Arrow Star Stephen Amell Seemingly Debunks Nightwing Rumors

As part of his marathon Q&A with fans earlier tonight (performed in lieu of a new episode airing on The CW), Arrow star Stephen Amell seemingly debunked long-standing rumors that actor Steven R. McQueen will play Dick Grayson (also known to DC Comics fans as Nightwing, the original Robin) on the hit CW drama. Asked about the rumors in a post that name-dropped McQueen specifically, Amell was dismissive. "You gotta love the internet," he wrote. "I should start tweeting Shonda Rhimes that I want to play Kerry Washington's long lost brother on Scandal just to see how quickly the rumor will take hold."

Obviously, this isn't a firm denial...neither would it be entirely convincing if it was, since it's pretty standard for writers, producers and stars to deny "surprise" plot developments that have already leaked. Earlier in the Q&A, in fact, he told a fan that they could be safe hoping for more DC characters to show up this season, including possibly characters from Gotham and Metropolis (the fan's words, not Amell's). Nevertheless, it seems fairly definitive. The rumors began months ago, when McQueen tweeted an image of himself working out in November 2013, with a comment that suggested he was training to be Nightwing. of course, he was wearing a Nightwing t-shirt, so it could have just been good-natured joke that exploded all over the Internet. Two days later, though, he followed up with another tweet that he had been talking, apparently with the Arrow writers and "executives," about superheroics. Since then he's been mostly quiet, but recently said in an interview, "Hopefully soon Nightwing on a show called Arrow, but still waiting to hear about that," when asked about upcoming work. It's hard to tell whether this is a campaign by McQueen (everybody knows the Arrow writers love Nightwing and hope to one day use him, but rumors up to now have been that Warner Bros. have not allowed it) or something that is/was in play at some point. In any case, it seems unlikely to happen by the end of the season, unless it's the "special announcement" teased for episode 19. Nightwing is at the center of Forever Evil, DC Comics's currently-ongoing "event" miniseries, in which his secret identity was exposed to the world and his death has always been a plot device that's in play. He seemingly died at the end of last week's issue, and his comic will end in April. Still, he's expected to have a significant role in DC's other-media offerings going forward, as the character has been rumored to make an appearance in Batman vs. Superman (Zack Snyder's Man of Steel sequel) and DC Entertainment recently trademarked a new, Batman-inspired logo for the character to appear on t-shirts and other merchandising.