10 Radical Ideas To Save Arrow

DC/Warner have made it very clear to Arrow's producers that the Suicide Squad are off the table from now on because of the upcoming big budget movie. That meant that two major players in Arrow's world needed to be permanently removed to avoid confusion with the (very, very different) big screen iterations of those characters: hence the sudden deaths of both Deadshot and Amanda Waller.

For the same reason, we’re not going to see anyone big from the Superman and Batman mythos in the Arrowverse version of DC continuity. In fact, as more and more movies get greenlit, less and less of the characters from the comics will be available for them to use.

This, of course, causes all kind of problems for DC’s flagship TV shows - but only if they let it. If Arrow isn’t going to get the support it needs from DC/Warner, then it needs to be be its own thing. They’ve already put four years into crafting a Green Arrow adaptation. Perhaps that’s enough.

There's no real reason to keep shoehorning second-string DC villains and supporting cast into every single episode or storyline. Look at John Diggle: the character was invented for the show, and he’s worked like gangbusters on a variety of levels.

No one was gagging to see the Demolition Team on the show, and who really cares about Lady Cop, or Double Down? You’d have to be a massive DC geek to know who these people are in the first place. Everyone else was on Wikipedia in the commercial break trying to figure out who the bloody Bug-Eyed Bandit was. They've adapted the lamest of the lame, and for no good reason.

Arrow needs to create a few of its own antagonists, ones that fit the show properly. As original creations, the CW would have the rights to them forever.