Arrow came to an end in January. It seems that the way we said goodbye to Oliver may have been different. So different that his sacrifice inspired a certain caped crusader. Check out what Marc Guggenheim had to say below!
Speaking on the Fake Nerd Podcast, Arrow creator and finale co-writer Marc Guggenheim explained that his original vision for Queen’s end tied into the greater DC world.
“I always saw the show ending with Oliver’s death, but Oliver’s death in the actual finale,” Guggenheim said. “Then I kind of had a little bit of a fantasy that Oliver would die and you’d end with some sort of news broadcast talking about his legacy and that would sort of become the voice over.” Obviously this isn’t how things shook out considering that Queen didn’t quite survive until his own finale. But that’s not even the coolest part.
“And then you would go to this rooftop in a whole other city, and on the cut a thug or some bad guy would crash into the frame, having been punched off-screen,” the writer said. “And these pair of black boots would come down right in front of him and there’d be a flutter of a scalloped cape and the voice over would say something along the lines of, ‘Oliver Queen inspired a whole new generation of vigilantes.’ The implication being, of course, that he inspired Batman. So that, of course, didn’t happen for a variety of different reasons – not the least of which is Batwoman came along – but that was my original conception.”
Inspiring Batman is pretty hard to justify when Bruce Wayne has apparently already had such an inspiring career that his cousin has picked up the mantle. Instead, this inspiration was transferred to Queen’s daughter, Mia — hence the Green Arrow & the Canaries backdoor pilot.
