6 Times Arrow Improved Green Arrow Mythology (& 4 Times It Failed)

2. Slade Wilson’s Descent Into Madness

Arrow Deathstroke Slade Wilson
The CW

Names don’t really get much more badass than Deathstroke the Terminator. But while Slade Wilson has long been a fan favourite comic book villain of many, he’s never been as wonderfully fleshed out as he has been during Arrow’s eight seasons.

Season 2 of Arrow remains one of the very best single seasons of genre TV from the past decade. A bold statement? Sure. Yet seeing the descent into madness of Manu Bennett’s Slade Wilson was glorious to watch unravel.

If you remember, Slade and Oliver ended the show’s first season flashback moments as ‘brothers’, and that was a relationship that continued to develop in the flashbacks of the show’s second season. In that second year, the flashbacks ran concurrently with present-day attacks on Starling City that were ultimately revealed to have been masterminded by the presumed-dead Slade Wilson and his army of Mirakuru soldiers.

Since that second year, Wilson has turned up at several occasions – as enemy, as friend, and as uneasy ally.

Even though the comics have positioned Slade Wilson as an antihero at times over the decades, never has Slade been given more room to breathe and show as many sides as he has in Arrow.

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Senior Writer
Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer and Presenter, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main day job, his role as lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund and Eli Roth to Kevin Smith and the Russo Brothers, to Kevin Conroy and Frank Miller, to Bret Hart and Sting, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, and Brian Flynn, to many, many more. Where his beloved Wrexham AFC is concerned, Andrew is a long-standing season ticket holder and an FSA Award-winner for his time co-hosting the Fearless in Devotion podcast.