Arrow Season 2.5 Debuts The Boxing Glove Arrow

Rolling out today as a bridge between the second and third seasons of The CW's Arrow, writers Marc Guggenheim and Keto Shimizu are joined by artist Joe Bennett to craft Arrow Season 2.5, the first issue of which is giving fans something they've been asking for since the pilot.

...Kind of.

Much like the show's running joke that nobody wants the moniker "Speedy," Oliver Queen resists labeling his new, nonlethal arrowhead as the "boxing glove arrow," something that Felicity drops into conversation after its first on-panel use.

It doesn't particularly look like an arrow (as you can see here) and the odds are good that those who have been demanding a boxing glove arrow -- one of Oliver Queen's quiver standards since the days of the Comics Code, when combat tended to be a lot more bloodless in comics -- will be satisfied with this are pretty slim. Really, it appears just to be another nonlethal arrow, which Oliver has been known to use in the past on Arrow when the circumstances are right.

Still, this represents, as far as we know, the first documented instance of a "boxing glove arrow" in any form in the Arrowverse.

It's too bad they haven't firmly established that the illegitimate son hinted at during Season Two is indeed Connor Hawke. He had one of the all-time great boxing glove arrow moments during the time Oliver was "dead" and Connor was Green Arrow:

Arrow returns to the digital comics space in two weeks. It will be back on TV on October 8 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on The CW.