ARROW SEASON ONE – An Otaku’s Summary and Review

Spoilers!

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Based upon the DC Comic book character Green Arrow, Arrow mixes both drama and action with less than average acting. This improves when main character Oliver Queen stops with his personal narration in the first few episodes. Let me just get this out of the way first: Arrow IS NOT a rip off of Hawkeye from Marvel’s the Avengers. In fact, Green Arrow made his first comic book appearance in More Fun Comics back in the 1940s, long before Hawkeye appeared in Marvel Comics during the 1960s.

The story begins with billionaire playboy Oliver Queen (played by Stephen Amell from HBO’s Hung. Hey, who better to play a billionaire playboy than someone who played a gigolo) on a yacht with his dad and cheating on his girlfriend Dinah Laurel Lance with her sister Sarah. A storm hits, Sarah dies, and Oliver Queen is on a life boat with one other guy and his father who tells him how he is not the man Oliver thought he was. Their fortune was built on the suffering of others. As his dying wish, Oliver’s father asks him to write his wrongs, and then shoots the other crewmate and himself in order for Ollie to have enough food and water to reach land. For 5 years, Oliver Queen is stranded on a deserted island until Oliver is rescued by a passing boat crew who sees the fire Oliver which sets off with a arrow.

When Oliver returns to Starling City, he wastes no time in his preparation to right the wrongs of his father – armed with trick arrows and a bow. One of my issues about this series is Green Arrow’s use of excessive force. “I only kill when it is absolutely necessary” says Oliver Queen, explaining the difference between justice and revenge to Helena Bertinelli a/k/a Huntress.  I am trying to adjust to , this since as a kid, I was taught that superheroes fight the bad guys but don’t kill them. However, I think that status quo really has changed in our current society with the rise of gritty characterizations in comic books and film.

I try to give this show the benefit of the doubt when it comes re-imagining the characters due to having a television budget, but the lack of superpowers was a bad move in my opinion. Dinah Laurel Lance, for instance, who is known as Black Canary in the comics with the power to produce a sonic scream called the “Canary Cry.” Count Vertigo, who in the show is simply called “The Count” is a drug pusher selling a drug called Vertigo. This was a large downgrade for the character who in the comics and in the animated shows is a villain, also of royal descent (which means despite whatever crimes Count Vertigo committed, he would be set free due to diplomatic immunity).

As for the costumes of the characters themselves, the take on the characters tries to be realistic but at the same time makes you scratch your head a bit. Oliver Queen wearing a green hoodie and covering his eyes with green paint does not convince me he can keep his identity secret for very long, no matter how dark it is at night when he fights crime. I guess the execs felt that Oliver Queen wearing a mask on the show as with the comics would look silly, but to me it would make more sense. Due to Oliver Queen’s costume, he is simply referred to as “the Hood.”

Out of all the characters that have been translated to the Arrow TV series, I feel that Deathstroke was done the best, and he boosted the ratings of the show. This character has not only made an appearance on Arrow but also other popular television shows based on DC Comics such as Teen Titans, Smallville, and most recently Young Justice: Invasion, which leads me to believe the character will become a household name. Other notable characters making appearance in this series are Roy Harper (played by Colton Haynes) who many comic book fans know as Green Arrow’s sidekick Speedy [in this series that’s the nickname that Ollie calls his little sister Thea (Willa Holland) ] Helena Bertinelli a/k/a Huntress (Jessica De Gouw) as mentioned previously, both incarnations of Black Canary’s alter egos: Dinah Laurel Lance (Katie Cassidy) and her mother Dinah Drake Lance (Alex Kingston) and Green Arrow’s arch nemesis Merlyn:  in this series, Malcolm Merlyn (John Barrowman) and the father of Oliver’s best friend Tommy (Colin Donnell) and son of Malcolm. There are a lot of guest appearances by popular comic book characters from DC Comics.

After watching Arrow this season, Oliver Queen may go up in popularity even among non-comic book readers. I am glad to see other superheroes besides Superman and Batman getting their due. I would include Wonder Woman in that group, but there has not been a series for her (animated or not) since the Lynda Carter era. There are rumors that the CW are working on a new TV series for her. The series is called “Amazon” and is slated for a 2014-15 television season with a pilot script by Allan Heinberg, who wrote a few Wonder Woman comics.

If this is how the CW does with Arrow, I can’t wait to see what they do with the Wonder Woman series for 2014. I feel that the CW have found a formula that works for shows based on DC comic book characters: take a hero, give them limitations, but with enough room for them to grow, add a lot of drama (which is one of the CW’s strong points in television,) and name the show after something that relates to the character. With Superman we have Smallville, Green Arrow has  Arrow, and Wonder Woman will be titled Amazon.

Arrow has been renewed for another season, so I hope the execs of the show really push Season Two up a notch. The Season One DVD/Blu-Ray combo is slated to come out this September 2013. You can catch Season One of Arrow every Wednesday on the CW at 8 p.m. or on the official Arrow site at http://www.cwtv.com/shows/arrow with full episodes the day after each episode airs.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Opinions expressed here does not reflect other members of Nerd Caliber’s opinion of the show.