DC Comics' Green Arrow is one of the most decidedly liberal superheroes, and his move to television won't change that.
The archer with the secret identity of billionaire Oliver Queen comes to the CW this fall on "Arrow." (He's losing the "Green" because it sounds too comic-booky.)
The move to the broader audience won't be the end of Oliver Queen's progressive, populist approach to vigilantism, the creators of the series told a Television Critics Association panel.
"Since the people that Oliver is targeting are the wealthy and the corrupt, there are some echoes of the One Percenters and Occupy Wall Street within the show," said executive producer Andrew Kreisberg.
The series stars Stephen Amell as the bow-wielding hero, who's more Batman than Robin Hood, steal-from-the-rich tendencies aside. Like Batman, Arrow is a One Percenter himself who has no superpowers, but a vast fortune that allows him to create an array of advanced weapons.
Despite lefty leanings, he'll take what Kreisberg calls a "conservative" approach to justice: He's a tough-on-crime hero who sometimes doles out some capital punishment on the spot.
"One of the things you'll see in the early episodes is Arrow always gives the bad guy of the week the opportunity to do the right thing," said Kreisberg. "When he kills he'll kill for necessity, for a reason. It's not random violence."
Other characters will also question his moral decisions, including Dinah "Laurel" Lance (Katie Cassidy").
Kreisberg formerly wrote "Green Arrow/Black Canary" which paired Green Arrow him with a female superheroine. He said "Arrow," like the CW's "Smallville," will have access to all of the heroes in the DC universe — but will only use the ones with no superpowers, who could function in the real world. The show doesn't plan to use Batman, however, because he's too big and could overshadow the rest of the show.
Who does that leave? The producers didn't rule out the possibility that Lance could one day become Black Canary.
