With The Thinker and his "gimme all them powers" M.O., The Flash Season 4 landed on a pretty brilliant justification to introduce a new batch of metahumans into Central City. We now know who two of the last three bus metas will probably be, as well as another wild comic book villain being cast, and it sounds like The Thinker will be extremely interested in sapping the brainpower from one of them in particular.
According to a trio of casting notices reported by The Hashtag Show, The Flash viewers will likely get to see the bizarre comic book foe Edwin "Folded Man" Gauss appearing in the nearish future as one very intriguing bus metas, along with a non-comic-specific female character going by the name "Null." And on the non-meta side of the casting, we will also get to see the vampiric villain Crucifer at some point. Let's dive into these descriptions to see how things might go. SPOILERS below for anyone who who hasn't yet watched The Flash's "Subject 9."
The casting notice sees Edwin as a thirty-something hippie-leaning dude whose life gets completely changed after he develops a unique power that makes him very hard to find. That power isn't specified, but the comics offer a pretty big clue there. Originally, Edwin Gauss was an awe-inspiring genius who developed a suit that allowed him to travel between dimensions, such as the flat space of the second dimension and whatever the fourth dimension holds. While in the suit, he is known as Folded Man, since he can technically fold himself into a paper airplane to fly across a room.
Why would The Thinker be so interested in Folded Man? Because the episode "Subject 9" introduced Flash viewers to the concept of pocket dimensions, which are individual voids within reality that go undetected by just about everyone. The Thinker's lair was revealed to be inside of a pocket dimension, which is how DeVoe has been able to just appear and disappear at will. But something tells me he and wife Marlize have been using a mechanical tech device in order to make this happen, which would make Folded Man's inherent physical abilities that much more attractive to the still-mysterious villain. Plus, I'm sure DeVoe is interested in checking out the fourth dimension when a free moment arises.
The other presumed bus meta, dubbed Null, is set to be a recurring guest star, so we'll see her more than the others. An African-American woman in her mid-20s, the sassy and troublesome Null has spent years evading capture as a talented jewel thief, but everything changes once she develops the power to manipulate gravity. Considering there are quite a few DC characters who have gravity-based powers, it's trickier to determine if she'll be familiar or not.
While a dude who temporarily origamis his way out of existence is definitely weird, the comics' Crucifer is part of a race of vampires who eventually set their sights on superheroes for feeding. According to the notice, The Flash's Crucifer won't actually have any lines, and as the leader of the Tenth Circle, he'll apparently battle Danny Trejo's Breacher for an upcoming episode. Which means he's probably from Earth-19, where Breacher and his daughter Gypsy reside. I'm sure The Thinker would love to get a bloodsucker's powers in his arsenal.
We can't wait to see who gets cast for these roles, assuming they're all legit additions. While waiting for that and Iris' big super-episode, be sure to watch The Flash every Tuesday night on The CW at 8:00 p.m. ET, and head to our midseason premiere schedule to see other new and returning shows on the way.
