Who Is Savitar On ‘The Flash’? Aside From The New Big Bad Of Course

The burning question for fans of The Flash this season is who is Savitar? As reported by Collider, we know he’s going to be the new season’s big bad, but exactly who and what is he? Is he related to Flashpoint?

Of course, The Flash on television doesn’t necessarily follow the Canon of the comic books. Often, the producers will deviate in small or big ways in order to make the show more interesting and surprising. This could be the case with Savitar.

However, in the comics, the character of Savitar is a jet plane test pilot, not unlike how Jordan who became the Green Lantern, and acquires speed force through an accident with a jet fighter. However, in the comics at least, the character of Savitaris is quite different than many of the other speedsters that the Flash encounters in his adventures.

The character of Savitar models himself on the Hindu god of speed of the same name and has certain powers and abilities that differ from that of say, the Flash, the Reverse Flash, and Zoom. For example, he’s able to take speed away from other speedsters or other things and use it himself.

Conversely, Savitar can also impart speed to other people, other objects or other speedsters. These are abilities that we haven’t seen from any of the other characters on The Flash television series over the last few seasons.

This can actually help to solve a problem that many viewers saw in the Season 2 villain Zoom. In many ways and for many viewers this villain seemed like a repeat of the Season 1 bad guy Reverse Flash. Essentially, you had another speedster who was almost exactly like the Flash in his abilities and even his costume, except that he was evil and scheming.

While the Flash in gathering up the various meta-humans produced by the Star Labs accident, created by the fake Harrison Wells of season one, encountered a number of other super beings and super villains with very different powers and goals than the speedsters like the Reverse Flash, the truth is that the first two seasons seem to focus almost entirely on speedster battles to the exclusion of almost everything else.

This is why some fans were disappointed to hear that in the third season of The Flash, along with the character Alchemy, the main villain of the new season would be yet another menacing speedster threatening the city and the team at Star Labs. This could have started to become a bit monotonous for the viewers.

However, the characteristics described in the comics for the character of Savitar who essentially considers himself a God of speedsters makes him a bit more interesting and provides the writers of the Flash with far more possibilities for character development and plotting than Zoom ever seemed to provide throughout much of Season 2.

How this character will interact with the Barry Allen version of the Flash on the TV show is not entirely clear yet. Yes, he’s going to be a villain, but will he play the role of a temporary mentor in the same way that the fake Jay Garrick did in season two. This could also be a bit monotonous if they went this route.

It’s also the hope that, given that it’s the third season of the show and The Flash presumably can go absolutely anywhere he wants to quit his incredible speed, will start getting a few scenes of the Flash rescuing people or battling villains elsewhere around the world. While we may be wondering just who is Savitar at this point, a world traveling Flash would allow us to know more about the main character on the show as well.

[Featured Image by The CW]