One of the topics that has stirred things up recently here on CBM is the idea of merging the DCCU, and the universe created in the Arrow TV show. Being a large DC fan I decided to finally watch the first season of Arrow, to see what the fuss was about. If I'm a DC fan then why am I just watching it now, you ask? Simply put, I'm not a believer that superheroes can be done much justice in the television format; perhaps, I thought, with HBO or AMC behind them it would be possible, but not with The CW.
After making it through the first season of the show, I certainly have not changed my mind. I think merging these two universes would be a poor idea at best, and though I've never written anything for CBM before I've decided to share my thoughts on why that is. Herein I'll demonstrate why merging the two versions of the DC universe is not only a bad idea, but also why the Arrow show is a poor man's representation of the Green Arrow character.
'Green Arrow' or 'The Vigilante'?
I'll preface this by saying I'm not the largest Green Arrow fan to start with, but I am familiar with the character, and own some of his comics. To me he has always been defined by his grit, humour in the face of danger, and a rare kind of self-awareness that maybe dressing up in a green feathered hat and shooting arrows at people is a touch silly. Another defining trait are his trick arrows, which are also often on the silly side, though this helps him remain a hero of fairly non-lethal methods. I also tend to think of his inclination towards leftist political notions as defining some of his more recent material.
So where are these traits in the television show?
Instead of a good humoured, though gritty, philanthropist playboy who heavily favours leftist politics and non-lethal attacks? We've ended up with a sort of brooding, anti-social, angsty mass-murderer.
This is one of my largest points of contention with the show: why is he killing so many people? Green Arrow-- sorry, The Vigilante, is often seen murdering people just for having seen them stand beside someone he thinks is a criminal. I don't understand how it is that so many DC fans get upset when Superman is seen to break one neck (that of a man who has just destroyed a portion of Metropolis, vowed to kill all humans on earth, and held the world hostage), but cry for joy to watch The Vigilante murder at least fifty people in the single season of the show that I watched; often these were people who he had absolutely no evidence of them having done wrong. We're expected to accept them as your average television mook - stands beside the bad guy, and gets shot. That would be at least semi-kosher if this were a cop drama, but the casual, wanton, and frankly constant murder is just awful for a supposed superhero.
In addition to this, how is it that every single one of The Vigilante's arrows always kills his victim in a single shot? If you're going to have him firing regular old broadhead arrows straight into criminals, shouldn't they do things like scream, and bleed, and take a little while to die? I know, I know - you're not going to see that in a relatively family friendly show. But then maybe they just shouldn't have him murder so many folks in the first place.
That's not to say we haven't seen Trick Arrows - we have, kind of; explosive arrows, and arrows with voice recorders built into them, largely. At least its some kind of concession to the character's roots.
Another large issue for me is that if you simply swapped a few character names, I would never even know this was about the Green Arrow character. He is never referred to as such, instead using the same cop-out that Smallville did years earlier; for them, Superman became 'The Blur'. As though nothing at all were learned from how incredibly lame it was last time they did it, they're now giving us Green Arrow as 'The Vigilante', or 'The Hood'.
The angsty, childish Oliver Queen/The Hood character featured in the Arrow television show is actually nothing at all like the comibcook hero he is supposed to be based on.
One last note on this topic before I move on. Why is it that Oliver Queen demonstrates so many super powers in the first season? Chief among them are his ability to run directly toward men who are firing guns at him without getting hit by them, and his ability to simply 'be as tough as the plot demands he be'. In episode 21, for instance, he gets into a scuffle and one thug breaks a pool cue straight over his chest. Oliver Queen simply looks him right in the eyes as he's doing it, and doesn't even blink. I understand that he's supposed to be tough, but from a writing perspective that kind of quality only exists in context. When you have characters do things like this it foils the context, and makes it seem unrealistic instead of simply badass.
Keep 'em Seperated
Let's get one thing out of the way quickly before I continue with my list of reasons why these two fictions should be kept seperate. A lot of the time we hear this argument of "it will be confusing to viewers if they aren't merged". I never want to hear this again. Its not confusing, not even slightly, not even to non-comicbook fans. The people watching this show are not trained chimps - they can think, and reason just fine. We're not stupid.
Not to mention that we've had a half-dozen 'Batman' actors now, we have had Captain America and the Human Torch played by the same man, and we've worked our way through Spiderman's Origin twice, with completey different casts. No one - not a single person - is confused by this. I've never heard anyone mention it anywhere, ever . . . aside from some commenters on this site who claim it happens all the time.
That said, do you know what would be confusing?
If people had to watch Arrow in order to understand what's going on in the DCCU. For instance, if they show . . . oh, I don't know, the origin of The Flash in Arrow. And then he just shows up in the DCCU movies, without so much as a how-do-you-do, as though everyone should already know what his deal is. See . . . not many people actually watch Arrow. Everyone I know has seen Man of Steel but when I told people I was watching the first season of Arrow, their response was often either "You're watching what?" or simply to ask me "why?"
Even if you disagree with everything I say in this editorial, it won't change the numbers. The Arrow show isn't watched by enough people to let it carry any clout in the cinematic universe. And even if they did merge? I wouldn't watch the second season of the show.
One thing that fans love about the Arrow series are the cameos from other DC characters. And in context they are one of the brightest parts of the show. Moving them in as an official part of the DCCU would be a mistake though. The frankly butchered origin stories we're getting for Huntress, Roy Harper, 'Speedy', and the small host of weekly villains that show up in the first season are amusing, but not at all true to the source material, or sometimes even the spirit of the characters. With DC talking about commiting to doing a series of lower budget films based on less-known characters, do we really want characters like Deadshot, Deathstroke, Huntress, Speedy, and even the Green Arrow himself out of the running for those?
And they would be out of the running. Because no film director, even a low budget one, is going to want to stake his reputation on what are largely television level actors, who simiply aren't good enough to make the transition to the silver screen. (Stephen Amell is the exception. I find him merely adequate as Arrow, but he has some good works in his past)
And lastly, most movie watchers and comic fans accept an unrealistic level of fortitude and skill in the Batman character we get in movies. This is largely done simply because it is Batman, and people are willing to invest in the fact that he can be exagerated. That's the only reason it makes any sense at all for him to be sharing screen time with the powerhouse version of Superman that we were given in Man of Steel.
But what about Green Arrow?
If he, Batfleck, and Cavill's Superman were sharing a film then what would The Vigilante/Hood bring to the table? What does he add besides an awkward man-squeal from fans of the show?
Some day I'd like to see a Green Arrow film that does the character justice, so that the above question can actually be answered with something more than a helpless shrug. But for now its best to keep these two universes seperate.