The Flash live action series has redeemed itself.  I watched episode thirteen, “The Trickster,” last night and greatly enjoyed it.  Why?  Because it had the goddamn Trickster in it!

The Trickster has always been a weird sort of supervillian.  I mean, he’s sort of lame:  his super power is MPD and a terrible sense of humor.  Exactly like a certain (more memorable) Batman villian.  But there’s also a lot of badass stories about him.  The only reason to read all 52 issues of the 2007 Countdown series is for the Trickster/Piper storyline, which is absolutely phenomenal.

So how do you make the Trickster a good mainstream villian?  You get Mark Hamill to play him, of course.  Hamill did the voice of the Joker on Batman: The Animated Series, and here he more or less takes that voice and gives it a body.  It’s amazing to watch.  I thought Heath Ledger did a good job as the Joker in The Dark Knight, but Mark Hamill’s Trickster blows that out of the water.  As he’s screaming “But I loved you!” and being dragged away by police at the end of the episode, I get serious chills.  He plays the sadistic, unapproachable villian perfectly.