Nobody tells the Flash to slow down. You do that, and the man’s bound to run circles around you. Similarly, nobody tells the writers of CW’s “The Flash” to slow down, because they’re just having too much fun. If you thought season one of the series brought the thunder, then strap in for season two, because if the recent series of announcements are any indication, we won’t even know what hit us. We’ve already had glimpses of the multiverse teased to us in the show, and it’s been confirmed that season two will blow it all wide open. Between characters like Jay Garrick, Jesse Quick, and many others, it’s clear that they’re pulling out all the stops. But they’re apparently not done with the surprises yet. Yes, we knew that Zoom would be in this season, but not much was known about this iteration of the character until now.

According to Variety, the character Zoom will take on Barry Allen starting in the second episode of “The Flash” this season. What’s more, the character will be voiced by actor Tony Todd (Darkseid in “Lego DC Comics Super Heroes: Justice League vs. Bizarro League “). Now, if you’re like me, your head may have tilted in confusion upon reading this. “Voice,” you say? But isn’t this live-action?

Executive producer Andrew Kreisberg gave Variety the details.

“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. 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.”

So despite the fact that Zoom’s traditional costume is very Flash-esque–with the lower part of the face revealed–it seems they’ll be going a completely different direction with this iteration. The EP went on to expand on the other differences in the design of Zoom’s costume, going so far as to compare it to Venom from the Spider-Man comics.

“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.”

Sounds promising, and it’s doubtful that all five Zoom fans out there will cry out for how disloyal they are being to the character just because of a costume change. However, that’s not likely to be the biggest of changes. As with any comic book adaptation, characters tend to be mixed, matched, and juggled around, and Zoom may very well suffer the same fate. So if you know who the character in the comic is (Hunter Zolomon), it doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll know who he is in the show.

“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.”

Of course, a villain is nothing without the proper motivations and goals, and thought Zoom’s looking to be big and bad, that doesn’t mean he’ll have paper-thin motivations.

“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.”

Are you pumped for the next season? Just over one month to go!

“The Flash” returns to The CW on October 6, 2015 at 8pm. 

SOURCE: Variety