9 Problems Nobody Wants To Admit About The Arrowverse
6. It Can't Escape Those Batman Comparisons
The CW
For a show that doesn't have Batman, the Arrowverse sure is obsessed with Batman.
Right from the very get-go, where the decision was taken to root Oliver Queen in a quasi-realistic environment, complete with a corrupt police force and a villainous company board to take on, Arrow has walked in the shadow of Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy. The comparisons are so obvious, so blatant, that - by the time season 3 rolled around - Green Arrow literally became Batman, echoing both the climax of Batman Begins and its preceding chapters by making Star City (Gotham) an obsession of the League of Assassins (Shadows).
Subsequent seasons have made an effort to tease and allude to various aspects of the Bat-mythos; Blüdhaven (Nightwing's home) has been a regular feature for a while, Oracle was name-dropped a while ago and indeed, even the Caped Crusader himself was acknowledged in the show's most recent episode.
But like, can they not just give it a rest? Not even for a moment? WB were understandably hesitant to let small-screen outlets play with their Bat-toys in the wake of Nolan's trilogy, but surely it's a better option than chopping and changing a mythos to retrofit a narrative clearly meant for something - or someone - else?
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.
