At the end of the first season finale of the CW's The Flash, Barry raced into the heart of a wormhole threatening to engulf Central City.
Previews and promotional trailers teasing season two, though, show Central City intact, so it's obvious that Barry, as the Flash, saved the day, although we don't yet know how. In a new clip from the first episode of season two, Central City honors the Flash with a "Flash Day" and hosts a grand celebration to offer the superhero a key to the city.
Of course, such a celebration tends to attract villainous types, so the clip also shows a man dressed all in black, his face hidden, moving through the crowd. Then, the Flash must move fast to save the mayor from an object crashing down from the sky. Following this, Barry sees the man in black: was he responsible for nearly killing Central City's mayor?
This season of The Flash also introduces multiple universes, including one where Jay Garrick, another version of the Flash, happens to exist: but Jay is in this universe to warn the Flash about a new villain that threatened his universe and will soon threaten Barry's: Zoom.
The CW recently announced Tony Todd as the voice of Zoom but kept the face of the new villain secretive: anyone could actually be under that mask.
"We have to service the entire audience, both the fans and the non-fans, and I think we've shown up until this point a great deal of respect and reverence for the source material, so that we always feel like we're fulfilling the comic book fans' expectations while also not spoon-feeding them stuff directly from the comics," said The Flash executive producer Andrew Kreisberg to Variety. "So the story of Zoom and who and what he is ... hopefully comic book fans will be happy because we've come up with a clever way to spin the tale, but that also makes it exciting for the people who aren't as familiar with the comics and are just enjoying the show on its own terms."
This season also sees Barry go up against Atom Smasher, a character from DC Comics that's nuclear-powered and has incredible strength and the ability to double his size. We'll also finally get our first look at Wally West, aka Kid Flash, but he won't appear exactly as comic book fans expect.
"I will say that like we did last year, Andrew [Kreisberg] is great at taking the character in the comic book and giving it a little spin, making it a little different than what they are there," said The Flash showrunner Gabrielle Stanton to IGN. "The Wally West you're going to see in Season 2 of The Flash is not going to be the traditional Wally West you see in the comics."
The Flash returns to the CW tomorrow night.
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