There are many differences between Earth-1, the pre-Crisis reality, and Earth-Prime, the home of the Arrowverse heroes following “Crisis on Infinite Earths.” For the past few episodes of The Flash, Cisco Ramon has been off traveling around this brave new world to reveal everything that’s changed. In this week’s installment, “Death of the Speed Force,” Cisco finally returned to Central City and unveiled a big change to the audience: Atlantis now exists in the Arrowverse.
When Cisco surprises his friends by entering S.T.A.R. Labs, he admits he was getting homesick and missing his friends, and also that he desperately needed to “wash all of the Atlantean fish smell off of these clothes.” There’s a lot we can gather from this brief line. First off, that the kingdom of Atlantis is now situated on Earth-Prime. By extension, then, we can presume that one Arthur Curry AKA Aquaman is also out there somewhere.
Whether this is the Atlantis of traditional DC Comics, though, it’s unclear. Back in The Flash season 2, we learned that there was an Atlantis on Earth-2. This one never sunk under the ocean, however, and was a very popular tourist spot, with the Atlantean population being fully integrated with human society. Earth-2 Barry had even bought his parents tickets to Atlantis for their anniversary and Earth-2 Iris had family living there.
Cisco’s comment that his clothes smell like fish suggests that Earth-Prime’s Atlantis is also above ground and is likewise open to human tourism. Of course, this is a bit of a switch from the usual status quo for the underwater realm. As portrayed in 2018’s Aquaman, Atlantis is typically portrayed as isolationist and even xenophobic towards surface-dwellers. Presumably, if Earth-Prime’s Atlantis never sunk like Earth-2’s, this attitude didn’t develop as the species was never hidden from humanity.
While it’s fun to theorize and think about the wider implications of things like this, sadly it’s unlikely that we’ll get an Arrowverse Aquaman any time soon. Our best shot was in “Crisis,” but it seems the DCEU’s ongoing use of the hero prevented that from happening. Still, thanks to The Flash, we now know another Justice League icon exists off-screen.
