'Flash' Season 2 Adds WWE's Edge as DC's Atom-Smasher

Vancouver production of The Flash Season 2 earlier afforded our first look at Barry Allen back in action battling a new villain, though the “Flash Day” setting and masked foe raised a number of questions. At least one of those questions now has an answer (albeit with a dozen more questions), as former WWE superstar Adam “Edge” Copeland will play masked DC figure Atom-Smasher.

ComicBook.com first reported the news, while The CW’s official description of Atom-Smasher’s role in the premiere may raise a few eyebrows:

One of the most powerful enemies we encounter this season, Atom Smasher has come to Central City to kill The Flash. His incredible strength and ability to grow to enormous size makes him more than a match for Flash and the entire S.T.A.R. Labs team will have to come together to find a way to defeat him.

Great! Except … the comic incarnation of Atom-Smasher is typically portrayed as a hero (not the friendliest name or look, granted), leading one to wonder what would send Copeland’s incarnation up against The Flash. Atom-Smasher’s secret identity of Al Rothstein was also previously mentioned as one of the known “victims” of the first season’s particle accelerator explosion, but since producers told us at Comic-Con that parallel world Earth-2 would fill the accelerator’s function of creating new characters, it might stand to reason that Barry’s unanswered trip through the wormhole may not have returned him to our Earth. Just a theory, mind you.

Elsewhere, we know of The Flash Season 2 that The Messengers alum Shantel VanSanten will guest as DC character and Barry’s new love interest Patty Spivot, joining Masters of Sex alum Teddy Sears as Golden Age speedster Jay Garrick and Season 2 big bad Zoom. We’ll also meet fellow Flash Wally West, and see the returns of Gorilla Grodd, Captain Cold and Golden Glider (including their father), and likely others.

What other secrets and castings of The Flash Season 2 will emerge before its October 6 premiere? Will Barry become “The Man Who Saved Central City” from Atom-Smasher, or is something deeper at play here? Keep it here to find out!

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