8 Unforgivable Mistakes Arrow Made (From Which It Never Recovered)

The fact that a TV series about the notoriously light-hearted Green Arrow was inexplicably dark and moody came as a shock to the character's longtime fans - one that resulted in viewers comparing the show's titular character to Batman.

Those comparisons are rather easy to see, given that the comic book characters of Oliver Queen and Bruce Wayne were extremely similar to begin with - but the differences between them vastly outweigh any similarities. Arrow, however, didn't portray Oliver in that way.

The show drew a number of Batman comparisons in its early years as the Emerald Archer battled the likes of Deathstroke and Firefly, but none of these were worth complaining about because they ultimately benefited the overall tone. However, this all changed in Season 3 when the show took the Batman references too far.

Not only was the introduction of Ra's Al Ghul dangerous territory considering they had just adapted Deathstroke, but the writers went ahead and decided to adapt an entire Batman arc from the comics as 'The Demon's Head' took a liking to Oliver due to his skills as a vigilante and decided that he wanted the Arrow to be his successor - training him to become the next Ra's Al Ghul.

From there, it was impossible to deny the Batman comparisons, and many Bat-fans didn't take too kindly to what they believed to be the show's attempts to position Oliver Queen as superior to The Dark Knight - especially as now in hindsight we know Batman exists in the Arrowverse.