ARROW Casts Joe Dinicol as Ragman

Star City is getting pretty crowded in Season 5.

Entertainment Weekly has revealed that the CW series Arrow has cast Joe Dinicol as Rory Regan, better known to DC Comics fans as the supernatural vigilante Ragman.  The role will be recurring and he'll first appear in the second episode of Season 5

According to the article, Regan is described as "Fresh from a personal tragedy, Rory hopes to find answers in Star City, where he ultimately crosses paths with Green Arrow (Stephen Amell)."

Dinicol, 32, is a Canadian actor probably best known as David Wagner on the NBC series Blindspot.  He's appeared in the film Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and on episodes of Grey's Anatomy, Betas, Flashpoint, The Famous Jett Jackson, and Eerie, Indiana: The Other Dimension.

Created in 1976 by Robert Kanigher and Joe Kubert, Ragman first appeared in Ragman #1 as Rory Regan, a Vietnam veteran, who had grown up helping his father, a junk man who owned a pawn shop named Rags'n'Tatters.  While drinking with his friends one night, his father discovered two million dollars stuffed inside an old mattress that had been pawned just recently.  He and his friends decided to hide the money for Rory, since they were too old to truly benefit from it.  The money turned out to be the loot from an armored car heist and when the hoods came to the shop one night to get it, they shot down some electrical wires and used them to torture Rory's father and his friends into revealing where the money was hidden.  

Rory arrived soon after and seeing his father in agony attempted to pull him free from the wires.  A final shock of power ran though the old men and grounded out at Rory, knocking him unconscious.  When he woke, his father and friends were dead and the hoods responsible were gone.  Using a costume made out of old rags (his father had bought it from a stranger before he died and left a note saying Rory could wear it to a costume party) he became Ragman, "The Tatterdemalion of Justice."

The character was reworked in 1991, with the costume made from materials found around the rag shop, Rags'n'Tatters, that he shared with his father.  Each of the patches in the suit was made from the soul of an evildoer that the Ragman had punished and absorbed.  The absorption of these souls caused a problem for Rory at one point, when the evil souls hungered for murder and finally freed themselves of Ragman.  It was only with the support of Batman and Regan's old friend, Rabbi Luria, that he regained control, though at the cost of Luria's life.  Ragman's powers increased, allowing him to absorb souls into his costume. With each new soul added, a rag is added.  He can call upon the souls in his costume to lend him their attributes or power.  He is also a very proficient magic user and later joined the supernatural team the Shadowpact,

Arrow returns to The CW for Season 5 on October 5, 2016.