Every Arrowverse Season Ranked From Worst To Best
3. Arrow Season 1
The idea of a world without Smallville left fans wondering if superhero TV would disappear into obscurity once more. Thankfully, we didn't have to wait long to find out as Arrow debuted on The CW a little over a year later.
A dark and twisted reimagining of DC Comics' Green Arrow, the debut season told the story of how a shipwrecked Oliver Queen returned to the city he left behind five years prior and sought to reign down vengeance on those poisoning it - all while hoping to prove himself to the love of his life, Laurel Lance.
With a strong central narrative that set the show apart from your average villain-of-the-week series, an exceptional use of flashbacks to showcase Oliver's "five years in hell", and a positively brilliant threat responsible for all of it in the Dark Archer, Arrow reinvented the Green Arrow for a new generation and, in taking inspiration from Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy, produced one of the strongest seasons of the 2012-2013 TV season - something that wouldn't have been possible without its stellar cast.
By the time that the credits rolled on the season finale, it was clearer than ever that, yes, superheroes still had a place on TV. Arrow hadn't failed its source material... at least not yet.