Arrow season 8 started in a way that was both familiar and unfamiliar for longtime fans. Though the opening was a near-perfect recreation of the first scene of the pilot, there was one very noticeable difference – instead of Deathstroke’s mask displayed on a pike with an arrow through the eye, it was Batman’s cowl. Not only did this tell us we were on another Earth – Earth-2, to be exact – but it’s also the first time the iconic mask has been seen on the series.
While speaking to TV Line, showrunner Beth Schwartz explained that it’s all down to Batwoman, which just debuted the other week, that Arrow can now get away with on-the-nose visual references to the Bat-mythos that it’s never been able to do before. In fact, her words suggest that there will be many more to come this season in the Arrowverse.
“Thank god for Batwoman. Now that they’re in our universe we’re able to get away with a lot more things Batman-related.”
TV Line’s write-up seems to confirm this is just a fan-pleasing easter egg, but it does raise a lot of questions about how things played out on Earth-2. We’re now left to wonder if Bruce Wayne was the one who trained Oliver Queen on Lian Yu, instead of Slade Wilson as on Earth-1. The arrow in the mask also suggests that there might’ve been a stand-off between the two and the archer came out on top. Was Earth-2’s Batman evil?
We’ll probably never know now as Earth-2 was destroyed in a wave of antimatter by the end of the episode. This is a pretty big deal, as it apparently kills two major Flash characters as well as marking the first casualties of the incoming “Crisis on Infinite Earths.” Thankfully, though, there’ll be a different Batman around to help save the universe in the crossover, with Kevin Conroy making his live-action debut as the Dark Knight.
Arrow season 8 continues Tuesdays on The CW.
