Arrow: 8 Best Villains

Did you know that Malcolm Merlyn was Ra's al Ghul? If not, he spent many of his appearances in later seasons reminding you after Oliver passed on the original Ra's ring to him. In essence, the fact that his constant verbal reminders about his status and proclivity to emerge from the shadows became meme-worthy is symbolic a bit of the idea that his ongoing existence in the show defied a bit of logic after a certain point.

Before he was Ra's, though, he was the Dark Archer back in season one, the show's first big bad who helped set the original bar for future villains in the Arrowverse at large, an effective evildoer whose longtime existence in Oliver Queen's life long before he became a vigilante made for a complex dynamic between the two. Seemingly killed at the end of the season, he returned alive and well in season two with the knowledge that he was Thea's biological father, only to continue turning up season after season to both help and hinder Team Arrow.

Despite manipulating his own daughter to kill Sara Lance at the outset of season three and a host of other betrayals that followed that should've been the end of him, he survived it all until his seeming redemptive death in the season five finale. As mentioned earlier, his constant survival despite all he'd done became a little exhausting, but actor John Barrowman kept Merlyn entertaining enough anyway even when the character overstayed his welcome, and even at his "worst," he'll always remain one of Arrow's best antagonists.