The Flash -2014-2014

To understand the weight of the keyword, we must revisit the landscape of pop culture in 2014. The superhero genre was dominated by the gritty, cinematic realism of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and the dark tone of DC’s Man of Steel (2013). Superheroes were becoming serious business, often devoid of color and whimsy.

The 2014 premiere episode ("City of Heroes") broke ratings records for The CW, leading to 9 seasons, crossovers with Arrow , Supergirl , Legends of Tomorrow , and a fully realized multiverse. The Flash -2014-2014

In late 2014, multiple TV databases ran a batch update. They saw a new show called The Flash with a 2014 start date. They then looked for the end date. Because Season 1 had not finished airing at the time of the data scrape (December 2014), an automatic script incorrectly set the "end year" to the same as the "start year" as a placeholder. When the show exploded into a multi-season hit, no one went back to correct the placeholder on every obscure mirror site. Thus, The Flash (2014-2014) was born as a digital fossil. To understand the weight of the keyword, we