If the last few months are anything to go by, DC’s main marketing strategy for Batman V. Superman: Breaking Dawn is to hire as many people as possible to play as many superheroes as possible. That way, sites like this one right here will keep talking about it even though there’s not much to say yet.
That tactic has apparently now been adopted by DC’s TV superheroes as well. Over the past week or so, The CW’s Arrow has cast Devon Aoki to play Katana, Brandon Routh to play The Atom, and Peter Stormare to play a new Count Vertigo. The show has barely started filming its third season, and we’re already talking about it. Look how easily we can be manipulated!
Anyway, Variety is now reporting that Robbie Amell—who recently starred on The CW’s Tomorrow People—will be joining The Flash as Ronnie Raymond, also known as the superhero Firestorm. Robbie Amell is the cousin of Arrow’s Stephen Amell, so it’s a safe bet that someone will make an “are you guys related?” gag if the two ever share a scene together, and it will also turn the Amell family Thanksgiving dinner into the world’s most exclusive Comic-Con panel.
Now, Firestorm is probably a B-List superhero on his best day, so most people aren’t as familiar with him as they are with guys like Batman, but he’s surprisingly complicated. Despite his name and the fact that he looks like a guy on fire, his powers aren’t really fire-based. He can actually rearrange molecules and other hard-to-explain stuff that has something to do with nuclear energy. Also, he’s composed of two different guys, with one controlling the body and another acting as a voice in his head, because that’s what happens when you’re involved in some kind of magic explosion in a comic book.
Amell’s Ronnie Raymond will make his first appearance later this year in The Flash’s third episode.