THE FLASH Casts Tony Todd as the Voice of Zoom

The Flash's Season 2 Big Bad has found his voice.

Variety reports that the CW series The Flash has cast Tony Todd as the voice of DC Comics supervillain Zoom.  Zoom will first encounter The Flash in the second episode this season, "Flash of Two Worlds."

"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," said executive producer Andrew Kreisberg. "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."

Todd, 60, is best known as Daniel Robataille in the Candyman movies, as Ben in the 1990 Night of the Living Dead remake, and as Worf's brother Kurn on Star Trek: The Next Generation.  He's appeared in numerous horror and science-fiction roles, including the adult Jake Sisko on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Grange in The Crow, Augustus Cole on The X-Files, and Vyasa on Angel.

He's also appeared in a number of comic book projects, including Young Justice as Icon, Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Smallville, and as Darkseid in two Lego DC Comics Super-Heroes: Justice League direct to home video movies.

As for Zoom, Kreisberg compared Zoom’s appearance to Marvel supervillain Venom, remarking, "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, Kreisberg commented on what drives the character.  "For us, the best villains are the ones who don’t have megalomaniacal ‘I want to rule the world’ motivations.  Last year, the Reverse-Flash had a very simple goal which was ‘I just want to go home, and if people need to die or cities need to get wasted for me to get that, so be it.’  And Zoom has a very similar, personal goal this season…simple and easy to understand, and very primal. And just as with Wells last year, Zoom doesn’t care who gets hurt or what gets destroyed in the service of him getting his goal."

And unlike last season, Zoom's true identity will be Eddie Thawne drawn out as a mystery.  "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.  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."

The Flash returns to The CW for Season 2 on October 6, 2015.