The DCEU Flash Villain Theory That's Lighting Up Reddit
Director Andy Muschietti's "The Flash" movie has had fans on the edge of their seats since the rumors of it moving to pre-production years ago after the initial release of the DCEU's "Justice League" — Joss Whedon's, not the Snyder Cut. With Ezra Miller returning to their role as Barry Allen, many fans thought and hoped that the plot of "The Flash" would follow almost directly along with the famous DC Comics "Flashpoint" storyline, where Barry uses his powers to go back in time to prevent the death of his mother, therefore causing a chain reaction of reality-altering events that lead Earth into a state of war. This storyline has already been adapted to a digital medium once before with the animated "Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox" back in 2013, but it has yet to be brought to DCEU continuity. Fans were prepared to see Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Thomas Wayne/Batman and anticipated the introduction of Eobard Thawne, a.k.a. Reverse-Flash, as he is traditionally the main villain in "Flashpoint."
However, after "The Flash" began filming and comments were made by the cast and Muschietti himself, the plot seems to be an adaptation from the "Flashpoint" run, not a direct comic-to-screen sort of situation. Fans now know that not only will there be two Batmen, with both Ben Affleck returning as the DCEU's Batman and Michael Keaton reprising his role as Bruce Wayne/Batman for a large role in the film, but according to the recent "The Flash" teaser, there will be two Ezra Miller Flashes. However, a recent fan thread on Reddit suggests a new theory that would add one more Flash, but not Eobard Thawne's Reverse-Flash.
The villain of The Flash is Barry Allen himself
From the teaser trailer for the film, we were able to gather many things about the plot of "The Flash." We know that Barry travels back in time to save his mother from death, a direct similarity in reasoning to "Flashpoint." However, as noted above, there are two Flashes in the trailer. One seems to be the DCEU Barry that we've known, and another is a longer-haired Barry with an old spray-painted Batsuit as his uniform, seemingly obtained from Keaton's Bruce Wayne. We aren't entirely sure where or when this Barry is from.
Also, according to Keaton's voiceover in the trailer, Barry's tampering with the timeline is seemingly causing some destruction that DCEU Barry, long-haired Barry, and Bruce will have to stop. What we don't know is the identity of the big bad preventing the two Barrys and Bruce from fixing the timeline. Redditor u/gnrlp2007 thinks that the main villain of "The Flash” is actually a third Barry.
They state that they think because of clear differences in Flash costumes throughout the trailer, that the Barry Allen who is wearing a seemingly advanced suit lined in yellow is actually a version from the future "and is trying to stop the DCEU Flash from preventing the death of his mother as he might know the grave implications of messing with the timeline." This could be possible, or even that it is another Barry from the DC multiverse trying to prevent DCEU Barry from his own actions. Other users concurred with u/gnrlp2007, with u/clone_or_bone replying "it was me, Barry..." and u/eldritchBat noting that this is what they also believed. This caused a string of responses from fans with their own interesting theories as to where Eobard Thawne might be — if he's even involved.
Is Reverse-Flash posing as the possible third Flash?
Redditor u/Man-Of-Spider, made an interesting comment, suggesting that the third Barry wouldn't actually be Barry, but Thawne, who went to the lengths of plastic surgery to make himself look like Flash. They wrote, "Calling it now. The second Flash is Reverse-Flash, he underwent a plastomorph operation to look like Barry (like in the comics)." There haven't been very many hints to Eobard Thawne in the teaser trailer from what we can gather, but given that Thawne is the person who causes the death of Barry's mother in the first place, it is entirely possible and even probable that Thawne would end up being revealed as the actual villain of the story.
u/sonnytron even went as far as to suggest that the third Flash, Thawne, will actually kill the long-haired Barry Allen at some point during the film, with the focus then being put entirely on the battle between DCEU Barry, Keaton's Batman, and Supergirl (Sasha Calle). There is certainly a question of what villain could possibly require the firepower and combined skills of The Flash, Batman, and Supergirl, and an evil version of The Flash, Thawne or Allen, would definitely require that. Now the task is just to see where Affleck's Batman fits into all of this.