'Arrow': Who Is Emiko Queen?

Arrow is set to return from midseason hiatus tonight, and it will properly introduce a DC Comics fan-favorite in the process.

After weeks of fans speculating, the "New Green Arrow" was unmasked during the show's midseason finale, and was revealed to be a young Asian woman played by Shea Shimooka. In the episode's final scene, the identity of the woman became clear, as she stood in front of Robert Queen's headstone outside of the now-destroyed Queen Mansion. In a monologue of sorts, the woman referred to Robert as her "dad", and remarked that Oliver was more similar to both Robert and herself than she'd thought, but that she wouldn't give up on her mission.

As the show has since confirmed (with the very title of tonight's episode), the woman is none other than Emiko Queen. And for those who are unfamiliar with her comic history, here's what you need to know.

Emiko first debuted in Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino's Green Arrow Vol. 5 #18, which hit shelves in March of 2013. Emiko was the half-sibling of Oliver Queen, and the daughter of Robert Queen and Shado. As a child, Emiko was kidnapped by Simon Lacroix/Komodo, and raised to believe that he was her father. She eventually crosses paths with Oliver Queen, and the nature of her true parentage becomes a pretty major thing for the two characters.

Once Emiko realizes the truth, she kills Komodo, and is taken under Oliver's wing. She proceeds to live with him in Seattle, and even briefly takes on the mantle of Green Arrow when Oliver is attacked by the Longbow Hunters.

In the DC Rebirth relaunch, Emiko continues to live with Oliver, until she briefly teams up with Shado, under the influence of a group called the Ninth Circle. Emiko and Shado attempt to kill Oliver and leave his body in the ocean, but did not succeed. As the altercation wages on, she reveals that she'd actually been working on Oliver's behalf the whole time.

She continues to join Green Arrow and Black Canary in their superhero crusade, operating under Roy Harper's old mantle of Red Arrow. Since taking on that moniker, Emiko has almost sacrificed herself to save her half-brother,and has since gone on to join the Teen Titans.

Emiko's comic storyline is often believed to be inspired by Arrow's Thea Queen (Willa Holland), which makes her debut on the same show particularly interesting. But according to showrunner Beth Schwartz, Emiko will forge her own path on Arrow in some particularly interesting ways.

"The intention wasn't to replace Thea, or once one sister left to introduce a new sister," Schwartz explained in a recent interview. "We were just excited about this character from the comic books, and we just felt like it was time to bring her into the fold. "[The fact that] Queen secrets are still happening from the grave, I thought, was really interesting, and that there was a whole hidden life that Oliver didn't know about."

Arrow airs Mondays at 8/7c on The CW.