The Flash Movie’s Batman Suit Hints At DCEU Watchmen Connection

An Instagram post heavily suggests that The Flash movie will connect the DCEU not only to Michael Keaton’s Batman but also to Watchmen. On June 4, 2021, director Andy Muschietti shared a teaser image for The Flash of Keaton’s bloody Batman suit. While the vivid yellow Bat-insignia is instantly recognizable as (or at least similar to) the chest plate worn by Keaton in Tim Burton’s movies, 1989’s Batman and the 1992 sequel Batman Returns, it also gestures at another widely known DC Comics symbol: the Watchmen smiley face.

Writer Alan Moore, artist Dave Gibbons and colorist John Higgins collaborated on Watchmen for DC Comics, which was published in installments in 1986 and 1987 (finally being released as a singular collection in 1987). The graphic novel took a gritty approach to the superhero genre, imagining an alternate version of the U.S.A. in which “superheroes” interfered in major global events, altering the course of history. Watchmen was a groundbreaking series that was both commercially and critically successful, laying the groundwork for other dark takes on the genre.

Watchmen was eventually adapted as feature film in 2009. Currently, however, it’s unlikely that Watchmen connects to the DCEU — but it should. Muschietti’s post for The Flash heavily implies that his upcoming movie, which will deal with the DC Multiverse, could finally bring Watchmen into the franchise — either through including its characters or simply connecting to the story’s themes. The most iconic image from Watchmen is the bloody smiley face, which has various parallels to the Instagram post. The Bat-insignia is round and bright yellow. The blood is splattered on the left side. The visual similarities are clear — it’s the meaning that needs to be sussed out.

Watchmen created a true icon with the blood-splattered smiley face pin — not only because the image is so striking, but because it’s a brilliant symbol of the story’s core themes. In an interview with EW, Gibbons described the image as reflective of Watchmen as a whole: “It was like the real world imposing itself on a cartoon, which is what we were trying to do by treating comic book characters as if they were living in a real world.” The image is so significant that it’s featured on the cover of the graphic novel and was used prominently in the marketing for the 2009 Zack Snyder movie. The first and last image in the comic is that stained smiley face, and the Comedian’s pin is seen throughout the story. However, after Rorschach first finds the badge (and subsequently hands over to Daniel Drieberg aka Nite Owl), the symbol extends beyond the bloody smiley face, and a red smear on a yellow background becomes a motif: the Comedian’s bloody nose staining his yellow costume, the red stains on the boat’s sail in the Tales of the Black Freighter, and, most memorably, the red blood pouring over the yellow clock face after Adrian Veidt’s cataclysmic attack.

Given how Watchmen extends the smiley face into a general color motif, it makes sense to read the bloody Batman image as a reference to the iconic graphic novel. Most likely, Muschietti is evoking the symbol to set up the tone of The Flash. Keaton’s future Batman will be an older take on the character, not unlike how Niteowl is portrayed in Watchmen. A key theme of Watchmen is the danger of nostalgia and heroes of the past — both relevant to a 2022 DCEU movie featuring a previous generation’s version of Batman. The blood signals violence, suggesting the movie might take a more adult approach to the subject matter. While it’s impossible to guess what the director’s intentions were with the image, there is nonetheless a lot meaning that called be pulled from the dense symbolism.

It’s also possible that The Flash will be using the Multiverse to reveal that Watchmen exists within the DCEU on an alternate Earth. DC Comics did something similar with the Doomsday Clock miniseries. Furthermore, the Arrowverse’s Crisis on Infinite Earths connected many of the past DC Comics TV shows into one shared Multiverse, and the crossover was very well received.  It would be fitting for The Flash to do something similar, especially since Keaton is involved. Still, it seems unlikely that this is the route the movie will take — although fans can always hope for a Watchmen and DCEU crossover down the road.