The Flash has introduced a new dimension called the Mirror World, but what does it mean for the future of the Arrowverse? The new storyline kicked off in The Flash season 6 midseason premiere when Iris (Candice Patton) was dragged through a mirror by a mysterious assailant. In the cliffhanger ending of the following episode, it was revealed that Iris was replaced by a look-alike, while the real Iris had to watch from the other side of a mirror as her manipulative duplicate fooled Barry (Grant Gustin) and stole her life. In The Flash season 6, episode 12, “A Girl Named Sue”, Iris meets Eva McCulloch (Efrat Dor), the founder of McCulloch Technologies who went missing years ago. According to Eva, she was thrown through the mirror and into the Mirror World during the particle accelerator incident six years ago, which happened in The Flash series premiere. Eva, who claims to be the Mirror World’s only inhabitant, has been unable to escape, but she and Iris learn that she possesses some sort of control over the mirror, which they may be able to use to their advantage. Eva also explains that the Iris West impostor is a fake clone created by the Mirror World.
What does the existence of the Mirror World mean for The Flash and the other Arrowverse shows? Though it’s been discovered that the Mirror World can create duplicates of other characters, it’s hard to imagine this happening outside of The Flash. The Mirror World itself is unlikely to have much of an impact outside of this storyline with Eva McCulloch and Iris West, but the idea that this secret dimension even exists does hold some significance, because there could be even more dimensions out there as well that Team Flash and others in the Arrowverse know nothing about.
Eva’s explanation for what’s really going on is that the Mirror World is not an alternate Earth, but a hidden dimension. This dimension exists within Earth-Prime. Since the fake Iris isn’t a doppelganger from another Earth, this means that The Flash isn’t breaking the Arrowverse’s new multiverse rules following Crisis on Infinite Earths. There’s still only one Earth that’s currently relevant to the Arrowverse, and that’s, of course, Earth-Prime.
The merging of worlds in Crisis on Infinite Earths seemingly limited the Arrowverse in terms of adventures in alternate realities and encounters with villainous, duplicate heroes. These are exactly the types of stories that shows like The Flash have made heavy use of in the past, and “Crisis” made it difficult for this to work in the future, but this story in The Flash has shown that these limitations don’t actually exist. Going forward, the Arrowverse can continue this trend by introducing exciting new dimensions and worlds for its characters to explore.
Leave a Reply