10 Things Everyone Always Gets Wrong About Green Arrow

6. He's Not A Political Character

Green Arrow Politics
DC Comics

Whew boy, this one's a doozy.

But it's also sadly true. Unless you're strongly familiar with the character's bibliography (or indeed his appearances on Justice League Unlimited), there's a pretty high chance that the character's political roots, despite the Robin Hood motif, have proven to be somewhat elusive. The fact is, in the comics at least, Green Arrow is as much a social activist as he is a superhero; someone who embodies the liberalism of the Kennedy era and who wears his politics quite unashamedly on his sleeve.

Indeed, Oliver Queen's political beliefs are an integral part of the character, having come to blows with Hal Jordan, Barry Allen and even Hawkman regularly as a result of them. This rather explicit portrayal of the character's values represents something of an anomaly in the medium, despite countless stories and characters in both Marvel and DC providing analogues for real world issues, concepts and beliefs. Indeed, the politics of Green Arrow are fundamental to the character. To omit them would be a massive disservice to his history.

It's a quandary that the CW in particular have failed to address, and, apart from the many, many alterations to the Arrow lore, the absence of Oliver Queen's ideals remains the show's biggest failure. With repeated attempts by showrunners Marc Guggenheim, Greg Berlanti and Andrew Kreisberg to effectively have their cake and eat it, it's clear that Arrow's Oliver Queen suffers a massive crisis of identity.

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WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.