The Pied Piper

The Flash series officially debuted this Tuesday, though I already did a review of that a few months ago when the pilot leaked onto the web. I watched the pilot anyway to support the series and I have to say that it was just as good watching it a second time. I've yet to see any of my geek friends to get their feedback, but I'm thinking they enjoyed it enough to not blow-up my phone with rants of how horrible it was.

In conjunction with the pilot came this interesting bit of news today. Something I was very curious about would be the inclusion of one of my favorite comic characters: Pied Piper. I've always thought that Hartley Rathaway was such a cool and interesting character, even before either of us came out. As silly as it sounds, he was one of the first gay characters to whom I could really relate. Unlike a lot of LGBT characters at the time, he was not just a one-dimensional gay figure. Piper had a great background and the struggle he faced was over his morals as a villain not his sexuality. He was a well-written character who also happened to be into guys.

So it was a nice surprise when I saw that not only will they be introducing Pied Piper (somewhere around Episode 11/12), but he will be cannon gay in the series as well. The CW has yet to shy away from same sex relationships as evidenced by the lesbian storyline between Sarah and Nyssa on Arrow. I'm hoping that Hartley gets a little romance - they did include his New 52 BF, Dir. Singh in the series - but more importantly, I hope he joins Team Flash as a good guy down the line.

Just a final note, while I'm a little disappointed they didn't pick a red-head to play Hartley, the actor they chose to portray him, Andy Mientus, is quite a cutie. And he is also openly bisexual, not a requirement for playing an LGBT character, but it can't hurt. I just hope he does the character justice!

PS - CW, please don't give him the raggedy 2000's costume or his original polka-dot tights. I'd much prefer him in his new costume or something similar.