The CW's Arrow is rounding out new cast members for its upcoming Season 5 debut, and now we've learned a bit more about an addition to the villain-fighting team. It looks like there will be a new vigilante hitting Star City in the next season, and actor Rick Gonzalez has been tapped to play the hero.
A report form Entertainment Weekly notes that Rick Gonzalez will be joining Arrow for Season 5, starting with the series premiere in the fall. Gonzalez will play DC Comics character Wild Dog in the show, and the new vigilante's reckless and arrogantly confident behavior will lead to Oliver Queen taking him under his wing to show him how a well-seasoned vigilante does things around Star City. The character will appear in several episodes during the season.
Rick Gonzalez started his career in television with a part on F/X: The Series in 1997, and has since gotten roles in 63 films and television projects. The actor has been seen most recently on Rosewood, Mr. Robot, Rush and Battle Creek. He's also had roles on Law & Order: SVU, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, ER, Boston Public, The Shield, CSI and the film War of the Worlds.
Wild Dog made his first appearance in a four-issue DC Comics mini-series in 1987. In the comics, the character (real name: Jack Wheeler) is a former Marine whose entire squad was killed during a terrorist bombing. He takes up the vigilante lifestyle after his girlfriend, secretly the daughter of a mob boss, is killed by hitmen. He's an expert at hand-to-hand combat and marksmanship, and outfits himself with 9mm submachine gun and a pair of electrified gloves. Wild Dog wears a hockey mask to hide his identity, camouflage pants, combat boots and a local college football jersey emblazoned with a snarling red dog, which hides his protective body armor. In the comics, Wild Dog is not afraid to kill the shit out of criminals, but right now there's no word on whether or not this will be the trait that leads Oliver to pull him aside and offer him some vigilante training.
Actually, I wouldn't mind a return to vigilante justice in Star City that meant the out-right killing of the worst of the bad guys. One of the things Arrow did so well in its first season was to make Oliver Queen so determined to keep his family and the city he now called home again safe, that when he donned his superhero gear he was simply unwilling to suffer criminals to live. For someone who spent five years fighting for his life in one locale after another while his family and friends thought he was dead, that kind of unblinking eye toward justice made a lot of sense. Hopefully, with Wild Dog around for Season 5, the show can get back to at least some of the tougher heroics that made Season 1 such a success.
Well, we'll be able to see how Star City and Team Arrow react to Wild Dog this fall, when Arrow returns to The CW.
