It’s no secret that the Firestorm situation in the DC TV universe is going to change in the coming months. Although Ronnie Raymond and Martin Stein started out as the Nuclear Man in The Flash Season 1, Robbie Amell won’t be reprising Ronnie in Legends of Tomorrow, leaving Stein to share the superhero mantle with another cast member in the DC spinoff. After he was mentioned earlier this year, we now have our first look at Legends of Tomorrow’s Jay Jackson, played by Franz Drameh, as the new Firestorm co-host.
In a new trailer for The Flash Season 2 (that has since been pulled), the CW gave a quick behind-the-scenes peek at Drameh as Firestorm next to Grant Gustin as the eponymous Scarlet Speedster. Just like Ronnie, Jay will be the body of Firestorm while Stein is giving him advice in his head. This summer at San Diego Comic-Con, Legends of Tomorrow executive producer Phil Klemmer mentioned that Jay will be the last person that Stein wants to share Firestorm with, and it looks like we’ll see these two together sooner than expected. Because this scene is in a Flash preview, this means that we’ll see Drameh debut as Jay either in one of the early Season 2 episodes or later this year in the Arrow/The Flash crossover alongside other Legends of Tomorrow players like Hawkman and Vandal Savage.
Jay Jackson was announced as one of Legends of Tomorrow’s lead characters last April. At the time, he was described as a former high school athlete whose pro career was killed by an injury, and is now working as an auto mechanic. Because he’s an original character, this left many wondering if he would be taking an established superhero identity, and that theory proved correct. Although The Flash episode “Revenge of the Rogues” introduced Jason Rusch, another Firestorm host from the comics, the DC creative talent opted to use Jay as Stein’s new partner,
It’s still unclear how Jay will meet the S.T.A.R. Labs team, but what’s more curious is how he will become the new Firestorm substitute. When the S.T.A.R. Labs particle accelerator exploded, it bonded Stein and Ronnie together via the Firestorm Matrix, giving them a unique connection. Obviously something is going to happen to Ronnie, so how will this connection be passed on to Jay? Whatever the explanation is, his life is about to head in a wild new direction on The Flash, and if that wasn’t crazy enough, Legends of Tomorrow will throw him into a temporal adventure alongside the show’s other heroes and villains.
A new Firestorm era will unfold when The Flash Season 2 premieres next Tuesday at 8 p.m. EST on The CW, and fans can look forward to Legends of Tomorrow sometime in 2016.
