I still remember it like it was yesterday. I had just started to get into comic book properties after going to the midnight release of The Dark Knight Rises, and my curiosity for the genre led me to the second season of Arrow in 2013. The first season had already aired and I knew it existed, but not really being a fan of Smallville growing up I didn’t think this new super hero/teenage drama show was really going to be something I’d get hooked by. But boy was I wrong.
I can’t remember which episode I saw first, but it was during early season 2 when I am fairly sure they were just in the process of reworking the overall tone of the show to be more Batman-like. They did this in an effort to maintain the audience high created by The Dark Knight trilogy (Dark Knight Rises was in 2012, Arrow also premiered in 2012. I don’t believe this was coincidental.) I sank myself into the show and after about three or four episodes I no longer felt like I was watching a show about the eventual Green Arrow (he was still just the Hood or the Arrow since the concept of the show had not been completely proven yet), but a show about a pseudo-Batman and a test ground for future DC properties. And this is exactly why the show worked so well: it targeted both Batman fanboys and CW fangirls.
This eventually changed going into the later seasons, but the first three seasons of Arrow really did feel like it was meant to be an interpretation of Batman. Batman villains were used regularly in early seasons: Deathstroke, Ra’s al Ghul, Solomon Grundy, the Clock King, the Dollmaker, and Deadshot are all examples of characters that came primarily from Batman stories, even if they did have brief run-ins with the Green Arrow. The character of the Green Arrow was originally conceived to be “Batman light” in the comics since, like Bruce Wayne, Oliver Queen was just a rich guy who used technology to fight crime and didn’t actually possess any superpowers. It made sense from this perspective that Arrow would be the best way to showcase these more grounded characters and concepts that were usually thought of to be associated with Batman, without actually having to go to the lengths of bringing the character to the small screen. Stephen Amell’s Oliver Queen was, for all intents and purposes, the Batman of the small screen for this generation.
What Even Was The Arrowverse?
So, if Green Arrow was just meant to be a light version of Batman, what even is the Arrowverse exactly? For those of you not lucky enough to be DC fans back in the early to mid 2010’s, the Arrowverse is the name given to the shared universe created on the CW that was inhabited by actually quite a few properties: Arrow, The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, Supergirl, Black Lightning, and Superman and Lois. During the early years of the Arrowverse there were also some other DC television offerings that were new at the time like Constantine on NBC and Gotham on Fox, but these shows live outside of the shared universe. There was the greater DC TV Universe that spanned multiple channels (I would know, I registered and owned the original website and Facebook page back in the day), and then there was the more concentrated Arrowverse which is what this article is talking about specifically. I would argue that not keeping all the DC properties to one channel was their first big mistake, and the fall of the Arrowverse as a whole was not due to any single problem but a collection of many smaller artificially manufactured problems that became too overwhelming.
The Glory Years
It’s hard to believe now but back when Arrow and the rest of the DC TV Universe was still in its infancy, it was seen as the gold standard for DC fans. I am aware that Man of Steel came out around this time, but for as much as I loved that movie I have to admit it was not received well by audiences (understandably) and led to a very shaky foundation for the future of DC properties on the big screen. So, like many disappointed DC fans, I latched onto the DC television shows and I still believe they served as more competent competition to Marvel’s shared movie universe than anything the film studio ended up putting out. The DC movies were essentially a failed shared universe that had some very strong stand alone high points with movies like Wonder Woman and Aquaman, where as the Arrowverse lacked those major DC character high points but maintained a strong consistent shared universe. And to be fair, even if the Arrowverse wasn’t allowed to use major characters from the comics right away (more on that later), patient fans still ended up eventually getting all of the heavy hitters in one form or another. The fact they did a full blown comic accurate Martian Manhunter on Supergirl still makes me geek out to this day because of how unexpected it was. If you would have told me in 2014 that they would eventually do a Superman show (and a really good Superman show at that), I don’t think the 2014 me would have believed you.
Arrow was the first entry in the Arrowverse, hence the name. This show created the foundation of everything else that followed on the CW. The Flash started as a cameo by Grant Gustin during season 2 of Arrow, and although Supergirl was eventually moved to the CW the first season was a big enough deal to have originally aired on CBS (one of the CW’s parent companies). While the show didn’t last more than a season there, just the fact that Arrow and The Flash launched a show that could even be green-lit on a channel like CBS in the first place was huge. And this was after Constantine‘s failure and cancellation at NBC, a very comparable station, meaning they knew it was going to be a risk but aired the show anyway. Ultimately, the show ended up on CW but was a very important part of the journey because to a lot of people it legitimized what these shows were trying to do. We also got Legends of Tomorrow around this time, and while I think this show started out as a good idea it eventually became the Arrowverse’s first major misstep. Regardless of how you feel about that show, the fact they were allowed to do an ensemble show of pretty much all C and D list characters (with a couple B-listers sprinkled here and there) goes to show the amount of confidence the television network had in these properties at the time.
Other shows like Black Lightning and Superman and Lois were a result of earlier successes, and while Black Lightning didn’t make any major waves Superman and Lois has proven to arguably be the best DC TV show of all time in terms of overall quality. To end the CW universe on a high note with Superman and Lois passing the baton to James Gunn’s Superman reboot is the perfect way to cap the CW era of DC while respecting both the big screen and the small screen. For the first time in DCs history, it looks like we are going to be getting complete cohesion between the shows and the movies which is something the Arrowverse desperately lacked and which was, in my opinion, the single greatest weakness with the long term outlook of this shared universe. Without the networks earlier successes, however, I don’t think the current DC would be nearly as primed up as it is now for the future.
Two Shared Universes Trying to do the Same Thing
Let’s shift gears for a minute from DC to Marvel. Around the same time the Arrowverse was being conceived, the Marvel cinematic universe was thriving as one other major superhero project came out in 2012: The Avengers. The entire reason that the CW wanted so desperately to form a shared universe in the first place is because Marvel had proven with the success of their first phase of movies that the concept just plain works and audiences like it. Nobody ever came out and said it, but come on, let’s not avoid pointing out an obvious truth. Marvel proved that shared universes work, so naturally DC began reshuffling its cards to follow suit. Like most things in Hollywood though, it was never going to be that easy, even for a major film studio.
Christopher Nolan was known for his resistance of letting his version of Batman share a universe with other DC characters, frequently stating that his trilogy was always meant to be a standalone film. So, when Man of Steel came out with Nolan attached as a producer and carrying a similar overall tone to the Dark Knight, it left audiences understandably confused. So, are they going to be merging Christian Bale’s Batman with Cavill’s Superman? If not, why would they match movie tones like they were going to? Why attach Nolan’s name to the film at all? It left a lot of holes in DCs narrative and although your average movie goer probably wouldn’t be vocal about something that is ultimately a subconscious observation, it had a major unspoken impact on audience reception. It almost felt like WB committed to a shared universe using Nolan’s trilogy as a basis, but Nolan wasn’t sold on the idea, WB jumped the gun, and Nolan ultimately backed out completely. I can’t prove any of that as fact, but when you look at the timeline of what happened it seems the most likely scenario. Simply put, because of this, a lot of fans felt like DC had no idea what it was doing and began detaching.
Let’s back peddle a little further to look at one more project worth mentioning, that still continues to be swept under the rug so frequently it currently exists almost exclusively as a punch line to a Deadpool joke: 2011’s Green Lantern starring Ryan Reynolds. This movie, believe it or not, is what I think single-handedly began the entire chain reaction of dominoes that led to the implosion of DC’s bigger picture. I think that Green Lantern was always meant to be the real first entry into the DC shared universe and if you want some proof, just look at some of the names attached: Greg Berlanti and Marc Guggenheim. Where else can you find these names? Firmly planted in the credits of every episode of Arrow, The Flash, and the rest of the CW entries. So while I think Ryan Reynolds’ Green Lantern was supposed to be the first entry in the DC movie universe, it actually ended up as the first entry in the Arrowverse (even if most fans never realized it). It’s even been reported that season 1 of The Flash was actually a rewritten and expanded version of Berlanti and Guggenheim’s script for what would have been their version of The Flash movie that was going to follow up Green Lantern as the second installment in their shared universe. If you watch the Green Lantern movie and follow it up with The Flash TV show, they’re very clearly the same tone and aesthetic and it’s fairly obvious they were created with the same universe in mind. I think that DC had two choices, either the Greg Berlanti/Marc Guggenheim universe or the Nolan/Snyder universe, and they committed to the Nolan universe before Nolan even committed to it ultimately snuffing out the Green Lantern movie quicker than Deadpool did himself at the end of Deadpool 2. The Arrowverse and The Flash show specifically, in my opinion, were Berlanti and Guggenheim’s “consolation prize” for WB not moving forward with their vision on the big screen.
So, now we have both the Arrowverse on TV and the WB/Snyder/Nolan/Extended Universe/thing in theaters. The money was being poured into the movies, but the fan reception was all going to the television series. This is why I think DC just kind of said “screw it” after a while and allowed shows like Arrow to actually test concepts for the big screen when originally they were very resistant. I think the “screw it” moment came symbolically when they finally gave Oliver the mantle of Green Arrow (not just some knock off Hood version) and fully embraced the fact that they probably just should have let the Green Lantern movie thrive and build from there (but hey, then we wouldn’t have Deadpool now so I guess things really do happen for a reason).
Season 2 of Arrow saw Deathstroke, who would later become the proposed adversary for Ben Affleck’s cancelled Batman movie, Brother Blood, who was a classic Teen Titans villain (another property DC was heavily testing fan reception with around this time), and the Suicide Squad which actually went on to be its own movie… twice. Shows like Arrow and The Flash still attempted to lean into the full DC lore, and expanded themselves as quickly as they could, but if you were fans of the shows back then you know how frequently you would read news articles about the shows “not being allowed to do this” or “not being allowed to do that” because of the movies. Although the Arrowverse was where most of the fan reception was going, the movies create the majority of the revenue, so what could and could not be done on the shows was still at the discretion of the movie studios. For example, Patty Jenkins probably didn’t want Diana Prince to appear on the shows because there was an upcoming Wonder Woman movie and it could lead to audience confusion, even if the tone of that movie matched the Arrowverse more closely than it did any earlier DCEU entry. Every time the shows wanted to use a new element of DC lore, they needed to receive permission from the movie studios and without having complete creative freedom the shows were always at the mercy of someone else (for better or for worse).
So what does this mean? Arrow teased characters like Green Lantern, Harley Quinn, and even Batman himself but most of it was never paid off. The Flash also teased different Justice League members, clearly putting it out there that they really wanted a full-fledged TV Justice League to happen, but none of that was fully paid off either. The shows had so many good ideas that if they were allowed to explore further, would have put them right up there with Marvel’s shared universe. The one thing I’ve tried to stress in a few articles that I’ve written on shared universes: if you want the audience to respond to the larger picture, the narrative has to be seamless. The Arrowverse was forced into a situation where they had all the potential in the world, but every last seam they needed to secure to do it right was intentionally torn so that the idea could never be truly achieved. During this time, DC released a couple good movies, but nothing that could right a ship that was already that far off course. This left them with two different and competing bigger picture ideas, neither of which could be fully realized while the other existed.
The Inevitable Downfall
The general consensus among most Arrowverse fans is that there was a noticeable decline of quality after Arrow season 5, The Flash season 3, etc. with the primary narrative being that it all got worse as time went on. Heck, it felt like Arrow checked itself out so completely after season 5 I can’t help but believe a lot of the cast and crew actually saw that season as the show’s true finale. Then you have The Flash that had such a drastic and noticeable decrease in quality after season 3 it’s genuinely depressing. While I agree with all of this to an extent, I do maintain that the later seasons were able to show moments of top notch quality when they really wanted to and were allowed to. The Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover, for example, was very well done and pulled me back in after my attention had begun to drift from these shows. Arrow season 6 and 7 were nothing great, but season 8 raised quality again for Oliver Queen’s final season. The shows were all still capable of delivering high quality content, I just don’t think a lot of the people working on them cared enough to deliver at that point. At the end of the day, the shows did the absolute best they could with the characters and stories they were allowed to use, but I believe that the politics of the movie and film industry wore them out and led to things tapering off. While I’ve been writing this, I actually forgot Batgirl was even a show that existed until literally right now… whoops. I’m sorry, but what even was that, why did it exist, and what does that tell you about what happened to the quality control?
Like what we are seeing with Marvel right now, the Arrowverse ended up a victim of its circumstances. It was successful very early on when it had no right to be, and I think people scrambled to figure out what to do with it. I think that DC and WB put all their monetary eggs in one basket, and it ended up being the wrong basket. In a perfect world, Green Lantern in 2011 would be considered good (controversial opinion warning: I still think it’d a decent movie to this day, definitely no worse than any of the Phase 1 Marvel movies besides Iron Man), The Flash movie would have spun off of it using the season 1 storyline (which would have been AMAZING, by the way), Wonder Woman and Aquaman would have fit perfectly with this tone left as-is (which is why I think these movies and Shazam were actually successful in comparison – they felt more like an Arrowverse show than something that came from Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice), and Man of Steel followed by Batfleck’s eventual Batman movie would all have lead into a much different Justice League film. DC didn’t just have too many cooks in the kitchen, but they had too many cooks in two separate kitchens both trying to cater to the same dining room.
Like everything else in life, all good things must come to an end. With the pandemic basically palate cleansing an entire population, I think DC (like most major companies) realized this is a good point to begin restructuring and implementing a long term strategy that was actually sustainable. Hiring James Gunn, who has already had a lot of experience with Kevin Feige and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, reinforces this belief. The last couple years have seen a stark decline in quantity with a drastic increase in quality with the final CW show, and I do not believe it is a coincidence that it just happens to be Superman. The baton pass from Smallville to Man of Steel as DCs on screen Superman didn’t exactly go well (or even exist?), but now it feels like there is an actual thought process behind the larger picture. “Seamless” means smoothy transitioning ideas and concepts in a logical way from one project to another without visible speed bumps, and DC is finally set up in a way to carry out a smooth baton pass. Then baton pass from Dark Knight to Green Lantern to Man on Steel was such a disjointed mess that I believe presenting a seamless bigger picture truly needs to be the top priority for DC right now and at the forefront of James Gunn’s mind.