‘The Flash’: Who Is Silver Ghost?

The Flash returns from midseason hiatus tonight, and it’s set to bring a unique twist on a DC Comics villain in the process.

Mild spoilers for tonight’s episode of The Flash, “The Flash and The Furious”, below!

The episode will see Team Flash crossing paths with a few different foes, including returning Season 5 villain Weather Witch (Reina Hardesty). According to the episode’s synopsis, Weather Witch will be partnering up with Silver Ghost (Gabrielle Walsh), a metahuman with the ability to control technology (and apparently even have an effect on Barry’s speedster powers).

For some die-hard comic fans, Silver Ghost’s television debut is probably a surprising one — in part because it bears few similarities to the character in the comics.

In the comics, Silver Ghost is an alias of Raphael Van Zandt, a crime boss whose antics put him into conflict with the Freedom Fighters. When he first met the team, Silver Ghost ended up turning Phantom Lady, Black Condor, and Doll Man into solid silver statues, and then proceeded to blackmail the remainder of the team into becoming his underlings.

Uncle Sam, The Ray, and Human Bomb went along with the villain’s orders, but ultimately turned against him when he threatened to poison the New York Reservoir. The Ray was the one who ended up defeating Silver Ghost, by essentially short-circuiting his armor.

Silver Ghost made a few sporadic appearances in the years since, some of which were while impersonating the Americommando. He was later revealed to be an immigrant from Earth-X who had traveled to Earth-One to fight Firebrand. While he appeared to be killed in the fight with Firebrand, he was revealed to be alive in “Crisis on Infinite Earths”.

It certainly seems like The Flash is taking some creative liberties with Silver Ghost, as the television version has a different power-set from her comic book counterpart. But with quite some time since the second season of Freedom Fighters: The Ray aired, fans of that corner of the DC Comics universe will surely be happy to see Silver Ghost debut.

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