Arrow Debuts New Deathstroke

Arrow may be coming to an end, but the future of the Arrowverse is (literally) just beginning as the final season unfolds. Arrow fans have been following a flash-forward storyline about the future Starling City, in which the next generation of Team Arrow (and a few of the originals) are still trying to keep the city out of the clutches of evildoers. Like the present-day Green Arrow and his team, the future Team Arrow’s sophomore battle has been against the Deathstroke Gang, led by John Diggle’s son, J.J. Well, now we’re getting our first look at Arrow‘s new Deathstroke in costume!

Check out the trailer above to see J.J. in his full Deathstroke armor, which will debut in the upcoming episode “Present Tense”!

Synopsis: When a mysterious new Deathstroke appears in Star City, Oliver and Team Arrow insist on taking down this villain themselves. Meanwhile reeling from the loss of one of their own, the future Team Arrow figures out a new way to try and stop JJ.

As seen in the previous episode “Leap of Faith”, the future Team Arrow had a major showdown with J.J. and the Deathstroke Gang, which came to the climatic tragedy of Wild Dog’s daughter, Zoe, being stabbed by J.J. Mia beats down J.J., but before she and Connor can finish the job, the team is transported back to present day, where they find themselves in the Team Arrow bunker, face-to-face with Oliver Queen.

The central mystery at the heart of “Present Tense” is how/why a new gang of Deathstrokes start appearing in present day Starling City. On the one hand, Mia and William speculate that J.J.’s Deathstroke Gang might’ve been transported through time like future Team Arrow was; on the other hand, it’s speculated that future Team Arrow may have traveled back to the past point where the future Deathstroke Gang first started to take shape, and subsequently, the beginning of Starling City’s dip into a pretty dark point in its history, following Oliver’s impending death in the upcoming “Crisis” event.

All of this seems to be feeding into the storyline for the upcoming Arrow spinoff Green Arrow and the Canaries, which will follow the heroines of future Star City, like Mia Smoak (Katherine McNamara), Laurel Lance (Katie Cassidy), and Dinah Drake (Juliana Harkavy). That’s assuming the current intersecting character arcs between Mia, Connor, and J.J. continue well after this final season of Arrow.

Catch new episodes of Arrow Tuesdays on The CW.