Arrow Season Four Trailer: All the Familiar DC Comics Faces

The first trailer for the upcoming, fourth season of Arrow has been released, and with it, some good looks at the faces and names of DC Comics characters set to appear in the season.

This season sees Team Arrow facing off against Damien Darhk (Neal McDonough of Captain America: The First Avengerand Agent Carter fame) and H.I.V.E., the organization that killed John Diggle’s brother. Meanwhile, Malcolm Merlyn has been promoted to the rank of Ra’s al Ghul, leading to the decision to resurrect Sara Lance using the Lazarus Pit.

Arrow starts back up again on October 7 and airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT.

So…who are our very special guests? What are some of the status quo changes for the ones who have been around a while?

Read on…and let us know if we missed anybody.

RAY PALMER

Viewers know that Ray isn’t really dead, as he appeared to be at the end of Arrow Season Three, but will rather appear in DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, a group of people who mostly seem, at one point or another, to have been presumed dead or incarcerated.

But that doesn’t mean he won’t have an impact on the show before he returns! In his absence, the city has apparently taken him up on his suggestion to change its name.

DIGGLE

Diggle in a mask. Well, a helmet. But also a leather bodysuit reminiscent of almost every costume on the show.

This isn’t technically a new character, but…John Diggle suits up in his first official costume, and that’s something that fans have been asking for since almost the beginning of the series.

Yeah, he isn’t Guardian and he isn’t Gangbuster or Green Lantern or any other hero that starts with G. He’s John G*****ED Diggle. Isn’t that good enough for you?

It should also be noted that the helmet looks much better on actor David Ramsey than it did in the Photoshop released last night.

TED KORD?

It looks like Kord Omniversal is back in town!

During Season Two of Arrow, there were a lot of name-drops for the tech company owned by onetime Blue Beetle Ted Kord in the comics. Last year, those references dropped signifcantly…and for an obvious reason.

Instead, we had Palmer Technologies, run by Ray Palmer. Originally planned to be Ted Kord, Arrow producers have said that they had other plans for that character and pulled him off the table, forcing Team Arrow to team up with Ray Palmer (The Atom) instead.

So…what does it mean that Kord is back on the show? Is it just a harmless Easter egg? An omen that Ted is coming down the road? Who knows? But it’s on that case right under Diggle’s elbow on the previous slide.

JOHN CONSTANTINE

John Constantine, petty dabbler in the occult arts, is joining Arrow for a guest appearance this season…and he’s already in the trailer.

Played by Matt Ryan, who played the character in last year’s Constantine on NBC, the character will be called in when somebody needs a good exorcising.

And if that doesn’t excite you, you’re dead inside.

Constantine can probably help you with that.

MR. TERRIFIC

Taking on the role of Felicity’s “gay best friend” this season is Echo Kallum’s Curtis Holt, the tech genius and inventor who works under Felicity Smoak at Palmer Industries. 

In the comics, of course, he’s known as Mr. Terrific.

Well, Michael Holt is but that’s a whole other conversation.

So, will he take on the tights in the Arrowverse? So far, it seems like the answer is yes based on promotional materials…but this trailer makes us wonder how he’ll pull that off.

…Maybe that T-sphere he was juggling will help?

DAMIEN DARHK

The season’s big bad, Darhk shows up in this trailer and even has the courtesy to introduce himself!

He was referenced last season as a longtime rival of Ra’s al Ghul, who believed it was he who should have been elevated to head the League of Assassins. Instead, he took his ball (err, terrorist groupies) and went home to start H.I.V.E., the organization responsible for the deat of John Diggle’s brother.

What’s he want with Star City? Hard to say…but one thing is for sure: he’ll be connected to the hand holding those guns on Black Canary, Speedy and Detective Lance.

ANARKY

We’d almost forgotten that Anarky has come to Star City!

The longtime Batman and Robin antagonist appears to be a go-between from Jeri Ryan’s political candidate to Damien Darhk, having been pictured around both. Could Danforth be Lonnie Machlan’s mom, perhaps?

LADY COP

Here’s the first official look at Rutina Wesley in her role as Liza Warner, a member of the anti-vigilante task force who was known in the comics as “Lady Cop.” That’s Lance’s new partner.

(Last night, co-star Paul Blackthorne posted a behind-the-scenes shot where we see her in riot gear).

That task force will have its work cut out for it, as the season will start with yet another marked increase in vigilante activity in and around Starling.

In the comics, Warner was the only survivor of the “Killer-in-Boots”, who murdered Warner’s college roommates. The event made her decide to join the police. She stopped several criminals, always driven by a desire to catch the killer who had changed the course of her life.

Warner was later promoted to Chief of Police in Ivy Town, and frequently assisted onetime Atom Ryan Choi…but since she’s not exactly poised to “help” superheroes just yet, it doesn’t necessarily stand to reason that she’ll be buddy-buddy with Ray Palmer on DC’s Legends of Tomorrow anytime soon.

AMANDA WALLER

The head of A.R.G.U.S., Amanda Waller was nevertheless largely absent in Season Three, indiciating to some that she was “off the table” as a result of her ties to the Suicide Squad movie.

Producers had promised that wasn’t the case, and when she and Oliver come together in Coast City, that seems to be borne out.

What’s her game this season? And will we finally see that promised conflict between Waller, Diggle and Lyla Michaels that David Ramsey promsied us at Comic-Con 2014?!

SARA LANCE

Star of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, Caity Lotz appears here — alive and in the flesh! — as she emerges from the waters of the Lazarus Pit following a battle between Nyssa Raatko and Malcolm Merlyn.

No clue as to just which of them might have plunged here in there, but we know that things won’t be good for poor Sara when she’s revived from the dead. 

Enter John Constantine…!

DOUBLE DOWN

J.R. Bourne has been cast as DC Comics’ villain Double Down/Jeremy Tell, the villains whose ass we see getting kicked by Felicity (while in heels) toward the end of the trailer.

In the comics, Double Down is a villain that tends to battle The Flash, not Oliver Queen, but for the television universe he’ll make his first appearance–3rd episode–in Star City.

For the show, he’ll be a metahuman that can “can turn his playing card tattoos into deadly weapons.” But in the comics, Double Down was a gambler that gained his powers from a cursed deck of cards that came from a man he murdered after losing to him in a  high stakes poker game. Double Down is a sore loser!

The 45-year-old Canadian-born actor is best known for playing ‘Martouf’ from Stargate SG-1 and ‘Chris Argent’ from MTV’s Teen Wolf.