Who Is The Man In The Iron Mask On The Flash?

JAY GARRICK

Almost immediately after the

Since February, the odds-on favorite is Jay Garrick to be wearing that iron mask in Zoom's dungeon.

The possibilty that Jay Garrick could somehow be the man in the iron mask is one that a lot of viewers are finding compelling.

What if the man in the mask wasn't asking about Jay, but warning Barry about Jay?

"J...A...Y" is the only message Barry got from the man in the mask during his first trip to Earth-2 -- and it's pretty clear that he was working on Barry's behalf, and he was happy when Barry managed to escape. He stood tall and brave when Barry told him that he wasn't going to save him now, but would be back later.

Something that might explain "Jay" as Zoom is that in the Golden Age, Jay had his own Reverse-Flash, later known as The Rival -- and that character, whom we once thought was the odds-on favorite to be Zoom, hasn't come up at all in the series yet.

What if he's actually the one who's been here the whole time, and Jay Garrick has been...somewhere else?

Then there's this observation from a reader:

CB127607 said ... (original post)

What if Jay Garrick is a twin....hense the man in the iron mask reference? I think that makes more sense

That's a really good point -- not just for the reference to The Man in the Iron Mask, but also because while Jay himself isn't a twin in the comics, twins are something that have run through the mythology of The Flash for years. Barry Allen was a twin (although we didn't find it out until years later), and then he and Iris had twins when they eventually had kids.

So did Wally West, Iris's nephew, when he started up a family with Linda Park.

HENRY ALLEN

I'm going to go ahead and say no...but that doesn't mean it won't be John Wesley Shipp.

Going back to the twin idea, it could easily be John Wesley Shipp as someone related to Earth-2's Henry Allen.

In a previous episode, Henry revealed to Barry that "Garrick" is a family name on his (Henry's) mother's side. So a lot of fans are expecting or hoping that the Earth-2 Jay, when the real Jay is revealed, it will be Shipp, whose Earth-1 version of Henry Allen was killed at the end of last week's episode.

So why am I convinced it woin't be the Earth-2 Henry Allen in the helmet?

Honestly, it's just a throwaway line in "Welcome to Earth-2." In that episode, Barry spoke with Earth-2 Nora Allen on the phone, and she said that she and Barry's father were on vacation. That indicates to me that it's unlikely he had been kidnapped by Zoom that day and thrown into the dungeon.

RONNIE RAYMOND

Ronnie Raymond is a popular choice, as well; last we saw him, he was hurled into the singularity at the start of Season Two...but some fans have wondered whether it could be that he wasn't killed but thrown to Earth-2 and captured by Zoom.

This would allow for the love of Caitlin's life to return, for him to presumably no longer need to be Firestorm, and for her to bounce back from the poisonous love life she's had with Zoom up to now.

Of course, one has to wonder why or whether Zoom would let him live if he had the abiilty to kill him, given his relationship to Caitlin.

EDDIE THAWNE

Eddie Thawne is an interesting one.

His Earth-2 doppelganger was on Barry and Iris's speed dial, so we assume he's still alive. He could be a potential victim of Zoom, then.

Or we could see -- much the same way we talked about with Ronnie Raymond -- the Earth-1 version, less dead than previously thought and captured by Zoom.

The upside to that, of course, would be bringing back Rick Cosnett, the actor, whom fans love. The downside? Well, Eddie's continued existence would mean that his sacrifice last year was for nothing and Eobard Thawne still exists somewhere. Also, continuity problems because we saw Eobard cease to exist.

But, again, could totally be Eddie, even if it wasn't "our" version of Eddie.

JAMES ZOLOMON

It's not clear whether James Zolomon is still alive or not -- but if he is, he seems like a pretty solid candidate to be the Man in the Iron Mask.

After all, his father was a soldier and that tap-code the Man in the Iron Mask used to pass messages along to Barry was one used by prisoners of war.

You've also got the fact that Zoom was distracted by images of his parents during the scene where Barry was running him through a gamut a few weeks back. It could be an interesting parallel to last week's showdown, with Barry's dad caught between the two, if the Man in the Iron Mask turned out to be Zoom's father and his presence somehow destabilized Zoom.