Intergalactic Comics: The Flash: Who is Savitar?

Tuesday, May 2, 2017

The Flash: Who is Savitar?

By: Haylee Fisher (@haylee_fisher)

For the entirety of this season on The Flash, the team has battled a mysterious and powerful villain named Savitar. Just a few clues have been given about who he is and how he came to be, but on tonight’s episode, the identity of the person who kills Iris will finally be revealed.

Barry has battled many a speedster over the last three seasons, though none of them have been as formidable as Savitar. He’s faster than anyone Barry has ever fought before and his armor is nearly impenetrable. Most probably assumed Savitar was just Savitar and thought what turned out to be armor was just his body. As the season progressed, however, it became clearer there was a person inside, culminating with last week’s reveal to a Killer Frost Caitlin who basically said she was Team Savitar as soon as she saw his face. But who could make her pledge her loyalty so fast?

Despite a lot of secrecy surrounding his identity, there are a number of things for certain about Savitar that have been divulged throughout the season. He is the first speedster and derives his powers from the Philosopher’s Stone. He can get inside someone’s head and control their thoughts and actions. His fight with Barry is personal.

Because that fight is personal, that means he is someone Flash fans know. So who could he be? Here are the top suspects:

Jay Garrick

The biggest piece of evidence pointing to Garrick being Savitar is the fact that he is currently stuck in the Speed Force. Though he is there voluntarily because he took Wally’s place, it is plausible that being there, essentially trapped, has caused him to go mad and hate Barry for the role he played in putting him there. It’s also obvious that Garrick is older than Barry and Savitar has said he is the first speedster. It’s plausible that Garrick got his powers before Barry, making him the first, in addition to the fact that Jay Garrick was The Flash in the comics before Barry Allen ever was.

Hunter Zolomon

It would be repetitive for Zolomon to be the baddie again, but it was Earth-2 Zolomon Barry fought last. It is known Alchemy gives Earth-1 residents their Flashpoint doppelganger powers, so what if he gave him Zoom’s powers and made Earth-1 Zolomon like Earth-2 Zolomon? Plus, at one time, he and Caitlin kind of had a thing, so maybe her Killer Frost persona would want to revisit that and have them be bad together.

Eddie Thawne

Yes, Eddie is seemingly pretty dead on the show. But Barry saw him in the Speed Force, which Savitar says he rules. Becoming Savitar could be Eddie’s perverse way of exacting his revenge on Barry for taking Iris away from him by taking her away from Barry. An eye for an eye, as it were. And though Eddie’s great-great-great (and however many more greats) grand relative Eobard is also dead on Legends of Tomorrow, maybe there was more wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey stuff going on than was made known and Eobard went back to save Eddie to save himself. And though Eddie is probably not someone neither Caitlin nor Killer Frost would drop everything to follow, crazier things have happened on this show.

Wally West

While the biggest tick in the “No, Wally Isn’t Savitar” column is definitely the question of why he would kill his own sister, there is plenty of evidence that points to the yes column. Savitar says he rules the Speed Force, but it has essentially made him crazy since he was trapped there so long. Who else was trapped in the Speed Force and slowly meant to go crazy by repeating the worst thing that happened in his life over and over? Wally. He was also seen catatonic and broken in the most recent episode when Barry traveled to 2024, and it was said he became that way after an encounter with Savitar. Maybe in trying to fight Savitar alone and finding out he was really fighting a twisted, evil version of himself caused his reaction. Plus, at this point in his training, he’s faster than Barry was, with Barry training him to go even faster and the fact that Savitar is able to kill Iris hinges on the fact that he’s faster than Barry. Finally, Savitar has repeated many times that he is “the future, Flash.” Drop the comma and he’s saying “Future Flash.” In the comics, that’s just what Wally becomes – after Barry dies.

Future Flash (Barry)

Plenty of clues point to future Barry being Savitar, not the least of which is the aforementioned unclear comma. Plus, if memory serves correctly, that is the only time Savitar has ever called him “Flash” and not “Barry.” Season three has delved in to the idea that by traveling through time as much as he has, Barry has irreversibly tampered with the order of things, namely the future. It’s why the crossover episode was so impactful: Barry was essentially the reason the Dominators attacked. He even sent Rip Hunter a message from 40 years in the future telling Rip not to trust anyone, not even him. Though most assumed Barry was talking about their fight with the Dominators, what if he was actually talking about his future self – Savitar? And could there be a bigger consequence of Barry messing with time than to create his own worst enemy in himself? This season’s storyline has also touched on the fact that what makes Barry so good is that he doesn’t kill, the complete opposite of Savitar. He even told Barry that he couldn’t kill him – yet. Why is it so important for Barry to see Iris die? When he traveled to the future last week, audiences saw an isolated, miserable, hopeless, and destroyed Barry who said he became that way after Iris’ death. He could barely look his team in the eye. It’s very likely he realized not only was he responsible for Iris’ death because he wasn’t fast enough to save her, but because he was the one to actually stab his love through her heart. Over the last three seasons of the show – and especially so this year – Barry’s goal has always been to become faster. If that remains his fixation in the present, it is not outside the realm of possibility for him to become faster than he could ever realize and for Savitar to be the outcome. If Killer Frost sees a dark Barry emerge from that armor, her twisted mind could see his transformation to a villain as his true self and inspire her to follow him.

Ronnie Raymond

If there is one person Caitlin Snow trusts implicitly, it’s her late husband, Ronnie Raymond. Though he was presumably killed in the singularity in season two, what if he got swept into the Speed Force somehow, went crazy, and gained powers instead? It would explain why Barry could only find the Martin Stein half of Firestorm after the explosion. Later in season two, the team traveled to Earth-2 and found Ronnie and Caitlin as Deathstorm and Killer Frost wreaking havoc in that Central City. Their evil partnership has been a prominent plot point in the comics, and their TV counterparts haven’t gotten as much screen time. But Barry has taken everything, namely Caitlin, from TV Ronnie on multiple Earths multiple times, so Ronnie’s motivations for killing Iris to get back at Barry could be very strong. And after Barry killed Earth-2 Ronnie, Killer Frost felt she had no purpose in life and decided to actually help Team Flash. But seeing evil Ronnie emerge from that armor could cause Caitlin to regress even further into Killer Frost as she would have the desire for them to be partners again. That Team Flash would then have to defeat Savitar Ronnie and turn Killer Frost back into Caitlin would cause Caitlin to have to mourn her husband yet again and provide huge emotional stakes for the team and the show.

Who do you think Savitar is?