Is Blue Beetle Coming to ‘Arrow’ Season 7?

Arrow is getting a shot of fresh creative blood for season 7, as new showrunner Beth Schwartz steps into a fan-favorite storyline from the comics, in which Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) is locked in a Super Max prison, after finally confessing to being the Green Arrow. Now we hear Arrow may be adding a new character to the mix for season 7: DC Comics’ most famous Blue Beetle, Ted Kord!

That Hashtag Show has a breakdown of TV Line‘s new character leaks for Arrow season 7, and it includes the following character breakdown:

“Next up is another recurring character in the form of “Daniel Porter”, who they are looking for a Caucasian actor in his mid-30s. He is an intelligent and homosexual technological entrepreneur whose creativity has given him a huge success as a businessman. But having gone through tragic losses in his life is something he hides from the people around him, thus struggling with shaping new relationships with others.”

The point of discussion here is whether “Daniel” is truly what he appears to be: a new character being introduced to the show – or whether the name is a cover meant to hide the fact that another major DC Comics superhero is being added to the Arrowverse. As THS points out, “Daniel” has been a codeword officially used by Arrow before – in season 3, when casting the entrepreneur character with a troubled past who was suspected to be Blue Beetle, but later turned out to be Brandon Routh’s Ray Palmer, aka The Atom. At this point, the name could easily be a little in-joke by the Arrow creative team, and based on the description, it does seem somewhat likely that Ted Kord is the character being cast.

Kord’s original origin in Charlton Comics saw him as a student of the original Blue Bettle, Dan Garrett. Ted and Dan were caught up in an investigation of Ted’s uncle, Jarvis Kord, who was creating an army of androids to take over the world. When Dan fell in battle against the robots, Ted took up the mantle of Blue Beetle, using his intelligence and technological resources as replacements for the mystical scarab that gave the first Blue Bettle (and later the third) his mystical powers. Charlton Comics became part of DC Comics, and Ted Kord was re-fitted as a mostly supporting character in team books like Justice League and Justice League International, as well as the popular duo of Booster Gold and Blue Beetle.

While Ted Kord was never explicitly depicted as being gay, he’s been somewhat asexual in DC Comics, having once had a crush on Barbara Gordon’s Oracle, and otherwise being the butt of jokes concerning his bromance with Booster Gold. It wouldn’t be much of a surprise for Arrow to add an LGBTQ tweak to the DC Character, as the Arrowverse has been very open to that representation in any number of its characters (Citizen Cold, The Ray, Mr. Terrific, Alex Danvers). It would also possibly give Curtis / Mr. Terrific a character to really bond with (romantically or otherwise), as a gay version of Ted Kord would possibly appeal to both sides of Curtis’ life, as an industrialist genius and costumed vigilante.

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Do you think Blue Beetle is coming to Arrow? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!

Arrow’s seventh season will debut Mondays this fall at 9/8c, following brand new episodes of Legends of Tomorrow.