‘Arrow’: Who is the New Green Arrow?

The series premiere of Arrow just finished on the East Coast, and one of the questions that will dog the first half of the season is, who the heck is the new Green Arrow?

A brutal agent with serious combat skills who is seemingly working on the side of good, a new hooded archer showed up in Star City and is trying to fill the gap Oliver Queen left behind when he abandoned his costumed identity and went to prison.

Of course, we will probably guess wrong — but that’s half the fun.

So who do we think might be a good candidate to be the Green Arrow who takes down drug dealers, crosses names off a list, and saves Rene’s life?

Read on…!

Another Earth’s Oliver

The first choice, mostly because we have “Elseworlds” on the mind, is that Green Arrow could be Oliver Queen — the Oliver Queen of another world.

Setting up the crossover this far in advance seems like a strange idea — but it could come with the added benefit of giving the “real” Oliver somebody to toss in the hole down the line if that’s the way the authors wanted to go.

Also, with an unexplained extra Supergirl already kicking around on that show, we could likely make a list of things that could be multiversal glitches if we wanted to — and it’s less than a full week into the new seasons.

Diggle

John Diggle is arguably the most obvious choice here.

After the events of “Invasion!,” when everyone got a glimpse at what they believe to be their “perfect” lives and Dig saw himself as the Green Arrow, the idea has been hanging over him for a while.

Last year, he stepped in as Green Arrow for a while when Oliver was first accused, and since he is married to the head of ARGUS and also knows where to find Felicity and Oliver, it is arguably easiest to believe he more than anybody else could figure out how to be the Green Arrow without the framework of Team Arrow backing him up.

Diaz

What better way to divide (and potentially incriminate) the former members of Team Arrow, making it even more difficult for them to effectively get rid of him, than to put himself (or someone in his employ) out there as Green Arrow and then slowly make him more dangerous and less beloved by the public?

We think of this one as the “Cyborg Superman” approach. When Superman was dead and Hank Henshaw couldn’t try to kill him, he instead masterminded a plot to convince the world he was Superman and then ruin his good name.

Roy Harper

I mean — we know what he is up to in the future, but what is Roy doing in the present? 

It would not be much of a stretch for him to be stepping in for Oliver, especially if his relationship with Thea deteriorated and he wanted to make a difference apart from her.

Having it be Roy could also explain the character’s more slender build…although we have more thoughts on that later.

Ragman

It has been a while since we saw Rory Regan, and when he left Team Arrow (because his magical cloak no longer worked), there was a suggestion that this might not be the end for him.

Could he have spent that time (plus the five months since Oliver went to prison) training to become a better, stronger, faster hooded vigilante who still covers his face?

Probably not, but it certainly would not be outside of the realm of possibility, and given the important role that New Team Arrow is playing in the premiere, it would almost make sense to have one of their old members playing a big part again.

Artemis

The hooded archer looks too tall to be Madison McLaughlin, but the slender frame, archery skills, and the fact that we never got to see whether she lived or died on Lian Yu could make her a solid candidate otherwise.

The same can be said for Malcolm Merlyn or Nyssa, although the likelihood of quietly bringing either of those actors back is pretty small relative to McLaughlin.

Katherine McNamara’s character

This would be a page right out of the Dark Knight III playbook.

If the cops finally track down this Green Arrow, pull off his hood, and reveal that it’s a woman, that could be a really fun cliffhanger to leave off on in an upcoming episode, and something that throws everyone for a loop.

It would explain the slighter frame, and the decision to completely cover the face and voice in a way that Stephen Amell has not in the past.

And So far, we have no real clues as to what McNamara’s recurring role on the series will be…!