‘Clerks’, ‘Mallrats’, and ‘Chasing Amy’ writer and director Kevin Smith has a long history with superheroes. Aside from being a life-long comic book fan, the New Jersey native has written a number of stories for both Marvel and DC. You can find most of them at the comic book store featured on AMC’s ‘Comic Book Men’, which he owns. There’s also his many podcasts such as ‘Fatman On Batman’ where he likes to talk about his love for the Caped Crusader and others. However, when it comes to live-action adaptations, Smith hasn’t had the same opportunities. Though he took a pass at the Man of Steel with ‘Superman Lives’ starring Nicholas Cage, that project never came to fruition. The closest he’s come so far is appearing in the 2003 adaptation of ‘Daredevil’ starring his friend Ben Affleck. And though he has his own original superhero movie called ‘Yoga Hosers’ coming soon, he hasn’t gotten to play in the sandboxes of the Big Two at this point in his career. But thanks to the fastest man alive, that’s about to change.

Over the weekend at the Television Critics Association’s press tour, The CW announced that the fan favorite filmmaker would direct an upcoming episode of ‘The Flash’ scheduled to air in May. While no details regarding the episode have been released just yet, executive producer Andrew Kreisberg told Entertainment Weekly how it all happened:

“I literally got a phone call from his agent saying Kevin Smith’s favorite show is ‘The Flash’ and was there an episode for him and the answer was yes. It was really that simple. I know what a fan he is. I’m such a huge fan of his work. And it was funny because I just watched ‘The Death of Superman Lives’, it was serendipitous having him in my head again. I loved the movie ‘Dogma’ and the show ‘Reaper’ too, which he directed the pilot for. And obviously there’s a good deal of publicity that comes with this and as responsible executive producers we have to look at that. But we would never look at that at the expense of our own show. Knowing the scrutiny that the episode is going to be under, I know he’s going to bring it to his fullest.”

While it’s great to hear that Smith will finally get to direct a DC superhero, it’s interesting that he wasn’t brought on board for an episode of ‘Arrow’, which Kreisberg also works on. After all, the comic con king has connections to Oliver Queen thanks to his run on the ‘Green Arrow’ comic back in 2001. Maybe he’ll get to utilize some characters from his story like Roy Harper, the Black Canary, or the villainous Onomatopoeia when he takes his trip to Central City later this year. But even if he doesn’t, there’s already a lot for him to play with when it comes to Barry and the gang, so fans should be pretty excited either way. 

What do you think about Kevin Smith directing an episode of ‘The Flash’ this season? Are you excited about what the cult classic filmmaker could bring to the Arrowverse? Let us know in the comments. 

‘The Flash’ starring Grant Gustin, Candice Patton, Danielle Panabaker, Carlos Valdes, Jesse L. Martin, and Tom Cavanagh returns to The CW on Tuesday, January 18, 2016 at 8:00pm EST.