Candyman star Tony Todd, who isn’t wholly unfamiliar with DC projects, having played a one episode “freak of the week” role on Smallville over a decade ago and more recently portraying the voice of Icon on Young Justice, will now be joining the cast of The Flash for its second season as the the voice of its newest major threat: Zoom.
Per Variety, the villain’s first appearance will coincide with the arrival of Jay Garrick in the new season’s second episode: “Flash of Two Worlds”.
Andrew Kreisberg, executive producer of the series, spoke to the outlet about why Todd was their go-to choice for this new version of Zoom:
Last year, with the Reverse-Flash, we just modulated Tom Cavanagh’s voice, and this year we wanted to do something a little bit different. Part of the mystery of the season is who or what is underneath the Zoom outfit, and so we wanted to do something like James Earl Jones as Darth Vader — this iconic voice coming out of this mask. Last year, we thought of the Reverse-Flash as a speed warrior; this year, Zoom is like a speed demon, and no one does demon-voice better than Tony Todd.
But how will Zoom differ physically from Reverse Flash/Eobard Thawne? Kreisberg made mention of one eye-catching detail:
The Zoom outfit is much more organic than the Reverse-Flash suit. In a way, it’s hard to tell if it is a suit or alive… There’s no skin showing, for all you know there’s a robot underneath, or dark energy.
In addition, the report details that the identity of Zoom will be drawn out significantly more than last year’s Harrison Wells reveal, which occurred at the midway point of the first season.
I’m curious how they’ll be able to differentiate the actual motivations of Zoom and Reverse Flash, especially with Tom Cavanagh still appearing this season in some form or another. The characters in the comics are very different, of course, but much of Hunter Zolomon’s motivation seemed to get grafted a bit onto Wells.
Outside of the next season of Fargo, this might be the television series I’m most looking forward to in the Fall.
