Couple weeks ago, the Legends of Tomorrow crew visited “Star City 2046.” They may have met a future crew member, Connor Hawke, but most importantly, we saw the Green Arrow we’ve been waiting for.
With only a little stubble, fans have clamored for Ollie to grow a beard and a handlebar mustache. I guess the future is where we found that depiction. The preview photos had me pumped and ready to see this bearded dream.
Though, anxiously waiting for him to emerge from the shadows of what was left of the Arrowcave, I found myself hollering, “He has one arm!” Why was I so excited about him missing an appendage? Well that’s because, not only did he resemble his look from the comics, but a particular comic: The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller. The gravel in his voice, and the wrinkles in his face only added to the ambiance.
“The whole missing arm thing was always going to be the way that it was. Marc [Guggenheim] and Greg [Berlanti] were just like, ‘It’s 2046. He’s missing an arm, period.’ It’s a very interesting and appropriate nod to the comics. That was logistically challenging, because we had to figure, ‘Okay, how do we then get him out into battle, and how does he fire an arrow with one arm?’ I think the solution that we came up with was really interesting,” said Stephen Amell in an interview with IGN.
The solution he’s speaking of is a robotic arm to attach for battle. It’s almost like they were crossing Cyborg with Green Arrow. Though the image I picture when I think of one-armed Oliver is Miller’s scribble of him pulling the string with his teeth.
While it’s a good possibility that Conner Hawke’s returning, and possibly joining Rip Hunter’s crew, I wanna see more of this bearded, one-armed Ollie. The show that sparked the Arrowverse uses time jumps to flesh out its stories. Maybe in the future seasons, we can see a switch from flashbacks of the island, to this future timeline, training Hawke, aka Diggle Jr. I mean really, he doesn’t have much time left before he clashes with the present day story.
I know, I’m rambling on as if this 2046 Arrow is a whole different character. I’m just excited that this TV-verse is expanding, whilst staying rather true to the source material. See what new or tweaked characters they’ll give us next, with CW’s The Flash on Tuesdays, Arrow on Wednesdays, Legends of Tomorrow on Thursdays, and Supergirl, over at CBS, on Mondays. Or you can stream them with Hulu, and various other apps.