6 Comic Book Characters Who Should Appear in the Arrowverse

Update on 7/3/18:

I originally wrote this post on 12/13/17. I am now adding a sixth character to this list in light of John Constantine's promotion to series regular for Legends of Tomorrow season 4.

Opening Remarks

The Arrowverse is big. Like really big. I would argue that a strong majority of the most significant DC comics characters have appeared in the Arrowverse (or at least been referenced) in some capacity. We've gotten everyone from the JSA to the Legion of Super-Heroes in full-blown appearances, and everyone from Hal Jordan to Harley Quinn in cameos and Easter eggs.

In fact, the Arrowverse is so big, that's its actually kinda hard to think of too many comic book characters that would be good on the shows that haven't already been done. Of course, there's always room for more--here are 5 6 comic book characters that I would like to see appear in the Arrowverse.

Booster Gold (Michael Jon Carter) on Legends of Tomorrow

If any character feels like a natural fit on Legends of Tomorrow, it's the self-centered, time-traveling superhero Booster Gold. In fact, for the past three years, I've been expecting every season to be the one in which they announce Booster Gold is coming to Legends. As far as I know, the closest they've come to referencing him was revealing Rip Hunter's real first name as "Michael" back in L1x12.

In the comics, Michael Jon Carter originates as a jerk from the 25th century who realizes he could use the technology of his time period to achieve fame and fortune in the past. Carter steals an arsenal of useful equipment--including a time machine previously belonging to Rip Hunter--from a museum and then departs for the 20th century. There, he has a long and exciting career as superhero Booster Gold, though he continually butts heads with more traditional heroes due to his prioritization of money and fame. In later adventures, he travels through time with Rip Hunter, and the duo discover that Carter is in fact Hunter's father!

Booster Gold seems like he would be a good fit on Legends of Tomorrow, even besides his obvious connections to Rip Hunter and time travel. He has a comedic, larger-than-life personality that would totally feel at home with the tone of the show. Also, his obsession with fame would make an interesting counterpoint to the Legends' role as the secret, thankless protectors of history.

The Question (Victor Sage) on Arrow

The Question happens to be one of my absolute favorite superheroes: he's just so different! He defeats his foes with superior detective skills, philosophical clarity, and thoroughly superfluous abstruseness! And with Marc Guggenheim recently citing the Question as the one character he would want to bring to Arrow, this choice may just come true... then again, Marc Guggenheim says all kinds of things.

In my opinion, the Arrowverse can always use more super-smart characters who aren't more of the same-old math/science-y super-geniuses. Nate Heywood's unique perspective as a super-historian has definitely been one good addition to the Legends in that vein. And while Team Flash ostensibly has a few super-detectives, The Flash has never really had good enough mysteries to sell those characters' abilities (we'll see if Ralph Dibny proves a worthy opponent to the Thinker, but frankly, I doubt it). And for all of Team Arrow's motley skills, their detecting abilities have never been particularly impressive (in fact, they seem rather oblivious more often than not). If done well, Victor Sage could bring not just a fun new personality to Arrow, but also open up possibilities for exciting mystery-based storylines.

Aquaman (Arthur Curry) on The Flash

The Flash has been sporadically referencing Atlantis' existence on Earth-2 ever since season 2. Apparently, it's some kind of vacation destination in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean (above the ocean, of course). Plastic manufacturing may also be one of their industries. In any case, with Atlantis comes Aquaman, its glorious king!

Of course, Aquaman is also in the process of becoming a major character in DC's film universe, so there's always the question of whether or not Warner Brothers will allow the Berlanti shows to use him at all. Then again, with Superman appearing on Supergirl, the possibilities certainly seem a lot more open than they did a few years ago when the entire Suicide Squad got thrown under the bus to make room for their (painfully bad) movie. Furthermore, perhaps if the Arrowverse Aquaman is significantly different from his movie counterpart, the conflict would be less problematic. With that in mind, here's my pitch...

Atlantis is a modern, above-water nation fully immersed in the international community, and, of course, monarchy is an archaic form of governance. It would be silly to expect that Earth-2's Atlantis bears much resemblance its traditional portrayal from the comics. Though Arthur Curry should still be the rightful king of Atlantis, that position is probably simply ceremonial and cultural, like it is in modern European monarchies. So instead of making Curry a warrior-dictator, go all-in on this portrayal of Atlantis as a tourist desitnation and make Arthur Curry its premier real estate mogul! The owner and proprietor of Atlantis (not unlike how the crown of Britain still maintains enormously valuable real estate holdings)! Perhaps "Aquaman" is just his public nickname (because he's the king of a country that's pretty much one big SeaWorld!). With this portrayal in mind, I imagine a two-part Flash arc (not unlike season 3's Gorilla City arc), where Team Flash visits Atlantis and helps Curry with some super-problem of his. Really, from there, it writes itself...

Hippolyta of Themyscira on Legends of Tomorrow

Legends of Tomorrow 3x06 made more than a few viewers gasp with excitement when that episode ended with a visit to Wonder Woman's homeland of Themyscira. Taking compassion on Helen of Troy for her cruel fate at the end of the Trojan War, Zari opted to return Helen to Themyscira rather than Troy in her home time of 1253 B.C. Zari described Themyscira to Helen as an island inhabited by warrior women, and expressed her belief that this small change to the timeline would not have a significant effect on history. Let's all hope that she turns out to be wrong!

First of all, the mere existence of Themyscira in the Arrowverse raises some interesting questions. Does it still exist in modern times? Does Diana (Wonder Woman) necessarily exist? Frankly, I think the best choice would be to completely avoid answering either of these questions directly. The Arrowverse certainly doesn't need Wonder Woman running around, just like it doesn't need Batman. Either of those characters would only detract from the primacy of the superheroes that are more important to this world: the Green Arrow, the Flash, etc. Furthermore, is it really believable that Themyscira has existed in the world, undetected through the millennia up to the present day? I rather like the fact that the Arrowverse started out pretty grounded and mundane in 2012 and has gradually gotten crazier with time. If the Amazons were to pop up in 2017 now, it would sorta mess up that whole progression.

What does make sense for the Arrowverse is to say that the ancient world is actually a much more magical and exotic place than the modern world believes. Legends of Tomorrow has already moved in that direction with their portrayals of Camelot and the story of the Trojan War (which in real life is almost certainly mostly mythical). Themyscira fits well in that era of fantasy. That's why I would rather see Hippolyta (Wonder Woman's mother) on Legends than her more famous daughter. Here's my pitch...

For whatever reason, Zari's delivery of Helen to Themyscira immediately called to my mind "Fury," an episode of the old Justice League cartoon. In that episode, a human girl named Aresia washes up on Themyscira, and Hippolyta makes the decision to share the powers and knowledge of the Amazons with her. However, since she has already been tainted by the evils of the outside world, Aresia eventually goes rogue and sets out on a genocidal quest to rid the world of men. I imagine a similar story taking place in 1253 B.C. with Helen playing Aresia's role as a rogue Amazon. Of course, that's just one idea. There's a lot of different directions they could go, but given the provocative ending to L3x06, I doubt that we've seen the last of Helen of Troy and Themyscira.

Solomon Grundy on Arrow

This one's admittedly a little strange. Cyrus Gold appeared in Arrow season 2 as Sebastian Blood's chief enforcer and the first Church of Blood member to survive his Mirakuru transfusion. Oliver battled him in episodes 2x08 and 2x09 and eventually defeated him by triggering the explosion of the centrifuge producing Mirakuru. The last shot of Cyrus Gold shows a suspicious green chemical from the centrifuge dripping over him as he lay (apparently) dead.

Of course, in the comics, death is only the beginning of Cyrus Gold's story. He reanimates as a sort of zombie (thanks, magic) and becomes a recurrent enemy of Superman, Batman, and the Justice League in general under the name Solomon Grundy. Gold's conspicuous chemical bath on Arrow was clearly a reference to the zombie angle, but the question remains of whether or not the writers would ever want to actually come back to that story on-screen.

After a rather colossal failure in portraying magical and metahuman villains on Arrow in season 4, Solomon Grundy would be a... risky character for the show, to say the least. However, I still do believe that there's nothing inherently wrong with doing superhuman villains on Arrow, as long as they are done well. In fact, I think pitting Oliver against a foe like Solomon Grundy could be a great way of stacking the odds against the heroes. Also, Grundy could definitely be made to fit in the pseudo-grounded, relatively gritty tone of Arrow. Then again, as cool as this all could be, it's still just very... risky.

Zatanna Zatara on Legends of Tomorrow

John Constantine's joining the Legends for season 4 is all-around good news. Matt Ryan brings tons of personality to the role, and Constantine is sure to have plenty of hilarious and interesting relationships with his fellow Waverider-mates. His inclusion also opens the door for a bunch of connected, magic-related characters to appear on the show.

Dr. Fate is one possibility (his helmet was on CBS's Constantine as a sort of Easter Egg acknowledged by the dialogue), but he doesn't excite me too much. Swamp Thing would be a great option, but I'm guessing that he'll be saved for the dedicated Swamp Thing show (non-Arrowverse) that's gonna be on the DC Universe streaming platform (that's a weird thing, isn't it?). My personal favorite Constantine-friend, though, is the illustrious magi Zatanna Zatara.

Besides being generally pretty cool on her own merits, Zatanna has a romantic history with John Constantine in the comics, which could certainly make for some spicy Legends character drama/comedy/romance (it's really all the same on Legends, ain't it?). Her father, John Zatara is also a significant character, and another magic-powered crimefighter. The Legends writers sure love playing with characters' ancestors via time-travel, so it's easy to imagine a multi-generational team-up of Zatara's appearing in Legends season 4.

Closing Remarks

Voila! Five (now six) comic book characters that should appear in the Arrowverse. Actually, as I alluded to in the Opening Remarks, I actually kinda had a hard time just coming up with five (Solomon Grundy is rather a stretch). There are a lot speedsters that would have been obvious choices, but I refuse to promote adding more speedsters to The Flash--there have been too many already! It undermines the specialness of Barry and Eobard's rivalry, in my opinion.

So, what characters would you like to see in the Arrowverse? I'm sure people have tons of different ideas for this. Let me know in the comments!

Hope you enjoyed!
Phillip

Top 6 Unresolved Teasers of the Arrowverse

Opening Remarks

Planning out the development of a multi-show shared TV universe months or years in advance is presumably rather hard. Ideally, clues to future storylines can be planted years in advance--creating gratifying and mind-bending "full circle" moments. Storylines sometimes go differently than planned, however, and inevitably some of these clues will never be returned to. That's what I'm interested in today: seeds of future storylines that have not been and almost certainly never will be followed up on.

I am excluding anything that could be explained as just an Easter Egg from this list. For example, movie posters showcasing Blue Devil have shown up in the Arrowverse more than once. Blue Devil could one day appear on one of the shows, but even if he does, those posters were surely just intended as a comics-reference Easter Egg for observant fans. This list is only for elements the writers put into the shows specifically in order to seed future storylines. In other words, most of these teasers have no particular comics relevance or entertainment value without a resolution.

Also, I am not including cases where plans had to be changed because of bureaucratic malarkey at Warner Brothers. For example, Ted Kord and Harley Quinn were both seeded on Arrow (rather overtly), never to actually appear. I am more interested in cases where the course of Arrowverse storylines simply strayed in a different direction than the writers may have at one time anticipated.

The list is ordered from most to least prominent teasers. In other words, the entries near the top were probably noticed by many viewers, whereas the ones near the bottom are really very obscure.

Where did Deathbolt get his powers?

Episode A3x19: Jake Simmons aka Deathbolt arrives in Starling City, robbing banks and earning the attention of brand-new superhero the Atom. Naturally, Team Arrow assumes that Simmons is just another particle accelerator-empowered criminal from Central City, like every other powered person they are aware of. Therefore, after defeating Deathbolt, Ray delivers him to STAR Labs for incarceration in the Pipeline. But before Ray departs for home, Cisco tells him that Simmons was actually in jail in Opal City the night of the particle accelerator explosion. So where and how did he get his powers?

This is definitely the most prominent unresolved teaser on this list. The writers were very explicitly seeding a future storyline with that scene between Ray and Cisco. My guess is that Deathbolt's origin would have tied into a solution to The Flash's annual "where are the new metas coming from this year?" problem. It was probably later that the writers decided to go the Multiverse route for season 2 and therefore scrapped whatever storyline would have explained Deathbolt. At this point, it seems that the story of Jake Simmons is destined to be an unsolved mystery of the Arrowverse...

Barry built Gideon?

Episode F1x20: It's a big moment. Barry, Caitlin, and Cisco locate and enter Evil Wells' "time vault" for the first time. Upon entering, they are greeted by Gideon, Eobard's future-tech AI assistant. Gideon reveals that Barry actually built her (in the future), and therefore she is compelled to obey his instructions. She proceeds to drop a few tidbits about the future (like that Barry is a founding member of the <REDACTED>). At that point, Evil Wells arrives back at STAR Labs and Team Flash is forced to quickly withdraw before being discovered.

Of course, starting the next year, Gideon was recast as a major character on Legends of Tomorrow as the Waverider's AI. The relationship between Eobard's and the Waverider's versions of Gideon has never been established. In fact, Team Flash has inexplicably never even spoken to Gideon since that scene in F1x20. Who is Zoom? Who is Savitar? Who is the Thinker? How can Barry defeat these foes? Gideon could trivially answer all of these questions. Apparently, the Flash writers' solution to this narrative flaw has been to just hope that the viewers forget she ever existed. That line about Barry having built Gideon, though, suggests that--at one point, at least--Gideon played into the writers' long-term plans for The Flash. At this point, I seriously doubt her existence will ever be acknowledged again.

UPDATE (8/7/2018):
Guess I was wrong. They did actually get up the nerve to acknowledge Gideon again in season 4, though her appearance was so menial it's hard to get too excited about it. They made no use of her history or knowledge of the future, instead just using her as someone for Harry to talk to. Certainly no reference to Gideon's origin or relation to the Waverider's Gideon.

Merlyn's got Vandal Savage in a bottle?

Episode A4x08: In the Year 4 crossover ("Legends of Today"/"Yesterday"), Teams Flash and Arrow deduce that only an artifact that had been exposed to an Nth metal meteor can harm Vandal Savage. The Staff of Horus is the most available such artifact, and Barry and Oliver use it to disintegrate Savage, apparently killing him. Cue Malcolm Merlyn, who sneaks in later and sweeps Savage's ashen remains into a little bottle for safe-keeping, dropping a line about how Savage will "owe him one." Legends of Tomorrow later revealed that only Chay-Ara can truly kill Savage--so he must somehow regenerate before the year 2147 (where he shows up next in L1x13). To make things worse, there's also the revelation that Savage had access to time-travel, which further confuses his whole history!

So what the hell really happens to Vandal Savage between 2015 and 2147? Does Malcolm somehow help Savage regenerate, or does he do it naturally on his own? Does future Savage travel back in time to un-ash-ify his past self? Is Savage really decent enough to reciprocate Malcolm's favor? Do Malcolm's acolytes (i.e. Athena?) still have his ashes in the present day, or are they stashed somewhere secret? Is Malcolm even really dead!?! Sadly, none of these questions will ever be answered (okay, maybe that last one will). After the response to Legends season 1, I think the general strategy has been to ignore Vandal Savage's existence, not draw attention to it (a little self-parody in L2x09 notwithstanding). Probably a good call.

Diggle the artist?

Episode A1x21: In the last episode, Oliver abandons Diggle to face Deadshot alone, leading to the deaths of several ARGUS agents and the escape of the World's Greatest Marksman himself. Understandably peeved, Diggle quits Team Arrow, leaving Oliver and Felicity to face the very imminent threat of the Undertaking alone. Though he regrets betraying John, Oliver is of course too proud to apologize to him, so Felicity takes it upon herself to mediate a reconciliation and goes to visit John at his apartment. When Felicity enters, the first thing she notices is a half-dozen distinctive paintings very prominently hung around the apartment with complimentary accent lights. She asks him if he painted them, but he mysteriously changes the subject immediately.

Since that one scene, the question of Diggle being an accomplished painter has never been readdressed. A couple of the paintings are reused in the set for Diggle's bedroom from episode A2x06, but the accent lights are omitted and they are not mentioned in dialogue. Diggle's bachelor pad is not shown on-screen again, since he and Lyla move into a new, larger apartment between seasons 2 and 3. In the new apartment, the mysterious paintings disappear completely. Apparently, the writers at one time envisioned John Diggle as some kind of closeted artist, but later ditched that angle. Or maybe John has just gotten better at keeping his secret hobby a secret...

UPDATE (3/9/2018):
Actually, I spied a couple of the paintings in the background of John and Lyla's apartment in A6x06 a couple months back. I guess some lovely person in the props department still hasn't forgotten Diggle's artistic bent. Keep the dream alive!

The mysterious stone carvings of Lian Yu

Episode A1x01: That's right, the very first episode of Arrow. More than that, just 30 seconds into the very first episode of Arrow! A bearded and barefoot Oliver runs through the forest of Lian Yu to light his bonfire and signal the passing fishing vessel. He arrives to this very ornately carved stone where he had previously stashed his hood, bow, and arrows. He strikes his flint arrowhead on the stone itself, then fires it to ignite the bonfire from afar. Starling City, here we come!

I love this one simply because it's literally the very first mystery seeded on the show (and by extension in the shared universe). Also, it's so quick and subtle that I totally didn't even notice it the first time I watched the episode. Of course, the first time I watched the episode I had no idea I was gonna end up loving Arrow so much and caring about all these tiny details!

As for what the significance of the carvings is, your guess is as good as mine. An arcane map? A mystical seal? A religious work of art? Lian Yu has quite a storied history as a primordial nexus of magical energy, Japanese WWII stronghold, Buddhist holy site, and Chinese super-prison, so there is certainly no shortage of possible explanations for the enigmatic carvings. Of course, with Lian Yu now rather irreversibly blown to hell, it seems that the mystery of the stone will have to remain just that: a mystery.

UPDATE (5/4/2018):
Genius idea! The Legends should visit Lian Yu (centuries in the past) to fight some sort of magic-y monster. It's already been established that Lian Yu is a "nexus" for magical ley lines (as are Star City and Hub City), so it's sound comic-book logic that Constantine's demon uprising would manifest there. Then they can establish that the stone runes were created by some ancient mystics as a way of containing the monster. Perfect!

An asteroid in Purgatory?

Episode 1x10: In the midst of an ambush, Oliver wrestles with one of Fyers' mercenaries and the two of them take a tumble down a steep hill; the merc lands hard on a rock and dies instantly. For those of you keeping track at home, this is Oliver's first (human) kill, though it is unintentional. After collecting himself, Oliver rather cleverly decides to steal the mercenary's clothes. He proceeds to inspect the map of the island he finds in the uniform's pocket and locates a prison camp where he expects Fyers may be holding Yao Fe.

In the corner of the map, a strange circular bay is visible. It is marked "asteroid bay" in printed Russian and "METEOR IMPACT -- HIGH MAGNETIC" in handwritten English (as far as I understand it, the difference between asteroids and meteors is simply one of size). The screencap above is actually from the beginning of A1x11 when the map is shown again a bit more clearly--in fact, the map continues to show up for the rest of season 1. Since then, the distinctive shape of the asteroid bay has continued to show up on maps of the island (which have remained remarkably consistent over the years), but never again with specific annotations.

This one is my absolute favorite entry on this list, simply because of how incredibly obscure it is. I honestly wonder how many people in the world are aware of this besides myself (and whoever made up the map). The map is full of other fun tidbits, too (that is, if you care as much about the geography of Lian Yu as I do). However, this is the only map detail that could have implied any storyline potential, in my opinion.

Out of all the "teasers" on this list, this is the only one that I really believe may never have been meant to seed future storylines. It is entirely possible that whoever was making up the map just wanted to include interesting things to make it more varied. However, I honestly do find it more likely that this "Asteroid Bay" was conceived as a potential plot device that could have been used to trigger the storyline for one year of the flashbacks.

The map mentions some kind of electromagnetic radiation. Of course, in real-life such a thing is rather unexciting, but in the world of comic books the words "asteroid" and "radiation" trip all kinds of red flags! Perhaps, if the decision to introduce the Flash had not been made, this meteorite would have been Arrow's gateway into the world of metahumans and superpowers. Maybe it could have been the meteorite that gave Vandal Savage his powers. Any number of very exciting things could have happened, but I think--in the end--no one's gonna complain about getting a dedicated Flash TV show, instead.

Closing Remarks

What a fun list! I wish I could think up more ideas for lists like this, because I really enjoy making them. There's something really quite satisfying about scraping the secret underside of the Arrowverse. What a totally ridiculous way of putting that... why did I write it like that? Well, it makes me laugh, so I'm not changing it now.

Anyways, I'm sure there are more good examples of unresolved teasers that I've either never known of or simply aren't coming to mind right now. I'll add them as I think of them, and, of course, if you know of any that I've omitted, please let me know in the comments!

Hope you enjoyed!
Phillip

UPDATE (3/9/2018):
So, after 2 and a half years they actually followed through on the "Trial of the Flash" storyline! I guess you can count this teaser as officially resolved. I'm just going to leave it down here for the sake of... I don't know, posterity?

Barry behind bars?

Episode F1x23: For the first time, Barry enters the Speed Force intentionally in order to run back in time and save his mother. He is presented with a series of visions representing possible destinations he may run to: some in the past, some in the future, and some on alternate Earths. Among these visions is a quick shot of Barry handcuffed and behind bars (figuratively--actually it's glass), being visited in Iron Heights Prison by a party unknown.

Is there still a chance of this teaser being resolved? Maybe, but I doubt it at this point. Some people say that it's a reference to the "Trial of the Flash" storyline from the comics, which very well may be true--though the shot isn't a recreation of any particular famous cover or anything like that (as far as I know). I guess we'll see if they ever adapt that particular storyline, but I think it's much more likely that this ends up as just another unresolved teaser.

The 6 times Oliver Queen most epically escaped death

Opening Remarks

So, I recently saw an article with a similar title to this one on Fandom. I usually don't click on those articles that pop up in the sidebar on the Arrowverse Wikia, but this one managed to hook me. Of course, the list itself turned out to be pretty dumb (a couple of the entries didn't even involve Oliver being in danger...), but at least the idea behind it seemed pretty good to me. So here's my take: 6 times Oliver Queen epically escaped near-certain death.

#1. Oliver impresses Slade Wilson

Episode 1x13: Oliver follows Yao Fei's directions to Slade Wilson's fuselage hideout, only to be attacked by Slade and tied to a chair upon arriving. Even though Oliver desperately pleads with Slade that he is not an enemy, Slade doesn't want to take any chances and calmly prepares to kill Oliver.

But Oliver doesn't accept that fate lying down. In perhaps his first act of true badassery, Oliver dislocates his thumbs to escape his bonds, then weakly punches Slade in the face. Impressed by his grit, Slade decides that maybe trusting Oliver could be a good idea after all. I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship...

#2. Oliver escapes Lian Yu

Episodes 5x22 and 5x23: Finally ready to return home to Starling, Oliver has Anatoly drop him off back on Lian Yu and arrange for a fishing boat to rescue him in 48 hours. Little does he know that Konstantin Kovar has one final gauntlet in store for him before his 5 years in hell can be over. Kovar captures Oliver and injects him with a diabolical drug that inflicts incredible pain and torments him with hallucinations. Quite confident that Oliver will break to the torture, Kovar leaves him in a cell with a gun and a single bullet.

But Oliver Queen is no ordinary man! Tortures that have broken a thousand men before him fall short in the face of his incomparable willpower! Oliver uses the gun to escape his cell, and begins taking out Kovar's men across the island, Rambo-style. With the clock ticking on his only chance to escape, Oliver brutally duels and kills Kovar, and just barely manages to get to his bonfire in time to signal the passing fishermen.

#3. Oliver defeats Malcolm Merlyn

Episode 1x23: Oliver has already fought the Dark Archer twice... and been soundly beaten twice, barely escaping with his life. Nonetheless, on the night of the Undertaking, Oliver confronts Merlyn for one final duel. The two archers battle on the rooftop of the Merlyn Global building, and Malcolm Merlyn once again gains the upper hand. As Merlyn restrains Oliver in a chokehold, it becomes clear that this time there will be no escape: defeat means death. Is this the end for our valiant hero?

Of course not! Oliver manages to grab one of his arrows and stab it through his own chest and into Malcolm, somehow threading the needle between his own vital organs and major arteries, but perfectly targeting his foe's. Apparently, in addition to ancient Greek literature, Oliver held onto a thing or two about human anatomy from his school days.

#4. Oliver survives Ra's al Ghul

Episode 3x09: Left completely out of options by Malcolm Merlyn's diabolical machinations, Oliver is forced to challenge Ra's al Ghul to a duel to save the life of his sister Thea. Before the fight even begins, it is clear that Oliver is in way over his head: Ra's doesn't even arm himself for the fight, instead promising to relieve Oliver of his swords when he is done with them. A few short moments later, and Ra's is stabbing Oliver through the chest and kicking his lifeless body off the side of a cliff.

The fall alone should have instantly killed any ordinary person. Seriously, go back and watch episode 3x10 at around 9:20... it's like 25 stories, easily. But--as this list well shows us--Oliver Queen is no ordinary person. The Assassin Formerly Known as Maseo delivers his barely-alive body to Tatsu Yamashiro, who nurses him back to health using ultra-cure/heal-everything herbs (a frequent Arrow plot device) and other unexplained quasi-mystical Eastern medicine. Who needs a Lazarus Pit, anyways?

#5. Oliver escapes the Dominator mothership

Episode 5x08: As certain-death scenarios are concerned, this is pretty much as bad as it gets. In the midst of the Dominator invasion, Oliver is abducted (along with John, Thea, Sara, and Ray) and taken to the aliens' mothership off somewhere in space. To make matters worse, he is placed in a dream-machine that replaces the memories of his real life with an illusory dream-world where his life is perfect.

But even this predicament is escapable for Oliver Queen! He starts to see through the cracks in the Dominators' dream-world and manages to deduce/remember what's really going on. Overcoming the temptation to remain in the dream-world, he leads his friends out of their mind prison and awakens aboard the mothership. From there, Oliver's action-hero super-skills kick in as he fights his way through the halls to a hangar, where he and his friends board a small ship and make their escape. Really, that pic of Oliver firing a giant alien gun says it all.

#6. Oliver escapes the Arrowcave death-trap

Episode 5x20: Under ordinary circumstances an EMP is not a lethal weapon. But Prometheus is nothing if not creative, and in this case he uses one to turn the Arrowcave into a hermetically sealed death-trap with only enough oxygen to last a few hours. Fast-forward a bit and Felicity is paralyzed from the waist down, Oliver is bleeding out, and there's a gas leak. It's a long story. The bottom-line is: the odds are looking pretty grim for Ollie and Felicity.

But terrible odds are made to be overcome! With nothing but their wits about them, Oliver and Felicity manage to claw their way out of the cave and into an adjoining tunnel system. Near to passing out from blood loss, Oliver summons all his strength and carries Felicity through the tunnels and to their exit point. In one final Herculean act, he manages to hoist Felicity up a ladder and then pull her up to a rope with a single arm. More importantly, the whole experience rekindles his romance with Felicity, so really it all works out for the best.

Closing Remarks

Hm, I actually really enjoyed making this list. Sometimes it's fun to forget about plot and characters and romances and just appreciate Oliver Queen for the action-man superhero he is. Also, the list is a fun way to depict Oliver's 10-year progression as a hero, as the near-death experiences become increasingly over-the-top as the years go on.

So, what death-defying stunts are in store for Arrow season 6? Fighting off entire cabals at once? Escape from Earth-X? I guess we'll have to wait to find out, but I'm sure Oliver's days of flirting with mortal danger are far from over.

Hope you enjoyed!
Phillip

Arrow Season 6 Hopes and Predictions

Opening Remarks

Arrow season 6 is fast (but not fast enough) approaching and I for one am starting to get my mind back in Arrow-mode by reminding myself of all the hanging plot threads. Who is Vigilante? What's the deal with Helix and Cayden James? Who survived Lian Yu? It's gonna be a long 5 weeks until we start getting some answers, but at least I can hold myself over by theorizing about what's to come.

Lian Yu

I may as well start with the big one: who survived the explosion of Lian Yu? Well, probably almost everybody. For as much as the producers and cast are trying to stir up hype by acting like a bunch of main characters could be dead, I think it's a very fair assumption that pretty much everyone important is gonna be okay. Here's the breakdown:

Slade Wilson, Dinah Drake, and Black Siren are the only characters 100% definitively confirmed alive by the season 6 trailers, etc. In comments on Tumblr last year (before the finale), Marc Guggenheim confirmed to fans that Emily Bett Rickards (Felicity Smoak), David Ramsey (John Diggle), Paul Blackthorne (Quentin Lance), Willa Holland (Thea Queen), and Echo Kellum (Curtis Holt) would remain main cast members in season 6. Granted, that could turn out to be false, but even if not for Guggenheim's comments I would find it extremely unlikely that Arrow would kill off any of those characters at this point. Additionally, Rick Gonzales (Rene Ramirez) was officially announced as being upgraded to main cast for season 6, which all but confirms his survival as well.

So who does that leave as possible casualties? Nyssa al Ghul, Evelyn Sharp, Talia al Ghul, and Samantha Clayton. To start with the obvious, Evelyn is almost certainly dead. Let's be real, no one cared enough about her to go and save her from that little cage. Samantha is also a likely fatality, given that we know William will be living with Oliver at the start of season 6. However, it is also possible that Samantha is just in a coma or something, and she still has a chance of pulling through. In one manner of thinking, that route would be the more sensible decision for the writers, since it gives them an out to write William off the show if they decide they don't want him to be a permanent addition.

So then, what of the al Ghul sisters? I believe Talia is most likely alive. That character is way too major to not have a bigger role than what she was given in season 5. I will go into more detail below, but I believe it is quite likely that she will play a big role in the overarching conflict of season 6. Also, she was with Laurel when last seen, so Laurel's survival strongly suggests Talia's as well. The two of them would probably have known the locations of Prometheus' bombs and known where to hide to be safe.

I saved Nyssa for last because, for me, she has the biggest question mark next to her name. She's been a big part of Arrow for the last 5 years, but it seems plausible that the writers don't have any further storylines for her (so they would be willing to kill her off). On the other hand, she could just as easily become a big player in season 6, especially if her sister is to be a major villain. I have no prediction for Nyssa; she could go either way.

The Villainous Cabal: Helix, Talia, and Black Siren

Season 6 is gonna be featuring a cabal of villains in conflict with Team Arrow, as opposed to a single "big bad." The only person officially confirmed to be a member of this group is everybody's favorite smart-mouthed Russian mobster, Anatoly Knyazev. Richard Dragon / Ricardo Diaz is also gonna be a big villain this year, and it seems like a safe bet that he'll play into the cabal as well (as far as I know this hasn't been explicitly confirmed). Lastly, it has been confirmed that Helix will continue to appear in season 6. I think it is very likely that their leader Cayden James (likely played by Michael Emerson) will turn out to be evil and be a member of the villainous cabal.

But why? How to explain Helix's sudden turn from benevolent (albeit over-aggressive) hacktivists into cabal-worthy villains who canoodle with Russian mobsters? Well, as I posited in my season 5 endgame predictions post several months ago, my personal theory is that Helix has really been working against Team Arrow from the beginning.

Didn't it seem way too convenient that none of Helix's supposed "help" offered to Felicity against Prometheus actually ended up hurting him? Just the opposite, in fact: Prometheus seemed ready at every turn to exploit Helix's interferences to his advantage. Helix gives Team Arrow Susan Williams' location: Prometheus and Talia are already there waiting with a carefully laid ambush (5x16). Helix gives Felicity evidence that Adrian Chase is Prometheus: Adrian seems like he's just waiting for the the marshals guarding him to receive a call to arrest him so that he can murder them with a pen (5x18). Helix gives Felicity a device that can track down Adrian: Prometheus promptly detonates an EMP in the Arrowcave before the device can be used to his disadvantage (5x19). That's what I call too many coincidences.

Personally, I rather fancy the idea that Helix is Talia al Ghul's information-age version of the League of Assassins, using brutal methods to police the world with no accountability and according to their own questionable code of justice. That would make for a good way to roll both Helix and Talia into season 6's story, and resolve what exactly Talia's motivations were in the years after she parted ways with the League.

Even if the connection to Helix doesn't pan out, it seems quite likely that Talia will be a part of the villainous cabal. She's simply too big a character for her role in season 5 to be the end of her story. Now she's gonna be coming back after Oliver, madder than ever. I just wonder if Black Siren will be continuing to work for her this year. It seems likely given that Black Siren seems more apt to working for other supervillains than running her own operations. I suspect that Black Siren will be be the first thread of the villainous cabal that Team Arrow encounters in season 6--a thread that they can follow back up to the top of some dastardly conspiracy (you know, whatever that conspiracy may turn out to be).

Vigilante

Who is the man behind the ski mask with the borderline-supernatural ability to escape from rooms full of superheroes after losing a fight? Well, there's the realistic theory, and then there's my... uh, let's say imaginative theory.

One of the key pieces of evidence on this subject is some comment by Marc Guggenheim that everyone is interpreting to mean that we've already seen Vigilante's real face. Well, I read his exact words, and yes, that is--technically--what he said, but I think it's worth pointing out that it seems rather possible he meant that, by the time Vigilante is unmasked, we will have already seen his real face. I'm not saying that we necessarily haven't seen Vigilante's face, just I wouldn't be at all surprised if he turns out to be some new character that is introduced at the start of season 6.

With that in mind, for a while I thought that Slade's heretofore unseen son Joe Wilson was a likely candidate, but I have now discounted that possibility. It sounds like they're casting a teenager of age 15 or 16 to play Joe, which would make it pretty ridiculous if he were to be the Vigilante.

Update:

Yeah, so, turns out Joe Wilson is gonna be an adult. Nonetheless, I'm 99.99% sure he's not Vigilante. The bio they released about him describes him as an ASIS agent (in the footsteps of his father!) who Oliver and Slade are gonna have to rescue from a Kasnian prison. I can't imagine that storyline making any sense with Joe being the Vigilante. Besides, when you have two viable ideas for stories, you only make life harder for yourself by squeezing them both into one.

Anyways, here are my two theories.

The Realistic Theory: Frank Pike

Smart money says that SCPD captain Frank Pike is the man under the ski mask, and I happen to agree. For whatever it's worth, I actually came up with this theory before seeing it on the Internet...so...yeah.

There are several arguments in support of this prediction, with the simplest being mere process of elimination. If Vigilante really is some recurring character that we've seen before on Arrow, Pike is pretty much the only male who fits the bill and hasn't been seen at the same time as him. Frank Pike is a character who has had very sporadic appearances on the show since all the way back in the beginning of season 1. How cool would it be for a character like that to now turn out to be Vigilante?

Second, the timing of Pike's and Vigilante's appearances line up pretty well. In episode 5x16, Adrian Chase stabbed Pike and put him in a coma after Oliver gave Pike evidence that Chase was Prometheus. Since that point, Vigilante has not been seen again. Granted, before that point, he was only seen about 3 times in total, so this could very well be a meaningless coincidence. However, it does seem like it would make a very Arrow-esque story for season 6 to do an episode where Pike comes out of his coma and starts operating as Vigilante again. Tonally, one can imagine it working quite well.

Lastly, Pike's psychology (what little we know of it) seems a very good fit for the character of Vigilante. In the comics, the Vigilante mantle is held by a series of disillusioned law enforcement professionals who suffer from the gradual degradation of their mental health culminating in full-on breakdowns. It seems probable that Arrow's Vigilante will be someone working in law enforcement as well. I recently skimmed through episode 5x15 ("Fighting Fire with Fire," where Vigilante resurfaces and attacks Mayor Queen during his impeachment proceedings), and one line in particular really grabbed my attention: Frank Pike tells Adrian Chase something along the lines of "maybe the law enforcement system is broken, and we're not really fighting for anything valuable anymore." If that doesn't sound like Vigilante seeping through the cracks in Pike's persona, I don't know what does.

So there you have it: I believe it to be most likely that Captain Frank Pike is the Vigilante. Chances are, we'll get an episode like I described above where he comes out of his coma and starts operating as Vigilante again. That episode will most likely feature flashbacks to some defining moments in Pike's life over the last 5 years which detail his downfall from upstanding cop to trigger-happy vigilante. If done well (that's a big if), it could be one of the best story arcs in Arrow to date.

The Imaginative Theory: Adrian Chase

Hmmm, go read "Theory #1" from my season 5 endgame predictions post, then come back. Okay, done? Now we can begin.

I know that Prometheus isn't really the Human Target--I promise I do! But, as I have previously written, I'm not admitting my fault until the day that Christopher Chance saunters into the Arrowcave alive and well. Until then, as far as I'm concerned, Prometheus was Christopher Chance wearing a mask that allowed to imitate the real Adrian Chase. As the man says, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

That's right, the imaginative theory is that Vigilante is the real Adrian Chase. The one whose real life as District Attorney and wife to Doris was stolen by Prometheus. That means that Chase could be alive somewhere, maybe with a television-sized dose of amnesia that has prevented him from revealing his existence. See! This makes sense... kinda... sorta... maybe (not really).

As far as I can tell, Josh Segarra hasn't taken any other jobs that would prevent him from continuing to appear on Arrow, so that at least checks out. If his return is to be a successful surprise, they'd probably have him film one scene for the end of the mid-season finale ala Black Siren before having him make his full return.

Really, the main factor that disproves this theory is that I seriously doubt the Arrow writers would be willing to retroactively introduce such a huge change to the story of season 5. It would be too weird to undo so much of that story (which was already so well received) after the fact.

So yeah, I know: there's no way in hell this theory is right. But just in case, in that one-in-a-million shot that all this all comes through, at least now I'm on record predicting it ahead of time (for whatever that's worth). Now we can all go back to thinking that Frank Pike is the Vigilante.

Olicity

I'm just gonna sneak this one in down here where maybe no one will notice. Say what you will, but I like Olicity, goddammit! I'm just kidding about the sneaking in: I know it's just a vocal minority of the fans that so adamantly hate their romance (I'm not kidding about liking Olicity, by the way).

Anyways, it makes no difference whether you like them or not, because it sure seems like they're finally gonna be getting together, permanent-like. The end of episode 5x20 "Underneath" (which I thought was great, by the way; again, say what you will) pretty clearly signaled that the couple would be getting back together after wrapping up the fight against Prometheus. How William will complicate matters remains to be seen, but--son or no son--I seriously doubt that the writers will drag out the inevitable Olicity romance for another season. In my opinion, another year of "will they or won't they" dramatic tension won't do anything but aggravate all the fans, including especially the anti-Olicity ones. At this point, just let them get married so we can all move forward already.

My money's on a Oliver-Felicity/Barry-Iris double-wedding for this year's episode 8 mega-crossover. That certainly seems to be what the producers are hinting at with their sly remarks that "love is in the air" for this crossover and that the crossover will depict a major life event in several characters' lives. What else could that be referring to? Also, it kinda makes sense from a logistical standpoint to roll both weddings into one crossover, since either wedding alone would pretty much have to be a Flash/Arrow crossover anyways.

In my opinion, the idea of a wedding crossover certainly has all the potential to be wildly entertaining (if handled right, of course). A rehearsal dinner afterparty ala Avengers: Age of Ultron... heroes in tuxedos and long dresses kicking ass... Quentin and Donna Smoak crossing paths again... and Mick inhaling booze and hors d'oeuvres galore! What's not to love?!?

Well, I'll tell you what. A double-wedding crossover probably isn't gonna leave much screen time for a particularly cool villain with a compelling evil plan. I imagine the end result will be something quite similar to "Invasion!" where the actual alien invasion was little more than background for the protagonists and the plotline for 3 hours of television was so simplistic that I had pretty much divined the whole thing beforehand from a 3 minute trailer.

Fortunately, the protagonists are entertaining enough that this approach is not disastrous, but there's just so much missed potential for truly movie-quality stories in these annual crossovers. Maybe I'm wrong and the crossover will be able to juggle two weddings and a cinematic super-conflict into a cohesive 4-hour package. The Arrow season 5 finale "Lian Yu" certainly demonstrated just how tightly-written and exciting these shows can be when the writers really put their minds to it. I hope that they are able to apply that same approach to the crossover.

Closing Remarks

There it is. As I alluded to in my opening remarks, my real reason for writing this is just to satisfy my Arrow-cravings until the season starts. Like most fans, I was very happy with the direction the show moved in season 5, and I have no reason for anything but continued optimism going into season 6.

In the spirit of making predictions, what of Legends of Tomorrow and Flash? How and why are Damien Darkh, Gorilla Grodd, and Kuasa gonna come together and threaten the Legends?!? Something something something the Thinker?!? (In case you can't tell, my expectations for the Flash are very low going into new television season.) Let me know any predictions you have for the shows' returns in the comments. No theory is too wild, in case my Adrian Chase/Human Target rant above didn't already demonstrate that.

Hope you enjoyed!
Phillip

Reconciling 1990's The Flash with the Modern Arrow-Multiverse

Update after "Crisis on Earth-X" (12/9/2017):

Well, now that we know there is a finite number of universes in the multiverse (53, to be exact), this topic becomes a little more relevant, huh? Oh, who am I kidding: this is still a ridiculously pointless topic for me to have written about. In any case, what with the rate that The Flash is introducing new Wellses, we could be running up on that 53 limit one of these days. Then again, none of the Earths those Wellses are from are necessarily exclusive from the Flash '90 Earth, so again, there really is no point to this at all, is there?

Update on 11/13/2018 (lead-up to "Elseworlds"):

Well, well, now that John Wesley Shipp's Barry Allen is apparently on the table for Elseworlds, this topic becomes a lot little more relevant, huh? I'll be honest: I never thought it would actually happen. And I'm still not sure that it should. And, for that matter, I'm still not convinced that it even will. Between Doctor Destiny, Psycho-Pirate, and the Monitor, literally anything can happen in this crossover. He could end up being nothing but a hallucination or a Speed Force ghost or a million other crazy things. Yup, Elseworlds is gonna be bat-shit crazy. And I approve of that.

Update after "Elseworlds" (12/13/2018):

Whoa, Elseworlds was awesome! Definitely the best crossover, in my opinion. And now we have a whole year to look forward to Crisis on Infinite Earths! I'll have plenty more to say about that, for sure, but that's not what this article is about. I think we can now say quite definitively that The Flash '90 took place on Earth-90 of the modern Arrow multiverse. Elseworlds gave us a few more insights into that universe, and there's also a couple connections I didn't catch from before, so I'm adding them all now: Joe Kline, Carter Hall, John Diggle, and everyone from the Earth-90 teaser. Enjoy!

Opening Remarks

Ever since a scene from CBS' 1990 Flash TV series flitted by as one of Barry's speed force visions in "Welcome to Earth-2," it has been kind of semi-canon that that show takes place on one of the alternate Earths of the Arrow-Multiverse. To some extent at least, this makes sense with what we know about the multiverse: several actors from that show have appeared on the new show playing eponymous characters. We could call them doppelgangers (I'm not putting the umlauts over the a's, okay. That seems like a lot of work.). I think I'll use "Earth-90" as my placeholder name for the Earth in question; that numbering seems in line with the decision to number Supergirl's Earth as 38, so I guess it's as good as any other arbitrary name for the time being.

Update after "Elseworlds" (12/13/2018):

Okay, did I nail it with this "Earth-90" thing, or what?

Of course, this connection between the new and old Flash shows is nothing more than a small novelty. I certainly never expect it to have any storyline significance or for Barry to ever visit Earth-90. Still, in the name of continuity, I think it'd be fun to catalog the characters of Earth-90 and examine how they may reconcile with the modern multiverse. Incidentally, shouldn't Flash 1990 be rolled into the Arrowverse Wiki? It certainly has as much justification to be there as Constantine, which I still see no reason to assume takes place on Earth-1...oh, whatever.

My first realization when creating this list has been that we really don't know much about how the multiverse...well, works. Most fundamentally, why and how do the Earths deviate from each other? Obviously, there is some force at play that causes them to maintain major similarities, even though each contains radically different causal chains. For an easy example, Barry Allen of Earth-1 and Jay Garrick of Earth-3 both became speedsters and chose the name "the Flash" completely independently of each other. I will label these phenomena "coincidences," even though they are obviously the result of more than mere randomness.

I will make a couple of very conservative assumptions for the sake of this write-up. (1) Identical people (played by the same actors) on alternate Earths are doppelgangers of each other. (2) Doppelgangers' parents (in fact, all ancestors) are also doppelgangers. My logic is that a person's identity is dependent on their having the same exact two parents. That seems in line with everything we've seen of the alternate Earths on the Flash.

With those assumptions in mind, I am organizing this document into two sections: doppelgangers and coincidences. Doppelgangers are people who are known to have versions on Earth-90 and on another known Earth. Based on my assumptions above, all the ancestors of known doppelgangers are also doppelgangers, so I'm omitting characters who haven't been specifically seen on multiple Earths, for the sake of keeping the list short. The coincidences I've found are people who are not doppelgangers, but who happen to share the same name (or nickname/codename/super-person-name). Okay! Enough talk. Let's get to it!

Doppelgangers

Henry Allen - 1 / Jay Garrick - 3 / Barry Allen - 90

The most prominent case. On Earth-90, the doppelganger of Earth-1's Henry Allen is named Barry Allen and he--rather than his son--becomes the Flash. Simple enough. Earth-3's version of the character also becomes a speedster, but he takes his mother's maiden name of "Garrick," presumably because his father doesn't raise him. His given name of "Jay" is also significant to Earth-90, but I'll elaborate on that in the Coincidences section down below.

Christina McGee - 1 / Christina McGee - 90

This one's fun, isn't it? On Earth-90, Christina McGee is a scientist who works at S.T.A.R. Labs, whereas her Earth-1 counterpart is the head of rival company Mercury Labs. She was the female lead of the 1990 show, filling both the Cisco/Caitlin role as Barry's scientifically adept ally and the Iris role of Barry's primary romantic interest. That relationship was alluded to in the modern Flash season 2 finale when Tina and Henry got to meet and started (very gently) flirting. Of course, a few minutes later Zoom drove his hand through Henry's heart. Tina hasn't appeared on the show since. Oh, well.

James Jesse - 1 & 3 / James Jesse - 90

You gotta love Mark Hamill. The Trickster of (at least) 3 Earths, James Jesse has been wreaking havoc for the Flash and having a hell of a time doing it since way back in 1990. Archive photos of Hamill in costume from the old show were even used for props in the new show as records of Jesse's earlier psychopathic rampages. Hopefully we'll be seeing Hamill's Trickster again in season 4 and beyond.

Zoey Clark - 1 / Zoey Clark - 90

Well, this happened. We haven't gotten Mark Hamill's Trickster back on The Flash in a while, so they gave us his old sidekick Prank instead. Rather a poor substitute, in my opinion, but I guess you take what you can get. In any case, she is definitely a doppelganger: same actress, same character name.

Julio Mendez - 1 / Julio Mendez - 90

Julio Mendez was a principal character on the 1990 show as Barry's close friend and colleague in the CCPD. He took a little longer than his costars to appear on the new Flash, but he eventually did in season 3 in a memorable 2-episode role. First, in 3x01, he supplanted Singh as police chief in the Flashpoint timeline. Then, several episodes later in "Untouchable," he was targeted by Clive Yorkin among other cops that contributed to Yorkin's arrest in the erased timeline. In the post-Flashpoint world, Mendez was not a cop but a lounge singer. Of course, that didn't stop Yorkin, who used his powers to rapidly age Mendez into a decomposing corpse. I guess we shouldn't expect any more appearances from this doppelganger, at least...

Anthony Bellows - 1 / Anthony Bellows - 90

Earth-90 Tony Bellows was just a cop, but his Earth-1 counterpart seems to have become a little more distinguished. Anthony Bellows appeared in a few episodes of The Flash as the mayor of Central City, then was revealed to be corrupt, arrested, and imprisoned over the course of season 4. F4x04 also confirmed that Earth-1's Bellows used to be a cop, like his Earth-90 doppelganger. Who knows, maybe back on Earth-90, ol' Tony picked up some political ambitions and nowadays he's heading up city hall there... or, you know, also in prison.

Jessica Danforth - 1 / Felicia Kane - 90

This one is my absolute favorite. Back in 1991 Jeri Ryan played a small part on an episode of the Flash as Felicia Kane, a wealthy heiress who gets kidnapped and is rescued by the Flash. Fast-forward to 2015, and she appears on episode 4x02 of Arrow as Jessica Danforth, a wealthy citizen of Star City and old friend of Moira Queen who decides to run for mayor. Damien Darkh has Lonnie Machin kidnap and torture Danforth's daughter, successfully scaring her far away from city hall. The whole ordeal is what inspires Oliver to try becoming mayor himself. His rationale is that he and all of his friends and family are total badasses (or dead), so he's probably the only person who could survive the all-out warzone that passes for a political theater in the freaking hostile place that is Star City. Ollie's political career has already involved throwing down with Damien Darkh, Tobias Church, Vigilante, and Russian mobsters, so I guess he was right!

Anyways, back to the point, it is plainly obvious that Jeri Ryan's connection to the 1990 Flash was completely unintentional and unnoticed. Both characters she's played are very minor. Nonetheless, I choose to believe that they are indeed doppelgangers. Both seem to come from wealthy families. We know of course that doppelgangers sometimes have different given names. Perhaps Jessica Danforth's maiden name was Kane. Sure. Why not?

John Diggle - 1 / John - 90

Among the many (many!) hugely entertaining Easter eggs in Elseworlds was the first in-universe reference to the popular fan theory that John Diggle is a version of Green Lantern John Stewart. The Flash of Earth-90 immediately recognized Diggle as "John," and asked him where his ring was. That's enough to conclude at least that Diggle has a doppelganger named John on Earth-90. Too bad we'll probably never actually see him, since the Monitor destroyed that universe at the start of the crossover. But fear not. Whether it's an possible future or an alternate Earth, I will be shocked if we don't eventually see a Green Lantern John Diggle in some form.

Coincidences

Henry Allen - 1 / Henry Allen - 90

A little weird, huh. On Earth-90, Barry Allen's father (that would be Earth-1 Barry Allen's paternal grandfather) was named Henry. On Earth-1, Barry Allen's father was named Henry. Everything's a generation off (for obvious reason; the first show was made a generation ago). Maybe Earth-1 Henry Allen is really Henry Allen, Jr., then? Maybe not. There's not much point speculating, but you can bet my ears will perk up if the names of Barry's grandparents ever gets mentioned in passing in an episode of the Flash one of these days.

Nora Allen - 1 / Nora Allen - 90

This one's even stranger, since there is no relation between these two Nora's. On Earth-90, a Nora (quite likely née Garrick) married Henry Allen, then on Earth-1 a different Nora coincidentally married his doppelganger's son (who was also named Henry). Again, no point speculating, but I'll be paying attention on the day when we learn Earth-1 Barry's grandparents' names.

Barry Allen - 1 & 2 / Barry Allen - 90

Again, weird, for all the same reasons. As I mentioned in the opening remarks, there is quite clearly some force that impels the alternate Earths of the multiverse to converge at points of similarity, despite the apparent statistical impossibility of such coincidences. The existence of the Flash is obviously one of the most important such points of convergence. A man named Barry Allen, with father Henry and mother Nora, gains super-speed and becomes the superhero the Flash. That's just how its gotta be.

Jay Garrick - 3 / Jay Allen - 90

Out of all these coincidences, this one actually makes some sense! On the Flash 1990 show, Barry Allen had an older brother named Jay Allen in an obvious reference to Jay Garrick of the comics. Meanwhile on Earth-3, we have Jay Garrick, who is a doppelganger of Earth-90 Jay's younger brother Barry. Apparently on both Earth -3 and -90, Jay was the preferred name for the firstborn son of the Allens. Since there was no counterpart for Earth-90 Jay Allen on Earth-3, that name went to Jay Garrick (the doppelganger of Earth-90's second Allen son) instead. Seems conceivable.

Yes, I know I'm putting way too much thought into this.

Sam Scudder - 1 / Sam Scudder - 90

So it turns out that the Mirror Master Sam Scudder actually appeared on the 1990 show, played by none other than David Cassidy. David Cassidy may be of note to Arrowverse fans as the father of Katie Cassidy, who plays Laurel Lance. Of course he's also just generally quite famous from the Partridge Family and whatnot. His father Jack Cassidy (Katie's grandfather) was also a very talented and famous actor; among plenty of other roles, fans of Columbo will recognize him from playing the murderers in about 50% of the episodes (that's a vast exaggeration). How did I get to talking about Columbo? Let's get back on track.

As we know, Earth-1 also has its own version of the Mirror Master Sam Scudder (who is incidentally one of my least favorite villains in all of the Arrowverse). For what it's worth, H.R. tells us that Earth-19 has a Mirror Master, too, but that one is named Evan McCulloch. Earths -1 and -90's Scudders are obviously not doppelgangers, but maybe they're related? Perhaps Cassidy's Scudder is the new Scudder's father? A quick hop over to Wikipedia tells me that David Cassidy suffers from dementia and has retired from performing (that's sad, he's fairly young), so don't hold your breath for an appearance from Mirror Master, Sr.

Leonard Snart - 1 / Leonard Wynters - 90

Yup, Leonard Wynters. Wynters. It's easy to cringe at that, but don't forget that the modern Flash show unabashedly brings us such names as Roy G. Bivolo and Kyle Nimbus. Oh, and this version of Captain Cold is albino, so take away from that whatever you will. Come to think of it, Captain Cold is more or less albino in Young Justice, too. I wonder if there was some inspiration there?

Anyways, just another case of multiversal coincidence. Both Earth-1 and -90's Flashes have Captain Colds to contend with. IMDB indicates that the guy who played Cold hasn't acted in anything since before I was born, so again, don't hold your breath for a guest appearance on the new Flash.

Iris West - 1 & 2 / Iris West - 90

Apparently, Iris West was cast to be a main character and Barry's primary love interest in the pilot for  the 1990 Flash. I guess someone didn't like her because she was written off of the show when it was picked up for a full season. In any case, another coincidence of people with the same name who are definitely not doppelgangers.

Linda Park - 1 & 2 / Linda Park - 90

Lastly, Linda Park. She was a minor character on 1990's the Flash, who is certainly not the doppelganger of the Linda Park we know. Then again, there are already two Linda Parks who are both journalists on Earth-1 (the TV reporter who used to show up on Arrow and the more prominent character who appeared later on Flash), so this character has no shortage of coincidences.

Kline - 1 / Joe Kline - 90

The Flash '90 introduced a TV pundit named Joe Kline. The new Flash show reused that character in a very minor role in "The Once and Future Flash" as a news anchor in the year 2024. The two Klines are clearly not doppelgangers, so we'll count this as just another coincidence.

Carla Tannhauser - 1 / Carl Tanner - 90

Now this one's cool! It's hard for me to say too much about Carl Tanner, since I've never actually watched any of the 1990 Flash (I'm relying heavily on Wikipedia here), but apparently he was the villain in the second episode of that series. He was portrayed as a scientist and an old friend of Tina McGee who comes to Central City and creates a super-serum which mutates him into some kind of monster. Apparently the modern Flash writers thought of him when it came to naming Caitlin Snow's estranged mother.

It's not uncommon for immigrants to Anglicize their names when coming to the US. Perhaps on Earth-90 some immigrant Tannhauser shortened their name to Tanner. Seeing as how they share a given name and a scientific aptitude, it also seems a fair inference than Carla Tannhauser is some kind of gender-flipped near-doppelganger of Carl Tanner. In other words, Caitlin Snow's mother was actually on the Flash back in 1990! You just didn't recognize her because she happened be a man!

Carter Hall - 1 / Carter Hall - 90

Hawkman never actually appeared on The Flash '90, but the name "Dr. Carter Hall" was referenced in a single throwaway Easter egg. Of course, we know that Carter exists on Earth-1, though he's certainly too young for his doppelganger to have been a doctor in the year 1990. On the other hand, I'm not even sure how doppelgangers would work with the whole reincarnation thing. In any case, I don't want to make any strained assumptions, so this will just count as another coincidence.

By the way, Carter's costume was among the Easter eggs in the Earth-90 Elseworlds teaser, so... yeah. Not much to say about that, but it seemed worth noting. See below.

Elseworlds Teaser Easter Eggs

So there were a whole lot of Easter eggs in that short Earth-90 Elseworlds teaser. I'm talking about the one that first aired at the end of the shows the week before the crossover. No faces though, so we can't call any of them doppelgangers--just a bunch of fun "coincidences." Here we go:

• Stargirl, wearing her Earth-1 costume.
• A woman who looks a lot like Huntress from Earth-1. No crossbow, though, that I can make out, so its hard to be too sure.
• Firestorm, wearing Jax's Earth-1 costume.
• Nightshade from The Flash '90, I think?? He's got a dark brown trenchcoat and a grey balaclava. I don't know who else that would be.
• Hawkman's helmet, same as Earth-1.
• Someone with light-colored hair and a striped costume. I can't place it.
• Jesse Quick... I think? Actually I'm not convinced that the costume matches, but I also have no idea who else this could be.
• The Ray's helmet, sames as Earths-1 and -X.
• The rest of Hawkman, wearing his Earth-1 costume.
• A black, white, and red sleeve that may belong to Mr. Terrific.
• Captain or Citizen Cold, wearing his Earth-X jacket.
• Hawkgirl's helmet, same as Earth-1.
• A version of Green Arrow, wearing his Smallville (!) costume.

Closing Remarks

Voila! That's all I've got. Now bear in mind that I've never actually seen a single minute of the 1990 Flash show, so I've been depending heavily on good old-fashioned Wikipedia. Also, IMDB is very comprehensive on the cast of the show, and I'm pretty confident that I caught every actor who could qualify as a doppelganger. In the coincidences section, though, my knowledge is very likely incomplete. It seems very probable that the 1990 show had some Easter Egg references to comic book names that have now popped up in the Arrowverse. Also, if the modern Flash writers have been looking to the old show to borrow names ala Carl Tanner, then most of those would have flown under my radar as well.

Now that I've written this, I must admit that it seems kinda pointless in hindsight. What was I hoping to gain here again? Well, in any case, it's done now, so I hope you got something out of it.

Hope you enjoyed!
Phillip

Arrow Predictions: Who is Prometheus and who is his boss?

Update 1:

I originally wrote this post on 3/11/17, in between episodes 5x15 and 5x16. After watching 5x16 "Checkmate," I have added some notes like this one, pointing out relevant developments from the episode.

Update 2 on 8/13/2017:

I originally wrote this post on 3/11/17, in between episodes 5x15 and 5x16. Now that Arrow season 5 is complete, I'm adding just a couple more notes on how things turned out.

Opening Remarks

Generally speaking, I find it prudent to avoid Arrow fan blogs and the like (yes, I realize that that's exactly what this is). The Arrow fandom can be pretty absurdly contentious; if you ask me, some of these people are straight-up nutcases who have a hard time separating fiction from reality. Bottom-line: there's a treacherous jungle out there where dogmatic debates over Olicity and persistent delusions about Tommy's ever-imminent resurrection run wild. Okay, okay, I know I'm exaggerating/overgeneralizing, but the fact of the matter is I have a hard time reading the stuff for too long before I just get kind of depressed.

But! For whatever reason, yesterday I allowed myself to be drawn in deep to the bottomless abyss of the Arrow fandom. I braved the belly of the beast and escaped with my sanity and a whole lot of wild Arrow theories/predictions to think about. Most of what I read didn't really make sense, but it did bring up some interesting clues that I hadn't at all been considering. Frankly, before I read this stuff, I had been pretty unimpressed with Arrow season 5: I kind of thought that the writers have just been coming up with random twists as they go. Now I'm starting to realize that the master plan of this season may be much deeper and more rewarding than I expected. Still, I shouldn't have to read fan blogs to enjoy the show--good writing should pace out the twists and clues in such a way that the show builds up its suspense and mystery all by itself.

Anyways, after hours of contemplation, I have cut through the bull and refined my thoughts down to two unified theories of Arrow season 5. The theories are independent of each other, but compatible. In other words, either one of them could be correct, or both could be correct.

Theory 1: Adrian Chase is really Christopher Chance

Update after Arrow season 5 (Summer 2017):

To put it straight: this theory was wrong. To put it the way I prefer to put it: this theory was never really outright disproved, was it? And now that Adrian Chase blew his own head off, there's no chance for anyone to check whether or not he was actually wearing one of the Human Target's Mission Impossible masks. As far as I'm concerned, until the day that Christopher Chance shows up alive and well on Arrow, I'm not admitting I was wrong, dammit!

Christopher Chance's appearance in episode 5x05 "Human Target" was so out of the blue and weird that I suspected immediately he was going to come back later in the season. I figured there would some point near the finale where Oliver was about to be killed, then in a shocking twist, someone you thought was a bad guy would save Oliver. Lo and behold, Oliver and the Human Target have been playing the long game and Christopher Chance has been working for Oliver undercover for months. What I failed to consider is the possibility that Chance wouldn't return as a hero, but as a villain...

The short of my theory is this: Christopher Chance is really Justin Claybourne's son and Prometheus. At some point, he killed the real Adrian Chase and stole his identity. Here is my point-by-point argument for this theory:

The Argument in Favor

 

The Human Target helps defeat Tobias Church

The Human Target arrives to help Oliver defeat Tobias Church exactly when it benefits Prometheus to do so. Church had just learned the Green Arrow's secret identity and was hours away from killing him--which would obviously ruin Prometheus' plan. Prometheus couldn't kill Church head-on because he was constantly flanked by dozens of underlings and that ridiculous mercenary Scimitar. So Prometheus reverted to his Christopher Chance persona and helped Team Arrow defeat Church's gang--then killed Church when he was vulnerable in the prison transport. Problem solved.

The Human Target never shares the screen with Adrian Chase

When I first came up with this theory, I almost immediately disregarded it because I figured that Human Target and Adrian Chase must have interacted in the mayor's office when Chance was impersonating Oliver. So I checked the footage. Would you believe that Adrian Chase does not appear once in the entirety of episode 5x05! In fact, since his debut in 5x03, it's the only episode he hasn't been in (discounting "Invasion!"). Coincidence? I think not.

Christopher Chance orchestrates Oliver's relationship with Susan

Christopher Chance very strongly pressured Oliver to date Susan Williams. In Oliver's guise, he flirted with her and gave her Oliver's personal phone number. Then, he was the one who revealed to Oliver that Felicity was dating Billy Malone and encouraged him to move on from Felicity by dating Susan. Now, it remains to be seen if there is more to Susan than meets the eye, but for now, let's just assume that there isn't: she's just a random woman, and Chance could just as easily have pushed Oliver toward a relationship with anyone else. Knowing what we now know, it is clear that Christopher Chance's actions in 5x05 furthered Prometheus' plan in two important ways:

• Making sure Oliver was dating again provided Prometheus with another person Oliver cares for--another pressure point in his psychological game. At the end of the last episode (5x15), Adrian apparently kidnapped Susan: now we'll find out what his full plan is for her. Surely it's some variation on the whole psychologically-torment-Oliver-Queen technique. Whatever it is, it wouldn't be possible unless Chance encouraged Oliver to start dating again back in 5x05.

• Oliver's relationship with Susan has gone a long way toward pushing him away from Felicity, ensuring that both are sufficiently miserable as we head into Prometheus' endgame. Prometheus knows that Felicity is one of Oliver's most important allies, and he's effectively driven a wedge between them with this whole you're-dating-so-now-I'll-date-but-wait-now-your-boyfriend-is-dead-too-bad-I'm-still-gonna-date-Susan routine. It also seems like a pretty safe bet that Helix is working for Prometheus. Driving Felicity away from Oliver was instrumental to orchestrating her allegiance to Helix. Again, we don't know exactly what Prometheus' final plan is for Helix and Felicity, but whatever it is, we can trace back its origin to Chance's fateful conversation with Oliver in 5x05--in a way that Prometheus plausibly could have predicted and planned out.

Update after episode 5x16 "Checkmate":

After Helix's involvement in this episode I'm even more convinced that Helix works for Prometheus/Talia. They fed Felicity information leading to Susan's location, which seems to have been exactly what Prometheus and Talia wanted. The villainous duo was waiting for Oliver at the building--they knew he was coming. Furthermore, I bet that the information Helix gave Felicity on Adrian's real identity is totally bogus. Oliver's probably going to try to go public with the info and make himself look like a total jackass when Adrian is ready to completely discredit it.

Update after Arrow season 5 (Summer 2017):

The mystery of Helix remains interesting. At Comic-Con we found out that Arrow season 6 will involve a cabal of villains (including Anatoly) opposing Team Arrow and that Felicity's Helix contact Alena will be reappearing in season 6. Also, Arrow 5x19 "Dangerous Liaisons" very conspicuously kept the face of Helix leader Cayden James covered through the whole episode, presumably because the writers were planning to use him in a more major role in season 6, and they didn't want to cast an actor yet.

All-in-all, I think it's quite likely that Helix and Cayden James will be involved with season 6's villainous cabal. Also, I think it's very, very likely that Talia al Ghul survived Lian Yu and will also play a big role in the cabal. That is to say, there is still time to reveal that Helix has actually been working for Talia all along. I rather fancy the idea that Helix is Talia's information-age version of the League of Assassins, using brutal methods to police the world with no accountability.

In that case, the question that remains is whether the writers would be willing to introduce such a big twist to season 5's story after the fact. I think it's plausible, and here's my chain of logic: (1) Helix and Cayden James will definitely be returning in season 6. (2) Helix and Cayden James will almost certainly be acting as villains in season 6. (3) There needs to be some way of explaining why Helix becomes antagonistic to Team Arrow. (4) Revealing that they were actually secretly working against Team Arrow all along would be a good way of doing that.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see, but like I said, it seems plausible, and it would make me feel better about how conveniently timed Helix's interventions always seemed to have been for Prometheus. When Helix gave Felicity Susan's location in 5x16, it sure seemed like Adrian and Talia were forewarned and waiting to ambush Oliver. And when Helix gave Felicity the tools to unveil Adrian Chase's villainy in 5x18, it sure looked like Adrian was just waiting for that phone call so he could kill those two marshals. Maybe I'm wrong, but it just seems like too big a coincidence that nothing Helix did actually ever disadvantaged Prometheus in any way.

One does not simply become the district attorney 

It doesn't make a lot of sense that Adrian Chase managed to become the district attorney of Star City just to further his plan to get to Oliver. Wouldn't that take years of law school and experience as an attorney? And unless Adrian just happened to already be an accomplished lawyer pre-Prometheus, he only had a few months to maneuver into the district attorney's office since Oliver became the mayor. Really, it's straight-up impossible. Conclusion: Adrian Chase was just a guy who happened to become the district attorney of Star City. When Christopher Chance was ready to activate his plan against Oliver, he killed Chase and assumed his identity. Seems a lot more plausible, right?

Prometheus has no reason to be married

For me, one of the biggest surprises of this season was also a completely subtle reveal: Adrian Chase is married. Why? How? It seems unlikely that he was married before his transformation to Prometheus: surely he had to go through years of training that would have been hard to completely hide from his wife. Even if he did it without arousing her suspicion, he would have to make sure that she never told anyone about his months-long absences since they could potentially compromise his otherwise meticulously perfectly crafted secret identity. It also seems unlikely that he would marry after becoming Prometheus. What reason would he have to get married when his whole life revolves around revenge against Oliver? It's not necessary as a disguise: it's perfectly believable that a guy Adrian's age would be single. Conclusion: Prometheus never got married because Prometheus is not the real Adrian Chase. The real Adrian was just a guy with a normal life who happened to be married. When the Human Target replaced him, he took over both his personal and professional lives. Brutal.

Update after episode 5x16 "Checkmate":

Well, I think Adrian murdering his own wife without hesitation certainly leads some credence to this point.

Stealing an identity is easier than creating an identity

If the real Adrian Chase is Prometheus and Claybourne's son, how did he erase all records of his birth/parentage/past while maintaining his identity as Chase? Who do the records say that Adrian Chase's parents are? Really, it ties into this whole problem about Chase having to become a reputable, married attorney practically overnight. Granted, on Arrow they totally could say he's just such an amazing hacker that he was just able to do it. But try thinking about it like this: if you were Prometheus, what would you do? In my mind, it would make a lot more sense for me to steal someone else's identity than it would to try to hack myself up a brand new life from scratch.

Update after episode 5x16 "Checkmate":

As I mentioned above, I think it's likely that the info Helix gave Felicity about Adrian Chase's real identity was bogus.

Christopher Chance is a ridiculous name

I'm half-joking with this one, but hear me out anyways. There's no way "Christopher Chance" isn't an alias, right? I mean, what a ridiculous name. Conclusion: "Christopher Chance" is just the name that Claybourne's son came up with for himself when he became the Human Target (prior to his turning evil and becoming Prometheus). It is an appropriate name to choose: after all, he was apparently conceived by chance...hahaha! Then again, if you can have people named Roy Bivolo and Kyle Nimbus on the Flash, why not someone named Christopher Chance on Arrow? Like I said, I'm half-joking.

The Argument Against

Now, I'll admit there are a couple of problems with this theory that I don't have perfect explanations for:

Diggle hires the Human Target

In episode 5x05, the Human Target only comes into play because John Diggle contacts him and enlists his professional services. It's hard to come up with a way that he could have predicted that or manipulated Team Arrow into hiring him. Then again, it's possible that it was a coincidence and he just took advantage of the situation. Finding himself in Oliver's confidence, he used the opportunity to plant the seeds of the relationship with Susan Williams. In hindsight, it's easy to look at everything Prometheus has done as one incredible master plan, but we don't really know how much of it has been driven by flexible, opportunistic reactions to events Prometheus simply couldn't have predicted. Still though, it seems like a big coincidence that Diggle just thought off the top of his head to hire this guy who happened to secretly be Prometheus.

What was he doing in Russia?

Speaking of big coincidences, is there really any reasonable explanation at all for why Christopher Chance just happened to cross paths with Oliver back in Russia? Frankly, this is a problem whether the Human Target turns out to be evil or not. Maybe I'm missing something, but I haven't been able to come up with any explanation that fits this. As of now, I'm pretty sure it really is just a big, meaningless coincidence, aka bad writing. After all, we know how desperately the writers try to connect the flashback storyline to the present day. Maybe it's not worth reading too much into this.

Theory 2: Prometheus works for Talia al Ghul

One of the big theories that the fan blogs got me thinking about was the idea that Prometheus is working for someone else. Actually, the theory I read said he was working for Malcolm Merlyn, but that seems pretty unlikely. Sure, what with time travel, there's no reason Malcolm couldn't have come back to the beginning of this year at the end of his adventures with the Legion of Doom. It really doesn't seem like something the writers would do, though. Nonetheless, as I'll now attempt to prove, Prometheus probably does have some type of boss or informant. Furthermore, this mysterious puppet master more or less has to be either Malcolm or Talia.

Update after episode 5x16 "Checkmate":

Wow! Looks like I was almost right on the money with this Talia theory at least! The only thing I failed to predict was how soon the show would reveal Talia's villainy. I kinda had this twist pegged for the season finale or second-to-last episode.

Update after Arrow season 5 (Summer 2017):

Well, I also had it pegged that Talia's story would become a major part of the end of season 5. Instead, the writers chose to keep the spotlight on Prometheus and save Talia for a presumably big role in season 6. Talia al Ghul is too important a character to be killed off after how little she got to do last year, so I find it to be a near-certainty that she survived Lian Yu.

In my update to the post "How should Legends of Tomorrow set up its characters for next year?" I proposed that Talia assemble a Secret Society of supervillains like Black Siren and Gorilla Grodd to serve as the antagonists of next year's mega-crossover. Now though, the show's creators have heavily hinted that the mega-crossover is going to be about a double wedding for Oliver & Felicity and Barry & Iris (which I am 100% down with, by the way), so that option seems a little less likely. Perhaps instead, Talia will be heading up a different team of villains: the cabal of Arrow antagonists that will collectively be the "big bads" of season 6. I think it's quite likely that she'll be involved with that storyline in some way, at least.

Talia trained Prometheus to oppose Oliver

Prometheus was apparently trained by Talia. This is a really important clue introduced in 5x09 when Oliver first fought Prometheus and recognized his moves. At the beginning of the next episode, Oliver mentions to Diggle that he's looking for the woman who trained him (and apparently also Prometheus), but she's hard to find because she doesn't stay in one place for very long. Then the writers just kinda stopped talking about it.... It sure seems to me like finding Talia should be right at the top of Team Arrow's to-do list, but I'm not even sure Felicity knows to be looking for her. In any case, I see 3 possible sequences of events that explain how and when Prometheus was trained by Talia:

• Talia trained Prometheus before he turned evil. In this case, Prometheus must have been one of the people Talia hand-picked and trained to be heroes, like Yao Fe and Oliver. This seems like an impossible coincidence, though: what are the odds that one of the people Talia trains also just happens to be the bastard son of somebody on the List? Then again, we don't necessarily know that Prometheus is Claybourne's son--that could still be nothing but a red herring. Knowing what I know about the way Arrow is written, though, I doubt that they would reveal that Prometheus' motivation for hating Oliver is actually completely different than what we've been led to believe. Something like that would retroactively take away all the tension in their relationship. I think, but I don't know, that Prometheus is indeed Claybourne's son, and therefore couldn't have been trained by Talia before he was evil.

• Prometheus sought out Talia and deceived her into thinking he was a good person. Seems unlikely. First of all, in this scenario, Prometheus would have had to somehow find Talia based on...well, nothing. How could he possibly figure out that she trained Oliver and then know how to track her down? Then, supposing he managed that, he would have had to deceive her into thinking that he was a good person and convince her to train him. Given what little we've seen of Talia, she is clearly very shrewd, very wise, and very cautious. She literally did years of research into Oliver before contacting him, then more or less perfectly psychoanalyzed him the first time they met. It seems hard to believe that Prometheus would be able to trick her. Then again, if anyone could, it would be Christopher Chance (see Theory 1, above).

• Talia sought out Prometheus and trained him to become her evil servant/puppet. Here's the winner. Suppose something (see "Unanswered Questions" below) happened that made Talia hate Oliver. It makes a lot more sense that Talia sought out Claybourne's son and trained him to be her pawn than the alternative where Claybourne's son somehow tracked down Talia al Ghul. In my mind, this scenario works way better than either of those other two alternatives.

There's one more reason why Talia is probably evil. Because if she isn't, why hasn't she contacted Oliver and intervened in his struggle against Prometheus? Clearly she keeps close track of her past students, like Yao Fe. You'd think she'd be interested in the fact that one of her students turned evil and embarked on a murderous vendetta against another one of her students.

Talia had access to the List

In episode 5x06 "So It Begins," Prometheus killed four people whose names formed anagrams of four names from the List. Sure, he could just be using the names of people Oliver has killed, but they are all from Oliver's first year back in Starling--his year as the Hood--his year using the List. Also, Adam Hunt is one of the anagram names. Oliver didn't kill Hunt; the Dark Archer (Malcolm Merlyn) did. Granted, that's not necessarily public knowledge in the Arrowverse, but it seems like another indication that the element connecting the four names is indeed the List itself. Another interesting name is Ted Gaynor: if Prometheus is just vengeful over the Hood's killing Justin Claybourne, you'd think that he would want to use the names of other corrupt businessmen and "1-percenters" that the Hood targeted. Gaynor doesn't fit that mold--again, the real connecting factor pretty much has to be the List itself. But how could Prometheus know the names on the List?

Quick refresher on the history of the List: Malcolm Merlyn compiled it with the names of people that he could manipulate to do his bidding--either voluntarily (because they could be bribed, etc.) or through blackmail (because Malcolm had something on them). Merlyn and his small circle of co-conspirators (Robert Queen and a handful of others) had copies of the List. For a while they tried to use the List benevolently by blackmailing corrupt businessmen and the like into helping them improve the Glades. Eventually, they gave up on that pipe dream and decided to just level the goddamn place. We know how that turned out.

Very few people in the world have ever had access to a copy of the List. As far as I can recollect, the only important candidates are Malcolm Merlyn, his Undertaking co-conspirators, Team Arrow members, Walter Steele, and Talia al Ghul, who read Oliver's (Robert's) List back in Russia. I think you will agree with me that out of those choices, Talia is by far the most likely to be the informant behind Prometheus. Still, this line of reasoning cannot rule out Malcolm, who obviously has a copy of the List.

The Black Siren knew that Sara time-travels on the Waverider

Here's where things get nuts. At the beginning of episode 5x10 "Who Are You?", Earth-2 Laurel Lance aka the Black Siren convinces Oliver that she is his Laurel saved from the brink of death. How? She tells him that Sara used time travel to save her. She knew that Sara's timeship is named "the Waverider." She specifically did NOT know the phrase "time aberration." She also did NOT refer to Sara's team as "the Legends." I don't know how I missed this clue before, because in hindsight it seems so obvious that there's no way the Black Siren should know that stuff! Presumably, Prometheus told it to her, but how could he possibly know about the existence of the Waverider?!? Only a handful of people in the world have that information, and most of them are definite good-guys (Team Flash and Team Arrow).

Ready for this theory to get mental? Sara Lance could have told a young Talia al Ghul about time travel and the Waverider during her two years spent with the League of Assassins between 1958 and 1960!!! What if that cameo of young Talia in Legends of Tomorrow episode 1x09 was more than just a throwaway Easter egg??? You can tell I'm excited by this theory because of all the triple punctuation marks!!! It's not inconceivable that the writers were planning out Arrow season 5 around the time that they made that episode (though it does show a bit more foresight than I would typically expect from them). This theory reconciles damn near perfectly with exactly what the Black Siren did and didn't know: at that point in Legends of Tomorrow, they hadn't started using the term "time aberration" and the protagonists hadn't started calling themselves "the Legends." I told you: mental, right?

Notably, this time-travel angle cannot definitively rule out Malcolm either. He is, after all, one of the very few people in the world who do know about Sara and the Waverider.

Update after episode 5x16 "Checkmate":

I'm very curious if the writers are going to acknowledge this connection in the show. Actually, I'm curious if the writers are even aware of this connection or if it's just a lucky accident. If this really was intentional from all the way back in Legends of Tomorrow 1x09, then I imagine the show is going to make a reference to it. I think that if the writers decided to be this clever, they would probably want to make sure they could get some recognition for it.

Update after Arrow season 5 (Summer 2017):

Ugh! It's really become very important to me (not really) that the shows acknowledge this connection! I'm not sure how they would do it, though... maybe Talia tells her villainous allies about how Sara prophesied the future coming of superheroes to her way back in 1958? It could tie in to her motivations for leaving the League in the first place. Alternatively, Oliver and Sara could have a conversation about Talia during the mega-crossover. Unless Talia is the villain of the crossover, though, that kinda seems like it would be a waste of valuable time. Hmm...of course this is all assuming that the writers even made the connection intentionally and are thus looking to acknowledge it, which quite frankly I don't think they did.

Unanswered Questions

If it's true that Talia al Ghul is Prometheus' puppet-master, the obvious next question is "what is her motivation?" Really, we know very little about Talia's background at this point (which in of itself tells me that some surprises about her will be important to the finale of this season). We know that as of 2011-ish, she was operating at least semi-independently of the League of Assassins, finding extraordinary individuals like Yao Fe and Oliver and training them to be heroes. We also know that she has used Lazarus Pit water for a long time to extend her youth, which is noteworthy because only Ra's al Ghul is supposed to use the pit. Given these clues, I theorize two possible stories for Talia's life prior to meeting Oliver Queen in 2011.

• She ran away from the League, stealing some Lazarus, and actively works against them. It's possible... in fact, it's the more obvious possibility. She did mysteriously tell Oliver that she knows what it's like to think of yourself as a monster, then come back from that darkness and learn to use your abilities for good. She very well could have been implying that she came to see the League's evil and resolved to turn against them. At that point she pulled a Damien Darkh and vamoosed with some Lazarus water. Like I said, it's entirely possible.

• She came to disagree with the League's goals, but Ra's loved her so much that he gifted her Lazarus and allowed her to leave peacefully. Now we're talking! This storyline aligns very well with what we know about Talia al Ghul from DC comics. From what I understand of the comics, Talia is very much the favorite Daughter of the Demon. Back to Arrow, as we know, there was never any love between Ra's and his other daughter, Nyssa. But suppose Ra's loved Talia so much that he allowed her to habitually use the Lazarus Pit to prolong her life, a privilege typically reserved for the Head of the Demon alone. When Talia came to see herself as a monster and wanted to leave the League for some personal time, daddy didn't slit her throat like he would have Nyssa's--no, he gave her his blessing and a bottle of Lazarus for the road. For all we know, Talia remained in contact with the League over the years--doing her own thing but not directly opposing the League either. It's speculative, but certainly plausible. Also, this option works out well if we're looking for a reason why Talia might hate Oliver Queen.

Oliver Queen is the man who single-handedly (okay, maybe with a little help), killed Ra's al Ghul and dismantled the League of Assassins. In fact, if we think about the first 5 years of Arrow as one cohesive chapter, the uniting thread of that chapter is the story of the destruction of the millennia-old League of Assassins, told from the perspective of the man who destroyed it. And we should think of these 5 years that way, because the show's creators keep insisting that that's how they think of the show and that this season is going to cohesively close off that chapter.

Talia al Ghul is the perfect close-off to the story of the destruction of the League of Assassins. In season 1, we got Malcolm Merlyn--a forewarning of just how dangerous the League is. Look at all the trouble that just one rogue mastermind with League training was able to cause. In season 2, we (and Oliver) met the League for the first time through Sara and Nyssa. Season 3 was obviously the main course of the story--Oliver physically defeated Ra's al Ghul and ideologically defeated everything he stood for. Season 4 showed us the consequences of a world with no League of Assassins (or at least not a strong one)--within a few months of not having Ra's al Ghul to oppose him, Damien Darkh almost managed to nuke the whole planet. But Oliver stopped him, validating his decision to dismantle the League. But the true reckoning is yet to come.

Now, season 5 gives us the ultimate finale of Oliver's vendetta against the League of Assassins. Talia is pissed as hell that Oliver used her training to go and murder her father. She thinks that he's stuck his nose into things he knows nothing about--things having to do with the safety of the entire world. From their perspective, the League of Assassins has been the only real source of justice on the planet for millennia--the only thing stopping guys like Damien Darkh from running the show. Sure, their methods are brutal and, sure, Talia came to see her life with the League as, well, distasteful, but she recognized the League's necessity to humanity. Then this spoiled, naive punk from Starling City showed up out of nowhere, turned out to be the greatest fighter the world has ever known, and used his abilities to blow the whole thing up.

This is my theory. Talia set her sights on Oliver after he killed Ra's at the end of season 3. She sought out Prometheus and trained him to be her servant. She deployed him to wear down Oliver physically and psychologically. Then, right when things are at their worst for Ollie and friends, Talia herself is gonna show up to deliver the killing blow. Prometheus probably doesn't even know this part of her plan. I think he really is just vengeful for the Hood killing his father, and he really believes all that crap about Oliver being the real villain that the city needs to be saved from. Prometheus is the Sebastian Blood to Talia's Slade Wilson. Prometheus is the psycho that the real mastermind has wound up and pointed in Oliver's direction.

But fear not! If I know the first thing about television, Ollie's gonna beat her. Better yet, we'll finally be rid of this neverending struggle between Oliver's dark and light sides. Talia was the one who encouraged Oliver to split his dark and light into two identities (the Hood and Oliver Queen) five years ago. In the present, beating her symbolically will mean beating that internal struggle. We know that season 6 is supposed to kick off a new era of Arrow with a significantly different status quo. I read one person who speculated that season 5 would end with the Green Arrow publicly revealing his identity. Maybe! I wouldn't dismiss the possibility--after all, what would be better as a definitive conclusion to the light side/dark side story? Five years ago Talia encouraged Oliver to split himself into two halves; defeating her in the present may entail bringing his two halves back together. Other rumors say that the new status quo will involve Oliver and Felicity finally, permanently being together. Seems very likely if you ask me--all the indicators in the show are pointing that way, and you can only drag out this Sam and Diane stuff for so long (look up Cheers if you don't know what I'm talking about).

But most importantly, the new era will be the era of no League of Assassins. The League and their brutal, old-fashioned brand of justice don't fit the world anymore. Oliver's journey has been the story of defeating their ideology and replacing it with a new type of justice. The veritable army of superheroes who have been inspired by Oliver are Earth's true protectors now. The new era is the era of superhero justice. (Can you tell I'm using the word "justice" a lot to imply that they should introduce the Justice League in season 6...haha! Now that would be a new era!)

Closing Statements

Time to get real. Chances are none of this is true and it's all way simpler than I want to believe. The writers really are just making it up as they go along. Adrian Chase really is Prometheus and Claybourne's illegitimate son. He's the district attorney... just because he is. He's married... because why not? He wasn't in episode 5x05 because the writers didn't have anything for him to do that week. Christopher Chance encouraged Oliver to date Susan because he's just a nosy guy. As for why Prometheus knows the names on the List and Black Siren knows about time travel... just don't think about it too much.

Anyways, let me know in the comments what you think about all this! What have I overlooked? What mistakes have I made? Do you have any better predictions? Let me tell you, even if none of this turns out to be true, I think I've had more fun in the last 2 days working all this out than I have in the last 2 years of watching Arrow. Haha!

Hope you enjoyed!
Phillip