Casting News for ARROW, FLASH, and AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D.
Three new pieces of casting news have come out since San Diego Comic Con!
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Deadline is reporting that actor Simon Kassianides will be playing an ongoing part in the Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. second season. The character is named Bakshi who, as far as I know, is not in the Marvel comic universe. Bakshi is described as a confident right-hand man who’s not afraid to do the dirty work. The actor joins Lucy Lawless, Nick Blood and Reed Diamond as new cast members for the show. More here.
ARROW
Producers of Arrow have announced that J.R. Ramirez will play Wildcat in the upcoming season three. They described the character as having a mysterious past but is now a former boxer that runs a gym for underprivileged youths. It appears that he will be moving the Laurel Lance character in a new direction. My guess is that he will be training her so that she can take the role of Black Canary eventually (they certainly foreshadowed that in the last season finale). In the comics, Wildcat was a costumed superhero (albeit with no powers) with the Justice Society and he has trained many of the later generation of characters. Black Canary, Catwoman and Batman have all been students of Wildcat in various stories.
FLASH
Plastique is set to explode in the fifth episode of the freshman season of The Flash. Kelly Frye will be playing the character and her alter ego of Bette Sans Souci. Plastique will need the Flash’s help if she is to escape the U.S. government. Bette has the abliity to make any object she touches explode after an exposure to energy released in the same S.T.A.R. labs meltdown that gave the Flash his powers. The powers that be would like to use her as a human weapon and she would prefer not to. Enter the Flash!
In the comics, Bette was a terrorist attempting to force the separation of Quebec from Canada. Her first appearance came in Fury of Firestorm # 7 (December, 1982). She then made several appearances in Captain Atom and the two characters eventually engaged. Their wedding was never shown but it was later implied that they had gotten married but it didn’t last. Plastique has made a couple of appearances in the New 52 and seems to have gone back to her naughty ways.
