TO THE ARROW-CAVE!

LegalDispatch 0.93

Mar 15, 2024

Howdy.

We’re closing in on 1,000 subscribers. This is very exciting. I’m thinking about what I can do to celebrate that eventual milestone. If you have any suggestions, please sound off in the comments.

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Speaking of comments, there’s been a lot of wonderful engagement on Substack and Twitter, with folks weighing in with comments and questions. I think I’m going to take a page out of Marvel editor Tom Brevoort’s most-excellent Substack, Man With A Hat, and start including comments and observations as well as questions.

So let’s dive in:

Harvey Hamer writes:

That Amazo set is... amazing. As a non-avid comic reader, I only now realise that the ship is named after the character, and Ivo... like the labs that make the robot later in the Arrowverse.

Yup. That was in the early days of the Arrowverse — Season 2 of Arrow — when we didn’t think we’d get access to the number of DC characters that we eventually did so we just peppered the scripts with Easter egg references whenever possible.

Was there ever more of a desire to involve more of Constantine in Legends of Tomorrow? It was amazing when he appeared in Arrow, and then so much content in Legends (using the same Astra flashback as his solo show?) but I was always hoping for some Manny/rising darkness reference/resolution.

For the uninitiated, Legends series regular Matt Ryan portrayed the DC hero John Constantine in a series that ran on NBC from 2014 to 2015. We brought Matt back to reprise his role in Arrow before bringing him on to Legends. Harvey is asking about bringing plot elements from Constantine into that show.

The answer, Harvey, is that how much to reference the NBC show was a source of constant discussion. On the one hand, you never want to make the audience feel like they have to “do homework” by seeking out a canceled show that ran on another network. On the other hand, Constantine left the airwaves far, far too soon and there was always a desire on the part of the Legends writers to honor that show and its storylines as much as possible. As with anything, you just hope to strike the right balance.

Thanks!

Thank you, Harvey. (And you might want to Subscribe to Harvey’s newsletter as I just did. Sorry for taking so long to realize you have one, Harvey.)

Jon Auerbach (also the author of a Substack newsletter I’m only noticing now), wrote in to say:

I too loved FlashForward and wish it had continued. A great mix of character stories and mythology/crazy science. I was behind on my newsletter reading and so was going to ask how you kept track of all of the flash forward points, but glad fellow FlashForward Matt was up to the task. Love the Megaboard!

Thanks, Jon. I really loved working on that show. It’s a shame ABC didn’t have enough faith in it to keep it going.

Meanwhile, over on Twitter, Luke Flux asked:

May I ask why you guys chose to make Green Arrow a more darker version than his comic counterpart? I know a lot of people theorise it’s because you wanted to use Batman but WB said no but I was wondering if you could tell us the official reason.

Thanks for asking, Luke. That Batman rumor tends to come up with some regularity for some reason and it’s always nice to have an opportunity to squash it. The rumor itself is surprising because it’s oft-repeated public knowledge that Arrow sprung from the mind of Greg Berlanti, who had the vision of a show about Oliver Queen that alternated between his modern day quest for justice and his five-year experience on a deserted island. Seen in that light, the idea that Green Arrow on the CW was just some “retrofitted” attempt at doing Batman just doesn’t make sense.

That said, the comic book similarities between Batman and Green Arrow are hard to deny. In fact, one of my all-time favorite comic book moments was during Kevin Smith’s Green Arrow: Quiver storyline where Kevin has Batman “hang a lantern” (a writers room term) on the similarities:

(I wrote a piece about this very topic for DC’s Green Arrow: 80 Years of the Emerald Archer deluxe edition.)

But I digress. To get to the nub of your question: Why did we make Green Arrow “darker” than his comic book counterpart? There are actually a few different answers/explanations. First and foremost, Greg’s vision was always for Arrow to be very grounded and that grounded, Nolan-esque approach, simply lent itself better to a darker take. Moreover, Smallville — which ended just the year prior to Arrow’s debut — had already given the audience a more “light hearted” Green Arrow in the form of Justin Hartley’s Oliver Queen.

It’s also worth noting a corollary to Stan Lee’s axiom “every comic is someone’s first” by stating that “each character portrayal is the one someone feels is ‘the authentic’ portrayal.” (Okay not the most elegant of rephrasings but I think you take my meaning.) And speaking for myself, the definitive portrayal of Green Arrow in comics is Mike Grell’s seminal The Longbow Hunters mini-series, which is really quite dark and grounded.

In fact, this is the reason why we reached out to Mike to draw the police sketch of “The Hood” which appeared in Arrow’s early episodes.

I think if you check out The Longbow Hunters, you’ll see that it had a pretty massive influence on (at the very least) the first season of Arrow.

Speaking of Arrow, here are some fun behind-the-scenes images I came across while I was digging out Mike’s police sketch:

The “layout” (i.e., rough) version of Mike’s sketch.

The “slate” for the very first take of the very first shot of the *Arrow* pilot.

The prop Deathstroke mask which appears in the opening of the *Arrow* pilot.

PLANET OF THE APES

Beware the Planet of the Apes #3 drops next Wednesday (3/20). A preview hasn’t yet been made available, but here’s the cover by the amazing Taurin Clarke: