In the wake of the Flash trailer, you can't help but marvel at how the internet's collective hive mind works. The Christian Bale conspiracy is the latest to captivate the imagination.
It takes the joining of many wires to reach a desired conclusion, but that's part of the fun. Last week, rumors emerged that the Scarlet Speedster's solo debut had recruited another former Batman to join Ben Affleck and Michael Keaton in the cast, even if James Gunn didn't waste any time shutting down the notion that it would be George Clooney.
The only viable alternative for Val Kilmer was to leave the show as he battled throat cancer. A shot in The Flash promo of the Dark Knight riding a motorcycle away from some incoming destruction led many to believe it was Christopher Nolan's Caped Crusader, including the famous Spider-Man: No Way Home spoiler merchant Jon Campea.
The first thing on everyone's minds was obviously to redo the entire tweet almost word-for-word and meme the ever-loving sh*t out of it, which is par for the course when it comes to any self-respecting viral sensation.
Is Bale in the teaser? Almost certainly not, given that set photographs of Affleck riding his motorcycle around the streets of Glasgow were widely circulated when The Flash was in film production. As always, there's no way to rule it out with the utmost certainty until the film goes into theaters in June.