Stephen Amell Confirms Bratva On Arrow, DC Vigilante, & Teases Season 5 Villain

While it's been patently obvious for some time that the Season Five flashbacks were headed to Russia, and that while there Oliver would encounter the Bratva as part of his journey to syncing up the timeline of the flashbacks with that of Season One, it wasn't until this weekend that it became "official" that was the plan.

Series star Stephen Amell confirmed as much during a panel at Wizard World Philadelphia, during which he also spoke to the nature of the villains Green Arrow will be facing in the fifth season of the hit CW series.

The question of how Oliver got his Bratva tattoo, and the nature of his relationship with the Russian mob, has been a persistent one almost since the very beginning of the series. Anatoli Knyazev, known in the comics as the KGBeast and in Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice as the man who orchestrated a terror attack and later kidnapped Martha Kent, has played a role in the series since Season Two. In Arrow, Knyazev is the leader of the Solntsevskaya Bratva.

"Typically by now, I would have gone to the writers' room and we would have had long, lengthy discussions about the upcoming season, but i wrapped Arrow, I had a really nice end-of-season dinner with Greg Berlanti, which is what we always do. We chatted about the good, the bad, the ugly, what's coming, what's happened, et cetera, et cetera. But we had that, and I literally haven't been home since the beginning of May."

Amell said that he's meeting with the writing team on Wednesday and should learn more about the season's villain, the next DC vigilante to be introduced, and more then.