The CW’s The Flash already has a tie-in with the short-lived 1990s series. Now it is gaining another with Star Wars alum Mark Hamill. The actor most famous for his role as Luke Skywalker is reprising his role as the memorable Flash villain The Trickster.
HitFix got the scoop that Hamill will appear as James Jesse – aka The Trickster – in the current season’s 17th episode. The Flash is hitting its mid-season finale this week, and will return on January 20, 2015. That pegs the Trickster episode at February 10.
The original Flash TV series ran for 22 episodes on CBS in 1990, and starred John Welsey Shipp as Barry Alen / Flash. Shipp returned to the 2014 CW version of the show as Barry’s father who was wrongly imprisoned following his mother’s murder. While Hamill’s 1990 Trickster was a giant bag of goofball (as seen in the video below), CW is going with a different take this time around.
“In this new iteration, The Trickster is an anarchist terrorist con man serving a life sentence in Iron Heights who helps Barry (Grant Gustin) and Det. West (Jesse L. Martin) to foil the city-wide attacks of a wannabe Trickster eagerly following in the original’s deadly footsteps. The episode will reunite him with John Wesley Shipp who went up against him as the original ‘Flash’ on the CBS version.”
Flash executive producer Andrew Kreisberg told HitFix , “Having Mark reprise his role as The Trickster was on our original wish list when we were planning our version of The Flash. Christmas and Chanukah came early for us this year when he said yes! We are beyond humbled and excited to have him joining us for another round of deadly trickery!”
Hamill and Shipp will not be the only ones from the 1990’s Flash to make an appearance on the show. Amanda Pays will return to reprise her role as Dr. Christina McGee, STAR Labs scientist and Flash love interest, as Hollywood Reporter conformed back in September. McGee serves as a rival to STAR Labs this time around though and will appear before Hamill.
Ironically, it was Hamill’s performance as The Trickster in the 1990 The Flash that led to his critically hailed work as The Joker in Batman: The Animated Series . His voice went on to define the character through multiple animated series, including The Justice League (where he also did The Trickster) as well as Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City .
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