'Arrow' EP on Why Oliver Queen Is the Darkest Hero in the Arrowverse

The CW's Arrowverse has a colorful variety of characters. From the usually optimistic Supergirl to the deadpan, rough around the edges Mick Rory/Heatwave, each of the heroes have their own, unique personalities.

But among them, Oliver Queen/Green Arrow (Stephen Amell) always seems to be the darkest -- and we don't just mean because he spent a large swath of Arrow's first five seasons brooding. With Oliver, the darkness is more than just his personality and that's something that the show's executive producer, Marc Guggenheim acknowledges. In a recent interview with ComicBook.com, Guggenheim explained that the darkness is "the essence" of Oliver Queen.

"To me, the essence of the character really goes back to the pilot," Guggenheim said. "The fact that at the end of act one, he had his hand around his mother's throat. And at the end of act two, he killed a guy by breaking his neck."

While Oliver has lightened up significantly -- particularly this season now that he's a full-time in addition to being mayor of Star City by day and Green Arrow by night -- Arrow fans will recall that the show's first season overall was pretty dark, with the hero returning home after having been shipwrecked and presumed dead for the previous five years. As the full extent of Oliver's experiences begin to unfold, he also takes up a quest to exact justice using a list of names in his father's journal.

Over time, Oliver has gotten further away from the grim, dark violence of his early vigilante career -- working with a team instead of alone, moving away from killing, considering consequences -- but he is still the hero most likely to reach back into his dark past and it's something that Guggenheim says makes him the darkest among his Arrowverse counterparts.

"And of all the characters in the Arrowverse, he is the hero who is the least predictable and who is willing to go to the much darker places than any of the other characters are willing to go," Guggenheim explained.

And when Arrow returns from midseason break this week, Oliver may just find himself going to those dark places. After Team Arrow fractured during the midseason finale, Oliver still has to deal with the threat of Cayden James (Michael Emerson) and his team of villains -- and when he learns on of Cayden's secrets, he has to team up with a very unlikely ally to, hopefully, stop him.

Arrow airs Thursday nights at 9/8c on The CW.