Ranking Every Superhero TV Show From Worst To Best

Although it launched off the back of Arrow, with Barry Allen first appearing on that series, The Flash couldn't have been more different.

Where Arrow was dark, The Flash was light; where the Emerald Archer was serious, the Scarlet Speedster was a lot of fun. Nevermind confining the discussion to just superhero TV, the debut year of The Flash was one of the most confident to air on network TV in recent years.

The show knew exactly what it wanted to be, the things it wanted to do, and how to achieve both. It was fun, fast, and great to watch, with lots of audacious comic book moments (hello, Gorilla Grodd) that they somehow managed to pull off on a CW budget.

The series took a bit of a backwards step in Season 2, getting a little too dark, and weighed down by Legends setup and a villain who got less interesting the more we found out about him. That said, it still expanded the world, taking us to Earth-2 on a glorious Easter egg hunt, and increased the scope of things it would attempt (hello, King Shark!).

With a great (and often hilarious) supporting cast, there's a lot going for the show, but right at the very core is Grant Gustin. What makes the show stand above some of its counterparts isn't its sense of fun, but that it marries that with true heart and emotion, and Gustin is the man most responsible for that.