Warning: potential SPOILERS for The Flash
This season of The Flash has a new breed of villain in Cicada: not a Speedster or metahuman like usual, but a mysterious father with a killer dagger. But if fans read the clues dropped so far, we may know every part of Cicada’s supervillain origin story already.
In the past The Flash has been forced to keep the identities or motivations of its ‘big bads’ a secret, since their powers and revealed-in-threats-and-monologue plans were obvious enough. But Cicada’s mystery runs a bit deeper. We know what he’s doing, and how he’s doing it… maybe even who it’s all for. The secret to this mystery seems to be locked away in his lightning-bolt shaped Dagger, but according to our theory, that weapon isn’t a dagger at all. It’s what makes Cicada the victim of metatech driving him to kill other metahumans… or be killed himself.
- This Page: Cicada’s Mysterious Dagger is The Key Next Page: How The Dagger Made Cicada, Not Vice Versa
What We Know About Cicada So Far
From the moment he stepped into the world of The Flash with his glowing lightning dagger in hand, mask on his face, and the clicking sounds of a certain insect, Cicada was all show and next to no tell at all. On the one hand, that’s the most straightforward villain Flash fans have had in years: a metahuman killer who wants to kill metahumans, with a strange knife that lets him negate their powers to make it possible. But no villain is ever that simple in the world of the Arrowverse. Before long, that telltale dagger started to show the ability to feed off powers, be propelled into metahuman targets, be called back to Cicada like a miniature Mjolnir, and even propel him into the sky.
As for the villain himself, glimpses into his backstory showed his apprehension at killing a father… because he is one too, although the visit to his daughter in hospital didn’t reveal much about her condition. But one detail in those scenes did drop a major hint - at least, that’s what our theory supposes. The chain of clues that explain Cicada’s mission is a long one, and speculation on our part (for now). But it all starts with that “dagger” Cicada is using to cull the metahumans of Central City.
Cicada’s Dagger Isn’t a Dagger At All
The effects and function of Cicada’s dagger has had us suspicious from the start, but it wasn’t until Episode 4 of The Flash Season 5 that the truth behind it seemed to become clear. In the episode, Team Flash went out in search of a metahuman able to blur the line between the digital and the real worlds. When they eventually tracked down the culprit, she turned out to be using a completely different kind of power. In fact, she wasn’t the metahuman threat at all - it was her phone that was possessed of reality-bending abilities.
And just that quickly, the idea of “Metatech” was born, theorizing that pieces of technology could have been charged with the same dark matter (read: comic book magic) powers as the original metahumans transformed by the particle accelerator explosion. If true, that meant any normal person could wield a piece of metatech and appear to be as powerful as a full-blown metahuman. But what if the “tech” didn’t need to be a digital device to work the same way? What if a dark-matter-charged object ended up in someone’s hands, and craved other dark matter to feed upon? Either that, or it had no choice but to feed on the very person it sliced into when the dark matter explosion transformed it into a superweapon? Because that seems to be exactly what Cicada is up against.
Page 2 of 2: Cicada’s Dagger is Actually Metatech Shrapnel
Cicada’s Dagger is Metatech Shrapnel
We had theorized that Cicada was merely a passenger to his dagger, the true villain and unknown power of the season, but the introduction of Metatech - the notion that things, and not just people could be transformed the way humans had been in the past - has sealed our suspicions. For starters, to call it a “dagger” or “knife” seems to be misleading, since the evidence suggests its Flash-like insignia is a total coincidence. And that it was never meant to be a knife, either. Merely a piece of Metatech shrapnel launched away from the satellite explosion… and embedding directly into Cicada’s chest.
Of all the glimpses into Cicada’s life, the shot of him revealing his own chest wound to his daughter’s doctor seems the most important. The wound itself looks like a serious one, so Sherlocque’s deduction that Cicada’s lung injury causes his fluttering breaths makes sense. But the nature of the wound is most telling: glowing with yellow energy, not unlike the jagged piece of metal which glows on a similar way - when craving Metahuman energy to be sated.
How the dark matter-charged metal shard flung itself into Cicada’s chest is a simple enough mystery to solve. Either shrapnel from the satellite, or metal from his factory job was imbued with dark matter energy the same as other Metatech. When it struck Cicada, the wound itself doesn’t seem to have put his life in continuous danger. No, that’s the glowing mark of Metatech, which makes his crusade against other Metahumans seem somewhat straightforward, right?
Cicada Needs To Feed The Dagger Meta Energy
If The Flash’s showrunners have introduced Metatech, and implied that the nature of metahuman powers can now be applied to objects, then the simplest explanation may be the correct one. Cicada (not his actual name) is struck by metahuman energy thanks to another dark matter, dimensional-smashing storm related to The Flash and S.T.A.R. Labs. With a dark matter affliction that seems to be killing him, Cicada begins hunting down other metas, killing them, and somehow absorbing their own metahuman energy to keep himself from succumbing to the affliction (and a nasty wound) so that he can stay alive for his sick child. That’s anything but an original character arc by this point, as several Flash villains have suffered from accelerated aging, nuclear instability, or other metahuman curses that seem to be treated only by killing/absorbing/negating other metahuman gifts.
However, add the twist that it’s actually the knife in the man’s hand which seems to be what’s killing him, and killing metahumans to be kept at bay, and the same old story no longer makes sense. Unless, of course, you introduce the concept that the ‘knife’ actually fills the role of the metahuman energy in this scenario, both killing and sustaining Cicada. If it seems that simple, there’s no need to dig any deeper until we get evidence to the contrary.
The only real question now is: with Cicada’s symbiotic bond to the metatech/dark matter shrapnel/dagger clearly destroying him, how will the the team actually help? To tackle that conundrum, we’ll need to see if our theory is accurate first.
The Flash airs Tuesdays @8pm on The CW.
