‘Arrow’ show runner Marc Guggenheim spoke to Comic Book Resources about the much buzzed about introduction of DC’s Scarlet Speedster, The Flash during the upcoming sophomore season of The CW’s hit action-drama. Fittingly, Guggenheim seemed taken aback himself at the rapidity of outside DC heroes and villains swarming onto the series, confessing:
“I think it is a little bit unique. I don’t think we planned it. But at the same time, quite frankly, we didn’t plan to expand the DC Universe so much in the first season of ‘Arrow.’ For example, Greg [Berlanti], Andrew [Kreisberg] and myself never said ‘In the first season of this show, we’re going to introduce the Huntress and Deathstroke.’ We really didn’t have that plan. We were hoping to one day get to those characters, but we never thought it’d happen as quickly as it did.” Leave it to The Flash to get ahead of the game and insinuate himself into ‘Arrow’s second season, with plans to spin off into his own show!
Guggenheim doesn’t seem to mind, however as he states:
“Honestly, I’m just excited to help be a part of expanding the DC Universe. I think one of the big thing that appeals to me about comics in general is the idea of the shared universe. It’s a lot of fun to be able to do that in television, and growing up one of the things I enjoyed was the ‘Six Million Dollar Man’ and ‘The Bionic Woman’ and the way those two shows would interact with each other. We’re at least a season away from ‘Arrow’ interacting with ‘The Flash,” but the potential for that is really exciting for me.”
Many fans have expressed concern or downright confusion over the matter, however, pointing at ‘Arrow’s’ “no powers” edict. One would assume that that rule has been at the very least relaxed to accommodate The Flash and potentially other characters. But Guggenheim assures viewers that the tone of ‘Arrow’ will not change with the introduction of super powers and even, rather boldly invokes DC’s biggest competitor Marvel as an analogy.
“I think a lot of people are justified in asking ‘What does this mean for Arrow in terms of its tone?’ And my answer is that the trick that we have – and this is a challenge we’ve discusses a lot and have an awareness of how to face it head on – is the fact that ‘Arrow’ is like ‘Iron Man’ where ‘The Flash’ will be ‘The Hulk.’ And just as ‘The Hulk’ coming out did not change the tone of the Iron Man movies, ‘The Flash’ will not change the tone of ‘Arrow.’ We’re very cognizant of what ‘Arrow’ is all about, and I think the Marvel movies demonstrate that each piece of a universe can have its own feel. ‘Thor’ is consistent with the tone of Thor while ‘Captain America’ is consistent with the tone of Captain America’s character. ‘Arrow’s’ tone will remain consistent much in the same way, and we are looking forward to expanding our canvass a bit. And judging from the announcement, I think the fans are looking forward to it as well.”
Andrew Kreisberg, Guggenheim’s fellow show runner, will be writing all three scripts that serve to introduce Barry Allen into the ‘Arrow’ universe, but Guggenheim is quick to point out that, just because The Flash wasn’t announced at Comic Con, the producers have had him in the works for some time.
“Andrew is taking the lead on ‘The Flash.’ This has been in the works for a while and had been in the works since before Comic-Con. But we made the decision, as these things are announced in a rollout, to take a strategy where we’d announce Black Canary, Bronze Tiger and Brother Blood at Comic-Con. We felt like, ‘That’s a lot for Comic-Con. Let’s save something back for when T.C.A. comes around.’ I want to disabuse anyone of the notion that we decided to do Flash after Comic-Con. We’re just capable of keeping secrets every now and again.”
I would like to point out that Brother Blood is a character that has absolutely no connection to Green Arrow in the comics, making me think that the possibilities are endless as to which DC heroes and villains could potentially appear on this show!
So hopefully that sheds a bit more light on this development and answers some questions that I’ve seen posited throughout various websites and message boards! What do you think? Are you pumped for another potential DC TV series on prime time? Do you think there’s still room for the gestating Wonder Woman pilot ‘Amazon’ or are ‘Arrow’ and ‘The Flash’ enough? And what other DC heroes and villains would you like to see on the small screen? Leave a comment below!’Arrow’
Season Two begins October 9th, 2013 on The CW.
