Brandon Routh Lands The Role Of The Atom

Fresh off the heels of a number of other casting announcements for The CW’s “Arrow,” TVLine has learned that former Superman Brandon Routh has been cast in the role of Ray Palmer aka The Atom for the upcoming third season of the series. The site reports that Palmer will serve as a love interest for Felicity Smoak as well as become the new head of Queen Consolidated.

A previous report on casting also teased that we’ll be seeing Palmer suit up as “a tech-powered superhero.” Might we be seeing Routh riding an arrow as the microscopic version of himself?

Capable of shrinking to subatomic sizes, Ray Palmer was introduced in 1961 by Julius Schwartz, Gardner Fox and Gil Kane.

A member of the Justice League and Teen Titans at one point, The Atom and Green Arrow actually share an adversary in Deathstroke, played by Manu Bennett in “Arrow”.

As TVLine notes, while The Atom has appeared in several DC animated projects, Arrow will mark the first time the size-changing character will be seen in live-action.

Also joining Arrow this fall — as previously reported by TVLine — are “Sin City‘s” Devon Aoki as DC Comics superheroine “Katana”, Karl Yune as Oliver’s Hong Kong handler and Katana’s husband Maseo Yamashiro, and Peter Stormare as Count Vertigo.

Routh’s TV credits include NBC’s late, much-missed Chuck, CBS’ short-lived Partners and, more recently, Crackle’s Chosen and Fox’s Enlisted.

This will actually be the fourth comic book-derived project for Routh, following “Superman Returns,” “Scott Pilgrim vs The World” and “Dylan Dog: Dead of Night.”

Routh just completed an arc on TV Land’s The Exes and recently wrapped the indie 400 Days opposite Dane Cook, Tom Cavanagh and Ben Feldman. Arrow‘s Season 3 premiere is October 8.