How is Oliver Queen Returning?
Arrowverse fans got the ultimate late Christmas present when it was announced that Arrow star Stephen Amell will be reprising his role as Oliver Queen/Green Arrow, the DCTV franchise’s original hero, in the final season of The Flash later this year. Amell’s return is something most viewers have been hoping for, and the fact that it’s actually happening is an encouraging sign that Season 9 will give both The Flash and the Arrowverse franchise satisfying endings. But the announcement raises the obvious question of how Oliver’s appearance will be made possible, given that he died heroically during Arrow’s final season.
Arrow and The Flash's History
The Flash was the first of several spin-offs and related series to come about because of Arrow’s success. In the latter’s second season, a then superpower-less Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) is introduced as an awkward forensic scientist from the Central City Police Department who travels to Starling City, Oliver’s hometown where he operates as the vigilante called the Arrow (later Green Arrow), to investigate a robbery that Barry believes could only be committed by someone with superhuman strength. Oliver and Barry initially clash over their mutual attraction to Oliver’s secretary and crime-fighting partner Felicity Smoak (Emily Bett Rickards) and Barry’s lies about the goal of his investigation, which he hopes will help him prove that his mother was murdered by a different super-powered individual. But when Oliver receives a life-threatening dose of poison after a battle with the robber, Felicity and John Diggle (David Ramsey) reveal their boss’ identity to Barry, who saves Oliver’s life. Oliver’s ungrateful treatment of Felicity and Barry briefly dampens the latter’s enthusiasm at meeting the Arrow, whom he looked up to as a hero, but the pair make peace and Barry gifts Oliver with a mask to help conceal his identity.
After Barry returns home, he is struck by lightning, giving him super-speed and setting up The Flash, which premiered alongside Arrow’s third season the following year. The two series frequently shared characters and locations and mounted an annual crossover event, which eventually included other spin-offs and sibling series like DC’s Legends of Tomorrow and Supergirl, as well. But even as the franchise continued to rapidly expand, Oliver and Barry’s friendship remained at its heart. They still had their differences, mainly related to their different crime-fighting styles, but they also learned a lot from one another and developed a deep personal bond. Theirs quickly became one of the most popular and fully fleshed-out onscreen superhero partnerships, perhaps even in the same vein as that of Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) and Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans) from the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
In fact, Oliver loved Barry so much that he sacrificed his life for him. In the 2018 crossover "Elseworlds," the cosmic being known as the Monitor (LaMonica Garrett) put an assortment of Arrowverse heroes through a reality-altering test to prepare them for an impending crisis that threatened to wipe out the multiverse. When Barry and Kara Danvers/Supergirl (Melissa Benoist) made a plan to restore regular reality, Clark Kent/Superman (Tyler Hoechlin) warned them that he foresaw them dying in the attempt. To stop this, Oliver promised the Monitor that he would sacrifice his life to stop the crisis in exchange for Barry and Kara being saved. He did so in the next crossover, "Crisis on Infinite Earths," which took place during Arrow’s final season. Still, the franchise has plenty of options for how to include him in The Flash Season 9 despite this.
Back to the Past
The most predictable explanations for Oliver’s return on The Flash is that it takes place via either flashbacks and/or time travel. Flashbacks have been a favorite storytelling device of the franchise’s since the beginning. Arrow featured a serialized flashback story arc depicting the years between Oliver being lost at sea and returning to Starling in the pilot throughout its first five seasons. The Flash and the other series haven’t used flashbacks this regularly, but they are still a big part of each series’ storytelling repertoire, so it would not be surprising if Oliver’s scenes in The Flash Season 9 took place in one.
Time travel has similarly been a fundamental part of The Flash since Barry’s introduction. It is eventually revealed that the Reverse-Flash (Tom Cavanagh and Matt Letscher), Barry’s archenemy from the future, killed his mother after going back in time in an attempt to kill Barry himself when he was still a child. Barry has also used his speed to travel back and forward in time on many occasions, resulting in changes to his own history and that of his friends and family. Season 9 of The Flash could see him traveling to a time before "Crisis" and encountering Oliver. But if this happens it would be best if Barry doesn’t go back further than the time of "Elseworlds," as Oliver learning about his own fate ahead of time risks creating plot holes related to Arrow’s ending.
Multiverse Oliver
The multiverse provides another option for how to feature Oliver. Starting with The Flash Season 2, the Arrowverse frequently explored the idea of multiple universes full of DC characters just as the comics do. This led to connections with even more series and eventually some of DC’s films, including Tim Burton’s Batman movies, Superman Returns, and the DC Extended Universe started by Man of Steel. It also gave Arrowverse actors, including Amell and Gustin, opportunities to show their ranges by playing different versions of their characters.
At the end of "Crisis," Arrow and The Flash’s original universe is merged with a few others, including those of Supergirl and Black Lightning, leading the characters to believe that the multiverse no longer exists, although a montage of footage from other series and films later showed that this was not the case. Since then, fans have eagerly anticipated Barry and company rediscovering the multiverse. Having this happen as part of the final season would recapture some of the sense of wonder that The Flash had in its early days and allows a new Oliver, or Olivers, to be introduced. However, this wouldn’t be as satisfying a way for Amell to return as some of the others as he wouldn’t really be playing the same character who knows Barry and whom viewers became so invested in for eight years.
The Spectre
The last option is actually bringing Oliver back to life. But this is by far the riskiest choice, partially because it's already been done temporarily. Oliver initially died in the first episode of "Crisis" while protecting Kara’s Earth from the Anti-Monitor’s (Garrett) shadow demons. However, after the Anti-Monitor succeeded in wiping out most of the multiverse, Oliver was taken out of purgatory by Jim Corrigan (Stephen Lobo) and given the powers of the Spectre, God’s spirit of vengeance, which he used to help the few remaining heroes (including Barry and Kara) defeat the Anti-Monitor and recreate the multiverse, with Oliver again laying down his life to do so. The cosmic nature of the Spectre means Oliver could probably be brought back again for another mission but not only would this be repetitive, but it also risks undermining Arrow’s impactful ending. Bringing Oliver back only to quickly kill him off again would be silly, and leaving him alive at the end of The Flash would negate the bittersweet but satisfying send-off he received on his own show, where he is shown reuniting with Felicity, now his wife, in the afterlife.
There are definitely big risks involved in bringing Oliver back in any form, but if The Flash can make it work, the final season will be all the better for it. Barry has continued to live a mostly happy life in the two and a half seasons since "Crisis," but he is frequently shown to be haunted by Oliver’s death in various ways. Reuniting the two characters in one of the better ways mentioned gives The Flash the opportunity to let him make peace with this part of his past and pay tribute to a beloved onscreen friendship.
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