Arrow Season 4: 5 Reasons Why The Comics Shouldn't Matter
1. Adaptation
In recent years, adaptations of books for television have become popular. The most obvious example would be HBO’s Game of Thrones. As readers of the five books comprising the source material can attest, there is simply too much material to make it onto the show. Whether because of time or effects or budget, the characters and material are adapted rather than transferred from page to screen.
Transference is even more impossible for Arrow. There are decades of material composed by a variety of writers adhering to a variety of canons within at least one reboot of the entire DC universe. Transference of every major storyline for the Green Arrow to Arrow is literally impossible.
It is therefore essential that everybody both behind the scenes and behind the screens remember that Arrow is an adaptation of source material. Divergences from DC lore have, can, and will happen. The Oliver Queen of Arrow is not the Ollie Queen of the comics. The Laurel Lance of Arrow is not the Dinah Laurel Lance of the comics. Archvillains Dark Archer and Slade Wilson and Ra’s al Ghul of Arrow are not the archvillains of the comics. Felicity Smoak was from a different series, and John Diggle didn’t even exist within the comics until recently. The only way to enjoy both mediums is to accept them as fundamentally separate.