With Christian Bale announced as Batman and the success of Smallville, it seems that superheroes are back in fashion, with The WB rumoured to be resurrecting The Flash for the small screen.

You may remember that in 1990 John Wesley Shipp played the speedy hero in the red lycra all-in-one outfit for a short-lived series based on The Flash comic.

The Flash received mixed reviews and was cancelled after just one series. Wesley Shipp went onto be the dad in Dawson's Creek and his love interest, British-born Amanda Pays, got stuck in TV movie hell.

Dark Horizons reports that The WB is to resurrect the series. Like Smallville, it plans to set the series when Barry Allen is just getting to grips with his powers, and when he didn't have a lycra outfit to squeeze himself into.

In a new twist, The Flash will also be able to run so fast that he can actually travel forward and backwards in time. No start date for production has been set.