Every The CW Superhero Show Ranked Worst To Best

That takes us to this one: The show that started the very superhero renaissance we've spent most of this article talking about. We are, of course, referring to Arrow.

Fresh off Smallville's uber-successful run, Arrow had to find a way of distancing itself from Justin Hartley's excellent comic-accurate rendition of the Emerald Archer in that show, so the creative team decided to take Christopher Nolan's approach in his revered Dark Knight trilogy and apply it to the small screen instead. The result was nothing short of genius.

It's hard to imagine where the world of superhero TV would be without the barriers that Arrow broke down. A clear example that modern day comic book programming could fit the mold of serialized storytelling and still pull off the fun capers of the week that its golden age predecessors did, the show's dark retelling of Oliver Queen's origins felt like they belonged on the big screen. And it was nothing short of incredible seeing this deeply troubled vigilante taking on the likes of Dark Archer and Deathstroke.

It's hard to sum up all that Arrow accomplished both as a show and for its genre, and it would be fully deserving of the top spot on this list for that alone. Unfortunately, it's impossible to overlook the poor creative direction that hampered multiple seasons midway through, brought on by far too many deviations from the source material, the death of a beloved character and one of the most problematic couplings in recent TV history.

That said, it had one heck of a run and will forever be remembered as the founding father of both the Arrowverse and the modern-day superhero resurgence.