Fresh off concluding John Diggle’s long-running Arrowverse storyline, The Flash Season 8 is nearing the end of its race, but fans of the long-running DC TV show needn’t worry because Season 9 is on the way. As has been the case in past seasons of The Flash (and pretty much every Arrowverse show), it stands to reason the Season 8 finale, a.k.a. “Negative: Part Two,” will set the stage in some day The Flash Season 9, but ahead of that, we’ve learned that one of the show’s major villains is returning. Ramsey Rosso, a.k.a. Bloodwork, is back in play for Season 9, and this was revealed in an on-brand way: a cliffhanger at the end of a comic book.
For the last several months, DC Comics has been publishing Earth-Prime, an Arrowverse-set comic series that follows a variety of protagonists from The CW’s DC shows. The latest issue, Earth-Prime: Hero’s Twilight #6, ties together the crossover’s narrative threads, and there’s also a backup story (written by Jeff Harsh and Thomas Pound, and illustrated by Pablo M. Collar) starring Cisco Ramon, Kamilla Hwang and Tinya Wazzo, the latter of whom was introduced in The Flash Season 8 and serves as the Arrowverse’s take on Phantom Girl.
This backup story, which takes place at an A.R.G.U.S. facility, starts off with Cisco and Kamilla training Tinya to use her phasing abilities more effectively. However, they soon have to deal with a prison riot that brings them into conflict with Weather Witch, Doctor Polaris, Girder and an A.R.G.U.S. guard controlled by the Medusa Mask. Cisco and Tinya ultimately defeat the super-criminals, but their victory is partially tainted by the fact that during the riot, Bloodwork broke free. The final panel ended with this tease: “To Be Continued In The Flash Season 9.” It is also worth noting that within Earth-Prime: Hero’s Twilight #6’s main story, a future version of Bloodwork appeared in Central City in 2049, but he was soon taken down by Martian Manhunter. As far as the present-day Bloodwork is concerned, he’s in the wind, and that’s not good for anyone.
Bloodwork, played by Heroes’ Sendhil Ramamurthy, served as the main antagonist of the first half of The Flash Season 6, with Ramsey Rosso being introduced as a colleague of Caitlin Snow’s who was desperate to find a cure for HLH, the cancer that killed his mother and he was likely to suffer from someday too. To that end, Ramsey injected his blood with a cure cocktail that included dark matter, which gave him the ability to control and manipulate blood. This in turn allowed him to do things like take control of people’s wills through “infection,” revive his victims as “zombies,” form blood contracts and, if he absorbed enough blood, turn into the monster seen below.
Ramsey nearly succeeded in infecting all of Central City with the help of Dark Flash, i.e. Barry Allen under his control, but the rest of Team Flash was able to snap the Scarlet Speedster back to normal, and he defeated the villain soon after. Ramsey was then put in the Mental Augmentation Chamber (MAC) and taken into A.R.G.U.S. custody. He was last seen in the Season 6 episode “Liberation” when Eva McCulloch’s mirror minions sought Ramsey out for a sample of his special blood. Ramsey obliged, but he then stepped back into the MAC rather than escape because he was “playing the long game.”
So for over two years now, The Flash fans been waiting for payoff on Bloodwork’s ominous message, and thanks to Earth-Prime: Hero’s Twilight #6 (which you can read on DC Universe Infinite), we now know that’s coming in Season 9. It’s unclear if Bloodwork will be one of the next season’s main antagonists or if he’ll be a threat that Barry Allen and the gang will grapple with for only an episode or two. Either way, considering the speculation that Season 9 could end up being The Flash’s final season, it’s good to know that this particular plot thread is finally being followed up on rather than left dangling.
You can catch the final episodes of The Flash Season 8 Wednesday at 8 pm ET on The CW, and Season 9 will air as part of the network’s midseason block next year. Our 2022 TV schedule is available to look through if you’re curious about what’s currently airing or coming up in the near future.
