A Look at Javicia Leslie's Villainous Return to the Arrowverse

Despite the fact that my immense ignorance of everything involving superhero comics came out while watching the final moments of The Flash, I'm still elated over this development. The Flash began its ninth and final season on February 9, 2023 with "Wednesday Ever After," the first of the final 13 episodes. The episode saw Barry and Iris in a time loop, with the former dealing with the episode's central baddie, Captain Boomerang, who was played by Richard Harmon of Continuum fame. Though everything ended well for Team Flash, we were treated to a final scene that saw Captain Boomerang calling out whoever he was working for in an abandoned warehouse.

Boomerang's suddenly provided with an extra supply of boomerangs, and when he is asked what their next move was, an ominous voice gives the following answer:

"Not 'what.' WHO. The Flash is never truly alone, but once I'm done with him, he will be."

The ominous speedster zooms off, and the final image is the bat logo. I had to Google, and it turns out that the Big Bad of this final season is the Red Death. After doing more homework, I learned who the Red Death is and who is playing this version. First off, the Red Death is actually a villainous version of Bruce Wayne/Batman, who originally fought crime on Earth -52, but he ended up working with more than one Robin, who was killed one by one. The deaths of his Robins drove Batman insane, to the point where he actually approached The Flash of his Earth and demanded his speed, feeling that he would use his power better than the speedster. Flash refused, leading Batman to take his powers by force, and fuse himself with Flash, which was followed by Batman killing off his rogues gallery. Despite his efforts to save his planet, it ended up destroyed anyway, and he ended up joining the Dark Knights, an evil group of Batman doppelgangers, and thus, the Red Death was officially born.

As for this version of Red Death, that bat logo looked very, very familiar. There's a reason for that: the Arrowverse's Red Death will be played by Javicia Leslie, meaning that this version will be an evil version of Ryan Wilder/Batwoman. Leslie portrayed the titular Batwoman on her own series during the final two seasons, replacing Ruby Rose, who played OG Batwoman Kate Kane during Season One. Batwoman was axed by The CW after three seasons, though we did see Leslie briefly appear during the five-part Flash miniseries a year prior. And here's how behind I was: the announcement of Javicia Leslie's villainous return to the Arrowverse was made in November 2022, but because I wasn't hip to any Arrowverse news (other than the shows being axed), I didn't know about this until right after the Flash episode aired.

I am immensely excited for this. I've wanted Javicia Leslie to portray a villainess ever since Batwoman, and she will definitely deliver with this Big Bad role. While we did see Red Death in that final moment, we did not see Leslie in that role. That will come very soon. According to her IMDB, we are two weeks away from seeing Leslie as the evil Red Death, as she will make her first official appearance in "Rogues of War," which is the 3rd episode of the season. The photo above is a leaked capture of Leslie in full uniform under her heel Red Death persona. Epic. Absolutely epic! I have no doubt that Javicia Leslie will show out as this big bad villainess, and I'm very elated that we won't have to wait very long to see her in action!

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