Arrow: Easter Eggs and DC Comics References in "Guilty"

Tonight's episode of Arrow may have achieved a crowning moment of awesome.One of the Easter eggs [...]

Tonight's episode of Arrow may have achieved a crowning moment of awesome.

One of the Easter eggs on this list is too amazing not to see in person. So, seriously, if you haven't watched yet, don't read on.

Okay, so you still with us? What'd we see? What'd we miss? You know the drill...!

Overwatch

Roy is "on overwatch" when Team Arrow goes after the cartel. That's a role, sure, but it's also the name of a spy novel by Marc Guggenheim, executive producer of Arrow.

No connection, though: Overwatch is a kind of hybrid legal thriller and espionage drama, with its lead character -- attorney Alex Garnett -- stumbling into a web of conspiracy and intrigue that leaves his father, a former Chief of Staff and Solicitor General to two presidents, looking like a pretty good candidate for the assist. Instead, Garrett turns to a paranoid hacker and starts unraveling a decades-old conspiracy. You can read our interview about it here.

China White

Cute -- Oliver gives Chien Na Wei her nickname in the Hong Kong flashbacks.

Irwin Hasen

Wildcat's Gym is at 9th and Hasen, a nod to Dondi cartoonist Irwin Hasen, who co-created Wildcat.

Boxing Glove Arrow

HELL YES. Oliver Queen's boxing glove arrow COMES TO LIVE ACTION. For the uninitiated, that's one of the weapons he uses fairly often in the comics. It's a way around arrows usually being fatal or near-fatal weapons.

Wildcat

Oh! And here's Hasen's creation. Ted "Wildcat" Grant was a superhero created in the Golden Age. Originally a contemporary of characters like Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, he existed at a time when interaction between superheroes in different books was fairly limited. Following the Crisis on Infinite Earths, the character was reinvented a a member of the Justice Society of America -- a team of superheroes who fought crime during World War II and served as a kind of precursor to the Justice League.

Wildcat was instrumental in training a number of important heroes that succeeded him, including Black Canary (we see that playing out in Arrow) and Batman.

You can see our brief conversation with Marc Guggenheim about the decision to bring Wildcat's costumed identity into Arrow here.

"You sure can pick 'em."

Not really an Easter egg or a DC Comics reference, but it's a fun nod to the fact that last year, Laurel dated Brother Blood.

Isaac Stanzler

Isaac, Wildcat's sidekick, is named after Wendey Stanzler, who has directed four episodes of Arrow, including the second episode of the season, which featured Sara's funeral.

While not a specific reference either, it's probably worth noting that the whole "sidekick gone bad" thing is a trope of superhero fiction, ranging from Miracleman to the Winter Soldier and (to a lesser extent) the Red Hood. 

...And Roy?

What's also interesting is that "Kid Wildcat," Grant's son and sidekick, Tom Bronson, was the kid Laurel was trying to arrest when she first met Ted.

Arsenal

That's a name-drop right there! Roy Harper started as Green Arrow's sidekick Speedy but became Arsenal.

Looks like he beat Black Canary to getting her "real" name from the comics.

Cupid

This episode introduced next week's main antagonist, Cupid. Created by Arrow showrunner Andrew Kreisberg during one of his times writing the Green Arrow comics, she's a stalker obsessed with the Arrow who will kill people with a bow to get his attention.

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