Arrow’s Final Season premieres tonight – a season that will be pulling triple duty with its story arc. Indeed, Arrow season 8 will have to finish the story of Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell); launch the new Canaries spinoff that’s coming to the Arrowverse; and set the stage for the epic “Crisis on Infinite Earths” crossover that’s happening. To that latter point, it’s clear that Arrow will waste no time playing on fan-service thrills related to the “Crisis” multiverse, as one key scene shows the iconic opening of Arrow‘s first episode given a major Batman twist!
After eight long seasons of waiting and some cruel teases, fans are getting their very first look at Batman’s Arrowverse mask! Check it out in the video above, which recreates the opening of Arrow’s series premiere sequence nearly shot-for-shot, albeit with an older Stephen Amell as Oliver Queen, and an arrow-impaled Batman mask on the island of Lian Yu, instead of the impaled Deathstroke mask. Clearly this is not the traditional timeline of Arrow that we know. The voice of The Monitor makes it clear: This “Crisis” event will indeed be taking us to some very strange new places.
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Arrow and other Arrowverse shows have made an running gag of referencing Batman in the Arrowverse (over ten times – and counting), without actually delivering the Dark Knight himself. That practice got taken to new levels of frustration with the introduction of Ruby Rose’s Batwoman during the Arrowverse “Elseworlds” crossover last year. Rose’s Kate Kane is Bruce Wayne’s cousin in the show, but Bruce Wayne / Batman has been missing from Gotham City for three years at the time the show begins. Kate dons a Batman costue in the show before eventually stepping out with her own Batwoman look, and there’s no sign Batman will actually appear on the show.
Meanwhile, “Crisis” will be giving us more Batman than we can handle. The Arrowverse crossover will feature Batman: The Animated Series icon Kevin Conroy, and the world and supporting characters of Tim Burton’s Batman (1989) will also make an appearance. The trick in all this, of course, is that none of these references require an actual Batman costumed appearance – something it still seems like the Arrowverse is incapable of giving us. But for many fans, Easter eggs like this Elseworlds version of Lian Yu where Oliver Queen was stranded with Batman, will be fun enough substitution.
Arrow season 8 premieres tonight on The CW. The season will lead into the “Crisis on Infinite Earths” crossover, which kicks off on Sunday, December 8 on Supergirl, runs through a Monday episode of Batwoman and that Tuesday’s episode of The Flash. That will be the midseason cliffhanger, as the shows go on hiatus for the holidays and return on January 14 to finish out the event with the midseason premiere of Arrow and a “special episode” of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, which launches as a midseason series this year and so will not have an episode on the air before the Crisis.
