris West). On the show, Cobalt Blue is a speedster who draws his powers from a crystal that influences its holders.
So, why didn't "The Flash" adapt Cobalt Blue's comic book origins? It's most likely because the show had already given Barry an evil counterpart. Having Cobalt Blue share Barry's face would have likely confused viewers, as the series had presented evil doppelgängers several times throughout its run. For example, in Season 3, the main villain is Savitar, a dark speedster who is a temporal duplicate of Barry from the future who went down an evil path.
Additionally, making Eddie Cobalt Blue allowed the show to bring back the fan-favorite character in an all-new role. While his story didn't follow Cobalt Blue's comics journey or origin, and his storyline didn't go in any direction besides "evil speedster," it was still cool to see a remixed take on the classic foe show up in the Arrowverse.
Is Cobalt Blue alive in DC Comics?
Other than a few insignificant flashback cameos, Cobalt Blue hasn't made a significant return to the DC Universe following his demise in "The Flash." A version of the villain sporting the name popped up briefly in DC's "Future State" timeline, but their identity wasn't revealed, and they died in their single appearance. It appears that when Wally West and the rest of Team Flash destroyed his magical gem and took the future versions of the villain off the map across different timelines, it put an end to Cobalt Blue as a whole. Even in a world featuring as many futures and alternate realities as the DC Multiverse, Cobalt Blue hasn't popped up again in any meaningful way.
Still, a potential Cobalt Blue return could lead to some interesting story developments, especially since Barry Allen is alive in the current DC continuity. Would the prophecy restart if the villain returned? What would his reappearance mean with Barry and Wally both operating as The Flash?
Given Cobalt Blue's lack of impact on the DC Rebirth era (and any story past his original arc, really), if DC feels like it's worth bringing back Barry's evil twin, his origin can be reinvented and his death retconned into something new. The comics could even change his identity to a speedster like "The Flash" TV series did, though that could upset fans hoping for the first version to be resurrected. Ultimately, though, considering he's barely been seen in the pages of DC Comics over the past 20-plus years, readers shouldn't get their hopes up about Cobalt Blue showing up anytime soon.