The Arrowverse has been around for a few years now, and has expanded from the one series to four different shows incorporating some of the most famous superheroes in history. They’ve brought some incredible characters and storylines to life. Arrow, The Flash, and Legends of Tomorrow all exist within the same universe whilst Supergirl lives on a different Earth in the multiverse. Let’s just remember that for a second, the multiverse is a real thing in television now. Did you ever think we’d get to this point?
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It’s a great time to be a comic book fan. The Arrowverse has found ways to bring certain characters to life that fit in with a realistic setting. But there are many things they really didn’t get right. Whether it’s reducing certain characters to a mere love interest rather than succeeding on their own skills, or just doing away with a key component of a character, here are parts of the Arrowverse that really do not work. In fact we’ll go as far as saying The CW have actually made some terrible decisions. We’ve looked across all four of the live action shows and found the biggest flaws with their heroes. Here are 15 ways the Arrowverse ruined your favorite characters.
15 CAPTAIN COLD AND HEATWAVE AREN’T VILLAINS
Legends of Tomorrow brought some of the supporting characters from The Flash and Arrow, placing them on a time-travelling team to stop Vandal Savage from destroying the timeline. But one of the most confusing inclusions, was bringing Heatwave and Captain Cold, two of the Rogues from The Flash, onto the team.
They’re villains, first introduced with murderous and extremely violent tendencies. Sure, the pair are more like anti-heroes, but the key thing about them is that they’re villains. They robbed banks, murdered people and generally can be pretty spiky people. The show watered them down to near comedic relief. Yes, Heatwave became Chronos for a while, but he’s now way near the homicidal maniac he was when he first debuted. It’s like The CW wanted to capitalize on Dominic Purcell and Wentworth Miller as partners or something…
14 ZOOM IS A REVERSE-FLASH COPY
Okay, so this might seem a little obvious, but Zoom on the show is basically a copy of the Reverse-Flash without the yellow suit. A speedster that’s faster than Barry, who wants to steal his speed for nefarious reasons. Great. The recycled plot was poor, and many fans picked up on that.
It’s a shame because Hunter Zolomon is another version of the Reverse-Flash in the comics, and proves to be a much more intimidating version than what we were given on The Flash. He was even friends with The Flash when working as a profiler before he turned sour. If they wanted to keep a similar villain, there were much more inventive ways of doing so than what we were given. Zoom might look freaky, but he doesn’t resemble the comics version at all.
13 HAWKMAN AND HAWKGIRL FEEL LIKE AN AFTERTHOUGHT
The CW definitely pulls in characters from across all of DC Comics to try and fill out their world with new storylines and situations. And for the big crossover episodes during 2015, Vandal Savage was brought on as a villain who was hunting Carter Hall and Kendra Saunders aka Hawkman and Hawkgirl.
But the dialogue between the two reincarnated lovers during the crossover and their time on Legends felt extremely weak and forced, it was hard to really enjoy the characters. And to say that the driving force behind Legends of Tomorrow was a villain trying to kill two of the main characters, it should have been someone better established that fans loved. But instead, we got the poorly thoughtout Hawkman and Hawkgirl story. Good thing they didn’t last long.
12 SUPERGIRL IS DEFINED BY BEING IN A RELATIONSHIP
Kara Danvers has incredible abilities that allow her to save National City and the world with her friends. She’s constantly fighting aliens as well as crossing dimensions to save the multiverse with other heroes. So why is it that she can only be happy when she’s in a relationship?
For the majority of the series, she always seems to struggle with being single. She’s always pining after James or Mon-El. We’re not saying that a romantic sub-plot is a bad thing, but for a bulletproof character, there’s plenty of things to keep Supergirl happy rather than who she ends up with. She doesn’t need to be defined by her significant other, she’s Supergirl. Now that Mon-El’s gone, who will be the next romantic interest for Kara?
11 RAY PALMER NEVER GOES SUB-ATOMIC
When Arrow introduced us to Ray Palmer and the evolution of his A.T.O.M. suit, fans were pretty excited to see the hero in live action and for a large part, The CW has done Ray Palmer justice. He’s funny, the chemistry he has with his team mates is fun and the suit looks great! So why don’t they use him to his full potential?
Whenever he shrinks down, it’s always to the size of an ant or something similar. We’ve not seen him shrink down into the molecular structures that he traverses during the comics. It would be great to see him interact with the molecular structures of objects, animals or even people as part of his adventures. But for now, we’re just stuck with him sneaking into places or stealing things.
10 NO CLASSIC OUTFIT FOR GREEN ARROW
When Arrow debuted back in 2012, fans were given a brand new version of Oliver Queen that updated the Robin Hood look to something closer to the modern comics alongside a modern outfit. ‘The Hood’ even became his nickname in Starling City for quite some time. And although we’re not complaining about the look, why haven’t they ever brought the classic costume back?
Yes, it’s cheesy. But if they can figure out a way of bringing back the boxing glove arrow, why not? There’s definitely some ways to hark back to the classic look with the hat and the signature goatee. Fancy dress costume party, dream sequence, alternate universe… just a few ideas off the top of our head. You’re welcome Greg Berlanti, we’ll happily take the job as a script writer. Thanks.
9 FUTURE FLASH ISN’T A COMPELLING VILLAIN
When it was revealed that a future version of Barry was underneath the Savitar suit, fans were both impressed and disappointed. It was an impressive decision to turn the show’s hero into the villain, but the way they worked around it was poor. He was a time remnant of Barry, a copy of the hero essentially. He’s a fake, so why do we care?
Whereas the Future Flash in the comics is a conflicted hero who feels guilty for causing the death of Wally West. He tries to rectify this by killing all of the villains he’s faced in horrific ways. But in doing so causes Wally’s death anyway. It’s a genuinely intriguing story as The Flash slowly breaks through his moral code out of guilt. But there was no remorse from Savitar, he just didn’t feel like a compelling villain.
8 LENA LUTHOR IS ONLY ON THE SHOW TO REMIND US OF LEX
When Supergirl introduced Lena Luthor to Kara and the rest of her friends during season two, we hoped that it would be to expand story arcs in a new way. And although she quickly becomes embroiled with many alien plots and mysteries, Lena Luthor’s purpose on the show is very two dimensional.
Because they can’t bring Lex Luthor onto Supergirl, they have to keep reminding us that he exists in the world and Superman has defeated him. They do this by having Lena constantly refer to her brother, including a whole plot about really being Lionel Luthor’s daughter instead of the adoption lie she was told. Lex even tries to have her killed, but they don’t show him on the series aside from as a young boy, but the iconic bald villain is left out. It’s like season one not bringing Superman on all over again.
7 BARRY’S JOB AT THE CCPD
Remember when Arrow first introduced Barry Allen as an awkward, nerdy CSI technician who was looking into ‘special’ cases that could point him in the direction of his mother’s murder? We miss that. As the series progressed, Barry’s job got lost in the noise.
Whether it was Reverse-Flash, Zoom or Savitar -- Barry’s job has slowly faded into nothingness. He spends most of his time at S.T.A.R. Labs instead of working, it’s a wonder that he can afford all that food to keep his body going. A huge part of Barry’s life from the comics is his job, whether that’s being late or the cases that he comes across. The showrunners have got rid of it, and we miss the procedural element to the show surprisingly.
6 FELICITY IS DEFINED BY HER RELATIONSHIPS
Felicity Smoak was originally meant to be killed off within the first few episodes of Arrow as a way of pushing the criminal element of Starling City closer to home for Oliver. But because of her chemistry with Ollie, she was kept on. But one of the most defining things about her in the series is who she’s dating.
When she’s with Ray, Ollie’s passively aggressively bitter about it. And when she’s dating Billy, their relationship is very quickly broken up by his death as Prometheus worms his way into Oliver’s life. And although the development of their relationship has been interesting, it started to get very old very quickly. She’s a great character on her own, why not let her flourish because of her skills and not her romance?
5 SCRAPPING THE ROMANCE BETWEEN OLLIE AND LAUREL
Look, we’re not bitter that Greg Berlanti and co. got rid of the relationship between Oliver and Laurel, it’s just that it had a lot of potential. Because of the troubled past relationship the two shared, it would have been great for them to slowly work through it before her untimely death (or even not killed her off at all). Plus, after Oliver’s failed relationship with Felicity, who better than to reconcile with than a previous love?
Just look at their relationship in DC Rebirth right now. The pair go through some difficult situations and manage to navigate their relationship safely through it. But it’s not all plain sailing, they have their arguments and their disagreements. It’s something that would’ve worked well if they hadn’t scrapped the relationship back in the first season.
4 MXYZPTLK ISN’T FUN
Let’s give Supergirl some credit, they certainly know how to push the boundaries with characters taken from the comics on the show. It was surprising when season two introduced Mr. Mxyzptlk into National City. But the only reason he turned up was because he wanted to marry Kara.
Correct us if we’re wrong, but an Imp from the fifth dimension should be a fun inclusion on the show rather than an excuse to shoehorn more romantic drama into a series with plenty romance already. There’s so much potential with Mxyzptlk to have fun with the multiverse, National City and other superheroes but they wasted the opportunity with him fawning over Supergirl. It could have been a great way of bringing Tyler Hoechlin back and having the two Kryptonians face the Imp. Shame really.
3 KILLING AND RESURRECTING BLACK CANARY
Arrow seems to have a bizarre obsession with killing and resurrecting the Black Canary character. It started by ‘killing’ Sara Lance in the pilot episode and bringing her back in season two. Then killing her. Then resurrecting her again. Then giving the mantle to Laurel. Then killing her. Then bringing the Earth 2 version onboard. And finally bringing Dinah Drake into the mix.
Glad we got that out of our system. It’s like the writers have a love hate relationship with Black Canary and decide to kill off the hero every so often. It’s getting really annoying. How long will it be before Oliver sleeps with Dinah and then she’s killed off too? Because the trend suggests it won’t be long. We give it a season before she dies, unfortunately.
2 BARRY ISN’T AWKWARD ANYMORE
One of the reasons that fans had such a great reaction to Barry Allen during the episodes of Arrow was because he was adorably awkward. He stumbled on his words, he said the wrong things and fans loved him for it. It’s one of the reasons the series landed a pilot in the first place. So why have the writers done away with it? Over the last season especially, he was so focused on Iris, they didn’t develop his character in any unique way but left out so much.
We find ourselves longing for the times when he and Felicity were awkward with each other. He used humor as a coping mechanism for all the awful tragedies that plagued his life, why didn’t that continue? Especially since things have gotten worse for him now he’s lost his father too.
1 OLIVER’S PERSONALITY
Okay, so in the Green Arrow comics we’re used to Oliver cracking jokes and generally having fun whilst fighting crime. In the Arrowverse however, this really isn’t the case. Oliver Queen is a steely faced vigilante who’s hardened by the tragedies that he’s lived through. Fair enough.
But would it hurt him to make a joke or smile every once in a while? Because the moody Oliver Queen is a little old now. Maybe it’s because he’s the Batman of the Arrowverse; funding everything, Arrowcave, billionaire playboy, orphan… you get the idea. But we’d just like to see Oliver have fun with his status as a superhero. Even when he’s fighting aliens, nothing. He’s gone from fighting bank robbers, to saving the world from aliens. Surely there’s room for a joke there?
What's the worst way the Arrowverse ruined your favorites? Let us know in the comments!