CW’s THE FLASH Adds Multiplex & Girder To Its Villains Roster

The CW’s The Flash is gearing up to be the one of the hottest shows of the fall season. Fresh off of the premiere of the pilot episode at San Diego Comic-Con 2014, many of the show’s cast of recurring characters have been popping up over the web. Several of them are familiar names from DC Comics’ rich history. We already know Wentworth Miller is set to play Captain Cold, while Arrow star Stephen Amell’s cousin Robbie Amell will play Firestorm and William Sadler will play Simon Stagg. Ladies will be sharing the spotlight too as Kelly Frye will appear as Plastique and Arrow regular Emily Beckett Richards is also set to make a guest appearance.

According to Greg Berlanti, one of the brains behind the series, and TV Line, we know  two more villains will be showing up to cause the Flash and Central City some trouble: Multiplex and Girder!

For those scratching their heads, Multiplex (aka Danton Black) is a major recurring enemy of Firestorm. No official word yet on casting or what kind of powers he’ll manifest in that episode, but in the comics he was created in the same accident that creates Firestorm (which on the show is the S.T.A.R. Labs particle accelerator accident that pretty much creates all of the metahumans), so I’m betting he’ll be able to make his “duploids.” For all intents in purposes, Multiplex is DC’s version of Marvel’s Multiple Man, except that he requires an energy source to create them and they have low-level super-strength. The quality of CGI shown in The Flash is pretty impressive by television standards so making a army of destructive duploids shouldn’t be difficult to pull off. On a side note, Multiplex was a member of the Suicide Squad, who had a strong presence in Arrow‘s second season. Let’s hope he doesn’t pop up in Starling City. I’m not sure if even (Green) Arrow and his new sidekick Arsenal will have enough arrows for him.

Girder, a much stronger opponent, will make his debut in the episode 6 of the first season. TV Line also reports that he will be a recurring villain (possible formation of The Rogues?) and an old schoolmate of Barry who used to bully him when they were kids. In the comics Girder (aka Anthony Woodward)is a steel worker who gets dunked into a vat of molten steel, which had been treated with products of S.T.A.R. Labs’ experiments. His body is transformed into a jumbled mass of metal, and the casting call describes Girder as “a grinning lunkhead who loves destruction [and an] unstoppable force… who can transmute any part of his body into solid steel.” Based on this description, it sounds like he’ll be a constant (and occasionally hilarious) pain to the Scarlet Speedster, much how Rhino usually was in Spider-Man’s early days. With his comic book origin already connected to S.T.A.R. Labs, he seemed destined to be on this show.

Now in the pilot episode of The Flash, there was a small easter egg showing the possibility of Gorilla Grodd showing up in the future. Well it wasn’t so much an easter egg, but rather a paused shot of a busted cage with ‘GRODD’ written on it. Berlanti says that “within the first seven episodes, you’ll see hints”, so I’m keeping the faith. When asked about whether Grodd would be brought to life via practical effects or CGI, he told reporters:

“Our visual effects department and production department will kill me if I answer either way, because they both would want claims on how to do it. My sense is we’re gonna do a lot of exploration this year in terms of the technology and what we can pull off.”

The Flash is sticking to its promise to be a more of a sci-fi series than the relatively grounded Arrow, and all of these different supervillains (I prefer that to metahumans) popping up will keep Barry Allen busy all through the first season. Plus with another Firestorm villain revealed, is this confirmation that we’ll see S.T.A.R. Labs scientist Caitlin Snow transform into her superpowered alter-ego, Killer Frost?

The Flash premieres Tuesday, October 7th, 2014 @8pm on The CW.

SOURCE: TV Line, Den of Geek