'The Flash': Who is Goldface?

The Flash sent Barry and Ralph deep into Central City's criminal underworld tonight -- and right into contact with a dangerous new foe.

Spoilers for tonight's episode of The Flash, "Goldfaced", below!

As was teased in promos for the episode, Barry (Grant Gustin) and Ralph (Hartley Sawyer) had to go undercover deep in Central City's criminal underworld as a way of acquiring the tools they need to stop the metahuman serial killer Cicada (Chris Klein). However, while on that mission Barry discovers a new weapon that is designed to destroy police body armor, thus brutally killing the Central City Police officers wearing it. Barry's attempt to purchase the entire cache gets the attention of none other than Goldface.

In comics, Goldface may be a familiar character to some fans. Originally appearing as a Green Lantern foe in Green Lantern #38 from 1965, the character eventually moves to Central City to cause trouble for The Flash. Real name Keith Kenyon, Goldface is a scientist who ends up drinking a gold-based serum that he was working on. This ends up giving him superhuman strength and invulnerability while also giving him a golden glow. The character's origin is later retconned, making him a political science student at the University of California Coast City who discovered a chest of gold contaminated by toxic waste, with those waste giving him his powers. In both origins, Goldface uses his powers not for good, but for crime.

It's interesting that one of Goldface's comic book origins involves a science experiment that he subjects himself to as it echoes the metahuman cure plot currently unfolding on The Flash. As fans may recall, Cisco (Carlos Valdes) is working on a cure after coming to see his powers as a curse, not a gift. However, that metahuman cure may end up being more of a problem than a salvation.

"One of the things we're starting to deal with with Cisco is that Barry and Iris are able to juggle this superhero life with a relationship, a marriage, but Cisco is a little less certain that he is able to do that -- and he doesn't know that he wants to," showrunner Todd Helbing said of the metahuman cure in a recent interview. "So he is going to start realizing that is if there is a cure out there, 'maybe it's something I should think about.' For Caitlin, meanwhile, it creates this interesting thing, now that she and Killer Frost are more [simpatico]. If Caitlin were to take the cure, she'd lose this personality [inside her], so there's a tension that starts to arise between [her and Killer Frost]."

In tonight's episode, Goldface doesn't really get an origin nor do we see much of his powers until near the end when it's revealed that he has the ability to essentially turn into solid gold but despite that -- and the fact that he's nullified Ralph and Barry's powers -- ultimately help him. The heroes manage to take him down and put an end to his criminal run.

The Flash airs Tuesdays at 8/7c on The CW.