Over the course of the first five seasons of Arrow, we’ve seen this iteration of Oliver Queen undergo quite a bit of character growth, to say the least. As such, he wasn’t the superhero we knew from the comic books right out of the gate, which, at times, has forced people to compare him to Batman. In fact, he didn’t even adopt the name “Green Arrow” until season 4. Still, this isn’t the ten-year slow burn that Smallville was, so I’d say there isn’t room for too much complaining.
There is, however, one quality the TV series hasn’t really explored all that much, and that’d be Oliver being what some would refer to as a “bleeding heart.” To be honest, my introductions to the character came via the aforementioned Smallville and the animated show Justice League Unlimited, both of which never shied away from that particular trait.
Granted, the titular hero is now mayor of Star City by day and is more proactive when it comes to helping his fellow man within the parameters of the law than in previous seasons, but we’ve yet to fully see the social justice warrior known to lovers of the source material.
As it so happens, series lead Stephen Amell wants to go more in this direction in the coming year, something he spoke about at Heroes and Villains Fan Fest in Portland:
“I’ve said that it’s very, very important that if Oliver doesn’t take away lessons from Season 5 and doesn’t keep doing the things that have led to this catastrophic event, the character stops being interesting to me. So I hope that part of that, in Season 6 and if we have seasons beyond that, I hope that part of that is we get back to a lot of the tenets that people recognize from the comics. And that of course is humor and a socially conscious, slightly liberal superhero.”
While we’re yet to find out what exactly the ramifications of season 5’s finale will be, it does stand to reason that Oliver may experience an epiphany of sorts and become the man introduced by Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams’ now legendary run on Green Lantern/Green Arrow from the 1970’s.
Arrow returns for its sixth season on Thursday, October 12 on The CW. Will you be tuning in? Let us know in the usual place!
