SPOILER WARNING: This article contains major spoilers for "Into the Void," The Flash Season 6 premiere.
The Flash may be gearing up to introduce DC's O.M.A.C. -- for real, this time. In "Into the Void," the Season 6 premiere, Team Flash debuted a new piece of technology called M.A.C.
"The Mental Augmentation Chamber. Basically, it allows us to tap into the Speed Force to boost Barry's cognitive abilities. It would allow him to see every possible outcome to a scenario at the same time," Caitlin explained.
"So speed-thinking," Kamilia reasoned.
"Which means we'll be able to catch all the bad guys faster," Barry added.
At the start of the episode, M.A.C. was nowhere ready to be used in this way. However, the team soon found a different use for it thanks to Chester P. Runk -- who, in the comics, is a longtime Flash villain and occasional ally. In a live video, he created a gravitational wave emitter, which formed a black hole.
"He built this in his garage," Barry said with surprise, to which Cisco added, "Using nothing but trash. What a legend!"
The video soon took a tragic turn when Chester brushed the black hole. This split his consciousness, leaving part of it in his body and thrusting the other part into a sentient black hole. As Chester's black holes grew more powerful and more dangerous, Team Flash rushed to find a way to reunite his consciousness and save him. They soon turned to the M.A.C. for help.
"Remember the M.A.C.? The structural integrity is strong enough to contain synaptic energy. Besides, we already moved Chester into it," Cisco explained. Indeed, the M.A.C. was able to merge Chester's consciousness back together after some fancy footwork by the Flash.
"Chester is doing so much better," Cecile revealed later. "I mean, don't get me wrong. He's still glowing in the eyes with orange dark energy, but he's in really good spirits."
"Caitlin said his molecules need to re-stabilize at the subatomic level. My guess is he'll need to cook in the M.A.C. for another four to six weeks, maybe more, to get back to normal," Cisco added.
"Believe me, he is more than happy to chill at STAR Labs in the meantime," Cecile pitched in.
In the comics, O.M.A.C. has stood for both Observational Metahuman Activity Construct and Omni Mind And Community. OMACs were originally humans transformed into cyborgs by a virus created by Brainiac-13's nanotechnology, thanks to experimentation by the U.S. Department of Defense and Lexcorp. The OMACs, run by Brother Eye, were designed to assassinate metahumans.
The O.M.A.C. Project was mentioned in Arrow's earlier seasons. On the inaugural Arrowverse series, it was a project developed by Queen Consolidated with A.R.G.U.S., which yielded a military exosuit. When Ray Palmer bought Queen Consolidated, he reworked the project, renamed it and created the A.T.O.M. suit. This enabled him to become a vigilante known as the Atom. In the end, this O.M.A.C. Project didn't exactly mirror the comics.
Considering the acronym for the M.A.C. and the person inside it, The Flash could very well develop this project into something more recognizable as The O.M.A.C. Project from the comics. After all, Chester -- a "mad" scientist -- should get to know M.A.C. very well as he heals from his black hole accident. It certainly seems Chester will return for more guest appearances, even as Cisco and Team Flash continue to tinker with the M.A.C. technology.
Airing Tuesdays at 8 p.m. on The CW, The Flash stars Grant Gustin, Candice Patton, Carlos Valdes, Danielle Panabaker, Tom Cavanagh, Jesse L. Martin, Danielle Nicolet and Hartley Sawyer.