At times, while watching an episode of one of the Arrowverse shows we can't help but wonder if what we're seeing is a superhero show or a soap opera. The level of relationship drama sometimes gets just a bit too high for shows that should have superheroes at their center. Every single series has had a number of love triangles. Every main character has had countless love interests, a majority of which were just a tool to keep them away from the one they're supposed to end up with.
By far, Arrow is the greatest offender when it comes to abuse of relationship melodrama. Oliver Queen has basically had something going on with each female character on the show, except his sister. Felicity has dated almost every male hero that popped up in Star City. And Olicity is often said to be the cause of Arrow's downfall. As for The Flash, a surprising number of fans seems to absolutely hate Iris and her relationship with Barry. Recent developments and questionable writing decisions have only made this sentiment stronger. And what do fans do when faced with stuff they don't like but can't change? Make memes, of course. So, let's check out 18 hilarious Arrowverse couples memes.
18 HOW TO DEAL WITH COMPETITION
A little competition is always welcome, right? Well, depends on who you ask. We know at least one vigilante who would strongly disagree with this statement. Oliver’s never been great at hiding his feelings towards anything or anyone, despite his herculean efforts to do so. His jealousy whenever another man approached Felicity was always palpable. Not surprisingly, Oliver’s also been apprehensive about Felicity’s relationship with a certain Scarlet Speedster.
Clearly, Ollie has a problem with how close Felicity and Barry are, especially since the two do have a lot in common. And it’s hard to argue that Felicity and Barry wouldn’t indeed make a fine couple. However, since everything’s been resolved now, we’re hoping Ollie can put his jealousy aside. Surely there’s no need to resort to violence.
17 EXPERT THIRD WHEEL IN THE HOUSE
Barry Allen’s love life has been the butt of every joke ever since The Flash first started airing. The poor speedster pined after his childhood crush, Iris West, all the while she was dating a hot detective who was also Barry’s colleague. Soon, Barry became a third wheel and quite literally ran himself into the friendzone on multiple occasions.
Naturally, our generation’s obsession with memes extended to Barry’s love life and tons of memes were created to mock Barry’s love problems. This one seems to suggest that Barry may need a new introduction line. One that’s better suited for him than "the fastest man alive," especially since we know he isn’t. However, we could easily believe that he is in fact the fastest third wheel alive.
16 OLIVER'S PUNNY PICKUP LINES
In the build up to the exciting Arrow season one finale, the Original Team Arrow organized a con to get into the Merlyn Global HQ in order to prevent the Undertaking from ever happening. Oliver and Felicity shared a number of adorable moments, including the one where Oliver held her in an embrace while they used a grappling hook to jump from one joist and onto another.
Of course, it was Felicity who said something completely inappropriate, thoroughly embarrassing herself in the process. However, Oliver’s composed act may indeed be just that. The person behind this meme obviously saw through Mr. Queen’s facade and divulged the deepest darkest thoughts he had in his head. Very smooth, Mr. Queen. We never knew you were partial to horrible puns.
15 RELATIONSHIP GOALS
The writers on Legends of Tomorrow may have intended the relationship between Kendra and Carter -- and later, Kendra and Ray -- to be at the center of the show’s first season, however, the fans didn’t quite take to it. A much more popular pair were Sara Lance and Leonard Snart, dubbed Captain Canary. The two shared a special bond and it was pretty easy to get on board with this adorable ship.
One of their favorite activities, whenever they would distance themselves from the rest of the team, was playing cards. Clearly, their little hobby has started getting in the way of them doing their job. It’s not that they don’t want to listen to Rip yap about the dire consequences of meddling with the past, it’s just that playing cards is far more interesting.
14 HE IS, INDEED, THE GREEN ARROW
Ohh, Ollie, when will you learn to keep your jealousy to yourself. You’re becoming one with your suit and no matter how good you look in green, there’s such a thing as too much. And besides, there’s nothing going on between Barry and Felicity. Even when they were both very much single, they couldn’t pursue a relationship with each other because Felicity was crushing on you and Barry was hung up on Iris.
There was no need to shoot poor Barry in the back and there’s certainly no need to be giving him the death stare now. The Green Arrow may be green, but there’s no need for Oliver Queen to be green as well. And if what you wanted was to get back at Barry, well we’d say hijacking his wedding counts as more than enough.
13 WON’T BE MISSING MUCH
We’re just gonna come out and say it: Iris West is becoming one of the most annoying characters in the Arrowverse. She’s the most useless person on The Flash and yet, somehow, she’s now the team leader. And if we’re being completely honest, we’re getting really tired of her annoying pep talks, irrational outbursts of insecurity and constant need to be in the loop about every little thing.
Perhaps this meme best illustrates how we feel every time Iris West utters Barry’s name in that dreary tone of voice. It just feels like the writers shoved this relationship down our throats, together with the idea that Iris West is relevant beyond just being a love interest. Now we get annoyed every time her face shows up on the screen, making us want to skip her scenes altogether.
12 NO BODY, NO CRIME
If you’re thinking these words sound familiar, but there’s no way this actually happened on Arrow, you’re absolutely right. The quote actually comes from an episode of the Nickelodeon show iCarly. A very funny fan decided to put these words to Arrow screenshots and it resulted in the creation of this awesome meme.
You know how it is: no body, no crime. And we can be certain that someone like Oliver Queen has both the means and the skills to make a dead body disappear. While this is an ominous way to -- let’s say -- propose marriage to the woman you love, in a weird and disturbing way it does convey love. And while Oliver didn’t say these words, it’s not at all impossible to believe that something like this had crossed his mind.
11 IDENTITY CRISIS
To say that almost everyone was just a tad tilted when Iris basically stole Barry’s identity would be an understatement. At first, we thought it was a one-time thing -- something we’ll be able to laugh about down the line. Sadly, our worst fears came to pass when this "We are the Flash" nonsense somehow became a thing.
Iris might be taking the whole sharing aspect of marriage just a bit too far. Clearly, this concept doesn’t entail sharing one’s identity. But what would happen if Barry tried to pull the same thing on her? Well, apparently, we’re not the only ones who wanted to know the answer to that question. An anonymous internet comedian gave us a pretty good idea of how Iris would react to Barry assuming her identity.
10 MORE THAN JUST A BROKEN HEART
Felicity’s breakup with dear sweet Ray was heartbreaking. At the time, Thea’s only savior was Ra’s al Ghul and his Lazarus Pit, so Team Arrow decided to get Thea to Nanda Parbat. Felicity went to ask Ray if she can borrow his jet. Ray of course gave her the jet, but not before pouring his heart out and basically telling her that their relationship can never work because she’s still in love with Oliver.
While Felicity was the one who left the room with tears in her eyes, we’re willing to bet that this breakup affected Ray far more than it did her. After all he’s the one who fell in love. And even though, technically speaking, he broke up with her, it was Felicity who chose Oliver over him a long time ago.
9 BARRY, HOW COULD YOU?
Barry Allen is far from being perfect. As much as he’d like as to believe that he’s a cinnamon roll, incapable of doing harm, we know he’s done some pretty horrible things over the years. However, it would be unfair to blame him for absolutely everything bad that’s happened, like his wife chooses to do. Look, Mr. Allen, it’s hardly our place to butt in, but don’t you think Iris is overreacting?
We can’t be the only ones who got annoyed at this scene. It just doesn’t make any sense, no matter how you spin it. Clearly, there are fans out there who haven’t been infected with the WestAllen virus and also found this scene to be downright outrageous. And this meme sums up everything we thought about Iris’s selfishness.
8 JUST SAYIN’
Felicity may be Mrs. Oliver Queen now, but before she settled down, she sure got around pretty well for an awkward computer nerd. Before getting together with Oliver, Felicity kissed Barry and almost started dating him. Then after supposedly giving up on Oliver, she met Ray Palmer -- a nerdy version of Oliver -- and hooked up with him.
Obviously, the blonde hacker has a thing for heroes. However, perhaps she’s been going about it the wrong way. The person who made this meme seems to think it’s time for Felicity to broaden her views -- so to speak. As a matter of fact, Sara and Felicity had some pretty cute moments together. So, maybe Salicity isn’t as far fetched as you may have initially believed.
7 WHERE DID THE FERN GO?
In case you didn’t get this reference, don’t worry. We got this covered. In the romantic comedy How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Kate Hudson gives a fern to her new boyfriend Matthew McConaughey, as a symbol of their love. Upon finding out that said fern died, she throws a tantrum accusing McConaughey of killing their love by letting the love fern die.
In season three, Felicity bought Oliver a fern, possibly as a symbol of their love. However, the fern hasn’t been seen in a very long time, leading many to ask the important question: what happened to the fern? Could it be that the entire Olicity breakup was about Oliver not watering a stupid plant and had nothing to do with William?
6 THE MOST CONSIDERATE MAN IN THE WORLD
Arrow could very easily be tagged as a soap opera, considering how much relationship drama it entails. From the very beginning, it was clear that this show would rely on romance subplots and love triangles perhaps more than is needed in a show about superheroes. One of the love triangles we were introduced to in season one involved Oliver, Laurel and Tommy.
While Oliver was surviving his five years in hell, his best friend had taken an interest in his ex-girlfriend. Sure, this wouldn’t be a very nice thing to do, had Oliver not been cheating on Laurel with -- among others -- her own sister. So, once you take all the facts into consideration you get to the conclusion that what Tommy and Laurel did wasn’t nearly as bad.
5 THE FIRST OLICITY SHIPPER
Believe it or not, Olicity wasn’t always the bane of every Arrow fan’s existence. There was a time when the majority of the Arrow fandom actually supported the development of a romantic relationship between Oliver Queen and the blonde IT girl he occasionally asked for help. However, the first official shipper of this couple has to be Oliver's friend and bodyguard, John Diggle.
Going through a number of scenes it’s easy to see that Diggle had long made up his mind about who was best girl. Often encouraging Oliver to pursue a relationship with Felicity, Diggle is also seen somewhat disapproving of Oliver’s other relationships. This hilarious meme just about sums up Diggle’s thoughts on Oliver’s love interests. And if we’re being honest, at this point of the show, we were all Diggle.
4 YOU HAD ONE JOB
Season four of Arrow was an unmitigated disaster, to say the least. A lot has been said about what went wrong, raging from the introduction of Damien Darhk and magic to Oliver and Felicity’s relationship taking up way more time and space than it needed to. However, Olicity shippers rejoiced when in episode nine Oliver finally popped the question and Felicity said yes.
Their happiness, unfortunately, proved to be short-lived as within a few moments Felicity was shot and paralyzed by Damien Darhk’s men. A heartbreaking story no doubt -- whether you support their relationship or not. Yet, one fan found a way to make light of the situation. And as wrong as it is, we still can’t help but laugh at this meme. Is it too much to add: Felicity Smoak, you have failed Oli-city?
3 THE GREATEST THIEF THAT EVER LIVED
Captain Cold will forever be one of the most popular members of the Legends. Snart’s sarcasm and snarky remarks defined the first season of Legends of Tomorrow. Wentworth Miller had some of the best lines on the show, including his epic confrontation with Vandal Savage. Captain Cold is not one to bow in front of a destroyer of empires, even if he is an immortal. So, when Savage wanted to know who was this insolent human who dared to defy him, Snart retorted with simple honesty.
However, Snart doesn’t only rob ATMs. The fan who made this meme obviously knows that stealing cash from ATMs is not what makes Leonard Snart the greatest thief that ever lived, but rather stealing the heart of Sara Lance.
2 TRUE STORY BRO
The problem a lot of fans have with Barry and Iris’s relationship on The Flash comes down to the fact that they are technically siblings. Although not related by blood, Barry and Iris were raised together and to some extent, as brother and sister. Many fans, some drawing from their own experience, are of the opinion that it would be very unlikely that Barry and Iris’s relationship would develop into anything but a sibling one.
This hilarious meme uses this often-cited criticism to poke fun at poor Barry. Over the years, we’ve seen many -- way too many -- versions of this meme, but this one is definitely among the funniest. Well, we guess Barry will have to kick his own ass if he ever does anything to hurt his little sister who’s also his wife. That sounded way worse than it is.
1 DEADPOOL SPEAKS THE TRUTH
The writing for Iris West on The Flash has never been all that great. Up until the fourth season she was literally a useless love interest with no real purpose outside of her connection to Barry. But don’t think for a second that this changed for the better in season four. If anything, she’s even more intolerable now. In an attempt to give Iris a purpose, the writers made her team leader of Team Flash, even though her exact contributions remain a mystery.
Some would argue that Iris’s downward spiral began with the introduction of the "We are the Flash" line, which rubbed a good number of fans the wrong way. But at least we got this hilarious meme out of it. It’s safe to say, Barry and Iris are far from being one of TV’s most beloved couples.