The Flash: First Photo Revealed of Grant Gustin in Costume; Pilot Starts Production Next Week

The CW have revealed the first look at Grant Gustin in costume as The Flash in the DC Comics character's currently-in-production TV pilot. While it's not as true to the comics as was John Wesley Shipp's sculpted, skintight version in the '90s TV series, it's already got some classic elements to it--just to this headpiece and collar--that Oliver Queen's Arrow costume was missing at its inception. The costume for The Flash was designed by three-time Oscar® winner Colleen Atwood, who also designed the costume for ARROW and whose motion picture credits include Academy Awards® for her work on Alice in Wonderland, Memoirs of a Geisha and Chicago, as well as seven additional Oscar® nominations for films such as Snow White and the Huntsman,Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and Sleepy Hollow, among others Production begins on The Flash pilot next week, Warner Bros. confirmed. Showrunners had promised that we wouldn't see a proto-Flash, a "Red-Blue Blur" style compromise a la Smallville or Arrow and that we'd see him in the red costume and mask right away; certainly, at least the mask aspect of the promise has been kept, although so far we can't see much of the body. With seams on the headpiece and a chin guard, it seems at least a bit more inspired by the New 52 look than some fans may have preferred--but it seems to straddle the line between being a traditional superhero look and something that would be at home crossing over with Arrow--or finding a home there if The Flash doesn't go to series (it's widely assumed it will). One point that will likely be of contention for traditionalists: the wings traditionally used on the side of his head, reminiscent of Mercury the mythical god that inspired Jay Garrick's Golden Age Flash costume, are gone, replaced instead by Barry Allen's lightning bolt icon. It's a bit like hood ornaments, if we're honest: gone are the metallic chunks that used to straddle the hood, and now for the most part, if there is ornamentation on the hood at all, it's something more understated and effectively a glorified logo.