Brandon Routh Says "Armageddon" Will Explore Ray Palmer as a Mentor

Ray Palmer (Brandon Routh) returns to The Flash in this week's episode to kick off the five-week "Armageddon" event. The story, which will also guest-star Cress Williams as Black Lightning, Javicia Leslie as Batwoman, Chyler Leigh as Alex Danvers, and Katherine McNamara as Mia Queen/Green Arrow, begins at a tech convention, where Palmer is there as part of his day job. Superheroing is something he has not been doing a lot of since leaving the Legends (Routh departed DC's Legends of Tomorrow two years ago), and both Ray and Routh seem pretty pleased to be getting back into it.

In the first episode, Routh says that he enters into Team Flash as a kind of mentor figure for Chester, who is attending the convention. He also said that he's open to reprising Ray Palmer -- in or out of the super-suit -- anytime.

"I had a really great call with Eric Wallace, the show runner over there, and had a really nice chat with him about what the story was going to look like and that it was going to be Ray and the Atom," Routh told ComicBook. "And it was all about celebrating Ray, and so that was very exciting -- to know that not only was I going to be a part of it, that there was going to be well respected and that they were continuing on and actually telling some more of Ray's story and Ray's journey, and also a little bit of Nora's story through Ray."

"Many of the times when Ray is on The Flash, he is there in a teaching capacity in some ways, or a mentor, which I think is something that Ray really takes a shine to, and likes that skill that he has," Routh continued. "He is a little bit of that for Chester in some ways. And then he is also...he's not coming out of a retirement necessarily, but since leaving the Waverider, he's devoted himself more to science in the time since. And so coming back and helping Team Flash and Barry is an opportunity to maybe for him to step out of just being the science guy, and back into the Atom, which is exciting for him."

Superhero suits are, of course, notoriously uncomfortable, but Routh got lucky: he has managed to keep in shape, in spite of the time since his last outing as The Atom.

"Being able to come back was just fun. It was nice. And the suit still fit!" Routh told us. "That was good, after two years of maybe not working out so much during the pandemic, and eating too much of Courtney's delicious, gluten-free baking. We made it work. It was nice to be back in the suit and to be part of Team Flash."

In "Armageddon," a powerful alien threat arrives on Earth under mysterious circumstances and Barry (Grant Gustin), Iris (Candice Patton) and the rest of Team Flash are pushed to their limits in a desperate battle to save the world. But with time running out, and the fate of humanity at stake, Flash and his companions will also need to enlist the help of some old friends if the forces of good are to prevail.

The Flash's "Armageddon" event begins tonight at 8 p.m. ET/PT on The CW.