THE FLASH: Victor Garber Cast as Prof. Stein
Variety reports that Victor Garber (Alias, among lots of other things) has been added to the cast of The Flash as Dr. Martin Stein, the other half of the duo that make up Firestorm.
Robbie Amell, who has been cast as Ronnie Raymond, already confirmed that Firestorm would be making an appearance, but there was no confirmation if this would be the Raymond-Stein combination or the other iteration that fused Raymond with Jason Rusch. With this announcement, we now know it’s the original Firestorm that will be making his presence known.
Firestorm was originally created in a nuclear explosion that fused Ronnie Raymond and Martin Stein into one being, with Raymond being the body and Stein becoming a second consciousness inside Raymond’s head. Created in 1978 by Gerry Conway and Al Milgrom, Firestorm has been part of the Justice League for a number of years (pre-New52, at least). The New52 version of the character is the Raymond-Rusch fusion.
This version of Professor Stein is described as “as a brilliant but arrogant nuclear physicist who has sacrified everything, including a marriage, for his work in transmutation. After he discovers the particle accelerator fused him with the younger, more impulsive Ronnie Raymond (Robbie Amell), he races to find a way to separate the two before it’s too late.”
Too late? Does that imply a ticking time bomb scenario where the fusion could result in permanent injury or death? Doubtful, since Firestorm is one of the handful of characters rumored to be in consideration for yet another cape show in development at the CW.
Garber will first appear in the twelfth episode.
The Flash has enjoyed early success with the best ratings for a CW premiere in five years — a 1.8 rating/6 share in adults 18-49 and 4.5 million viewers overall. Recent casting announcements have also been generating buzz: Amanda Pays (reprising her role from the CBS version of The Flash), Prison Break alums Wentworth Miller and Dominic Purcell as Captain Cold and Heat Wave, Kelly Frye as Plastique, and Clancy Brown as General Wade Eiling.
