As we prepare for tonight’s installment of The Flash season 6, let’s take a look back at a moment from last week’s episode that you might’ve not caught. Though it concerns a brief throwaway joke, it will actually be of extreme interest to superhero fans because it gives us yet more evidence that the Marvel universe exists as fiction within the Arrowverse.
In episode 3, Barry Allen came clean – well, apart from the news of his own apparent impending demise – about the horrors to come in “Crisis on Infinite Earths.” The STAR Labs gang reacted to the ominous news in different ways. True to form, Ralph Dibny/Elongated Man responded with a joke. When referring to Barry’s encounter with the Monitor, Ralph asked him: “So what else did our Asgardian cosplayer say?”
The reference is obvious here. Ralph’s making a nod to Marvel’s God of Thunder, which is actually pretty apt given both Thor and the Monitor’s love of capes and ornate armor. Of course, he could be talking about the original Norse mythological character but, when put together with other MCU references in the Arrowverse’s past, we’re pretty sure he’s specifically calling back to Chris Hemsworth’s interpretation.
Caitlin Snow and Killer Frost’s split personality has been compared to Bruce Banner/the Hulk before, with various Spider-Man quotes and nods appearing over the years, too. Perhaps the most tongue in cheek came in the “Legends of Yesterday” crossover from back in 2015, when the heroes retreated to a farm house. Thea commented that this scenario recalled a movie she’d seen and fans knew she was thinking of that same year’s Avengers: Age of Ultron.
Going back to “Crisis,” though, and the crossover is being likened to DC’s answer to Avengers: Endgame, so we wouldn’t put it past them to drop a sneaky reference or two to the Marvel movie in this December’s event. In the meantime, The Flash season 6 continues Tuesdays on The CW.
