One of the defining features of fleet-footed superhero The Flash is that there’s rarely just one of them running around the DC Universe. Barry Allen (or whoever happens to be breaking the sound barrier in red and yellow pajamas at the moment) usually has a cohort of similarly speedy friends, young and old, to call on things get rough. The CW’s The Flash held off (mostly) on adding new speedsters to the mix in its first season, instead focusing on Grant Gustin’s Barry Allen, the mystery of his mother’s death, and his horde of villainous Rogues. But as the show’s second season approaches, that viewpoint has started to widen to include more members of the jet-speed set.
We’ve already heard that Teddy Sears from Masters Of Sex has signed on to play Jay Garrick, a mentor-like Flash from an older generation, when the show returns this fall. Now, the younger generation is getting in on the action, too, with Insurgent actor Keiynan Lonsdale joining the cast as occasional Kid Flash Wally West. Wally is the nephew of Barry Allen’s love interest Iris, and eventually winds up with his own connection to the Speed Force, joining Barry as a younger sidekick. (Although it’s worth noting that Lonsdale is only a year younger than Gustin, making the “Kid Flash” nickname a little bit hard to swallow if the show decides to use it.) Lonsdale has joined the show as a series regular, suggesting that Wally will have a season-long arc to come to terms with his new powers, whatever’s going on this season between Barry Allen and his aunt, and the unending indignity of living with the first name “Wally.”