It’s hard to believe but we’re just a couple days away from July 4th, generally considered the half-way point of the summer. Of course fall TV doesn’t start when school does, as The CW won’t be debuting new episodes of its series until October. Even so, details about the upcoming shows are starting to surface.
We recently reported that four new characters were going to join the show, along with descriptions. Many speculate that the names provided are fake, a common practice in Hollywood to prevent spoilers, especially with properties based on existing works. One of the new characters is a villain. Here is his original description:
‘SETH’ – A well-educated criminal with grand ambitions and a knack for chemistry, this potentially recurring character gains power over his enemies by exposing them to a drug that drains their willpower. Oh, and he is very much a physical match for The Arrow.
And now even more information about this villain have come to light:
‘Member the “Seth” guy I told you about a couple of weeks ago? Well, the casting for that role has since been tweaked, and he is now described as a “shade of a man” with a quiet intensity, a “criminal mastermind who whistles classical music” as he goes about his devious business. There’s also talk of him having “reptilian eyes.” Whomever he is, he will be the Big Bad for the season opener.
The villains on ‘Arrow’ are generally tweaked from their comic book versions, so the majority of this description sounds like it’s original but will be grafted onto an existing DC Comics villain. The big reveal is the reference to ‘reptilian eyes’. That narrows things down considerably. Only the first episode is mentioned, so does that make “Seth” a one-off/recurring villain, or will be play a larger part, like Sebastian Blood and Deathstroke last season?
If the villain is more of an over-all villain that will recur throughout the season, it’s possible he will be Kobra. In the comics, Kobra is Jeffrey Burr a.k.a. Lord Naga, raised to lead the Kobra Cult and bring about an age of destruction. His followers are a ninja-like, religious cult, which does fit into the world of ‘Arrow’ and many of his most recent appearances have been written by Geoff Johns, the executive producer and writer for the series. However, the cult angle may mirror last season’s Sebastian Blood story, even though they changed a lot of things about that character on the show. So it sort of depends on how they handle the character to see if he works on the show.
If ‘Seth’ is more of a one-off or recurring character, there are two likely possibilities.
First is Copperhead, probably the best known of the three possibilities. He’s a long-running DC villain, typically depicted as a man in a snake suit that has reptilian powers. At times he has certainly been depicted with ‘reptilian eyes’ and even a forked, flickering tongue and a tail. The character has evolved over time, and most recently was shown to be more of an actual hybrid snake-man. If he’s used on ‘Arrow’ expect something closer to his more classic depiction.
But my money is on King Snake. There’s nothing inherently reptilian about him. He’s just a mercenary and expert martial artist. (Fun fact, he’s Bane’s biological father.) To be honest, given the flashbacks’ recent shift from “the island” to Hong Kong and the show’s heavy use of DC’s martial arts experts, King Snake seems like a more comfortable fit for the show.
What do you think? Which of these cold-hearted snakes do you want to see come to Starling City?
Source: ComicBook.com
