Arrow Adds Jimmy Akingbola as Baron Blitzkrieg for Season 4

Via The Hollywood Reporter, we have news of another addition to the Arrow cast for Season 4.

Jimmy Akingbola will take on the new role.

When it was announced yesterday that British actor Jimmy Akingbola had been cast as the villainous Baron Reiter in Arrow season 4, it raised some eyebrows, as Akingbola is black, and Baron Reiter is better known in comic books as the Nazi supervillain Baron Blitzkrieg.

Unlike most villains that we have seen on Arrow, Dahrk doesn’t justify why he does his crimes and is simply in it for evil. The character will appear on the series in a series of flashbacks. In 2010 he starred in BBC2’s Rev. where he played Mick. He later played the lead role in The Dimples Cry (2010), starred in Hominid (2010), and was featured in Habibti (2010).

“The Baron is the head of the Shadowspire criminal organization, which in the next salvo of Arrow flashbacks will attempt to recruit a post-Hong Kong Oliver”. The Baron started off as a cruel Nazi-era German soldier who was blinded and disfigured after having acid thrown in his face by a concentration camp prisoner. Both the Baron and Savage perform experiments which lead to the creation of the superhero Damage.

Arrow is adding another new character for Season 4, and while it appears he won’t have too much to do in the present, he’ll be an integral part of Oliver’s past. And so it is with Baron Blitzkrieg.

In the comics, Baron is from Earth Two and is known for being the nemesis to Wonder Woman.

We’ll probably get some answers early on, as “Arrow” season 4 premieres October 7 and there are few episodes that don’t have some sort of flashback in them.