Wally West Casting News
There has been a ton of Flash casting over the last few months. We got Atom Smasher. We got Vandal Savage (technically cast for Legends of Tomorrow but I’m counting it). We even got Hawkman. But none of these characters are half as interesting as the casting of newcomer Keiynan Lonsdale as The Flash. Finally, there will be a Flash on a show called The Flash. I’m joking of course, but only kind of. Keiynan will be playing a character named Wally West who is technically one of the Flashes.
Much like the Green Lantern or Captain America, The Flash is not a title but a mantle traditionally held in the DC Universe by the fastest heroic speedster. Originally that was a character names Jay Garrick, who we will also be seeing this season. Later it became the Flash we CW fans are most familiar with, Barry Allen. But during the Crisis on Infinite Earths, Barry sacrificed himself and Wally West took up the title of The Flash. In fact, I would wager that Wally is the Flash many younger fans are more familiar with because Wally West, not Barry Allen, was the Flash in the popular Justice League cartoon series of the 2000’s.
It seems likely that this season will deal heavily with the DC multiverse considering the Comic Com footage featured a voiceover in which Garrick warned that our “Earth is in danger” as if he has his own Earth 2 somewhere. It is likely that West will gain his powers in the latter half of the second season, although it is possible that he won’t have powers at all this seeing considering the introduction of Garrick and Zoom will put a lot of speedsters on screen at once. In case you were wondering, Wally has a similar power set to Barry. He wasn’t originally as fast but he did have the power to make things explode which is pretty useful. Eventually he did become faster than Barry with a little help from his ol pal Eobard Thawne.
Wally is traditionally the nephew of Iris West, although up until this point we have heard very little about the West family outside of Iris and Joe. It is likely that this new season will introduce Iris’ mother and Wally will come from that side of the family. Wally sometimes goes by the name Kid Flash and is even a founding member of the Titans. Most interestingly, Wally marries Linda Park a character who Flash fans would recognize as Barry’s seemingly normal season one girlfriend who dumped him after two dates because his “heart didn’t ache for her”. Yikes. Either way, it would be interesting to see if Wally peruses that relationship on the show and ends up with Barry’s ex. Drama.
Keiynan Lonsdale is a relative newcomer to the television scene. The Autstralian actor had a starring role on the hit show Dance Academy and was part of the supporting cast of the film Insurgent. Besides that he hasn’t been up to too much else besides recording a couple of songs including covers that are quite good which only strengthens my theory that we are getting a musical episode eventually. Come on NPH. Bring back the Music Meister!
The Flash Season 2 premieres on October 6th.
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Matthew Nando Kelly is an incredibly cool and handsome staff writer for Pop-Break who was allowed to write his own bio. Aside from Flash recaps, Matt focuses on film, television, music, and video games. Matthew also has a long running podcast called Mad Bracket Status where he discusses pop culture related brackets with fellow Pop-Break writer DJ Chapman and a brand new podcast called Trumpdate which is a weekly update on the presidential campaign of Donald Trump. He loves U2, cats, and the New Orleans Saints and his twitter handle is @NationofNando
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