Wild Dog Returns to 'Arrow' In "Shifting Allegiances"

After being away for several episodes due to on-the-field injuries, Rene Ramirez (Rick Gonzalez) [...]

After being away for several episodes due to on-the-field injuries, Rene Ramirez (Rick Gonzalez) will return to the Arrow fray as Wild Dog later this month...but it will not be an easy transition.

You can see the official synopsis for the episode, titled "Shifting Allegiances," below.

Oliver (Stephen Amell) turns to an old friend to help battle Diaz (guest star Kirk Acevedo). Meanwhile, Rene (Rick Gonzalez) is out of the hospital but has a hard time re-adjusting to life as Wild Dog. Also, Lance (Paul Blackthorne) discovers something shocking about Black Siren (Katie Cassidy).

Alexandra La Roche directed the episode written by Wendy Mericle & Rebecca Bellotto.

The character of Wild Dog first appeared in Wild Dog #1 in 1987, making him one of the first new superheroes created following Crisis on Infinite Earths. Created by Road to Perdition writer Max Allan Collins and artist Terry Beatty, "his super power is guns."

Star athlete Jack Wheeler went to college on a football scholarship, but had to drop out and become a mechanic after an injury forced him off the team and he couldn't afford tuition. Before working as a mechanic, though, he enlisted for a tour of duty with the U.S. Marines, only to see most of his friends killed by a terrorist bomb. After returning home, he fell in love...but the woman he was in love with was gunned down in a seemingly-random shooting, later revealed to be a hit because her father was a reputed mobster. Wheeler snapped and became Wild Dog -- a vigilante beloved by the public for "cleaning up the streets" but wanted by the police for his brutality.

After his own series failed to make him a star, the character would appear in Action Comics Weekly before fading mostly into obscurity. His most recent appearances on the printed page were in an alternate-reality story in Booster Gold, in which Wild Dog was part of a team of revolutionaries led by Green Arrow and working against Maxwell Lord and his army of OMACs.

"You gotta go to [writers] Geoff [Johns] and Jeff [Katz] for that one," artist Dan Jurgens said when ComicBook.com's Russ Burlingame asked him why Wild Dog had been chosen to team with a group of DC A-listers in Booster Gold #8. "I kind of enjoyed it. Took me back to those Action Weekly days!"

Most recently, Wild Dog has appeared in the Young Animal series Cave Carson Has a Cybernatic Eye.

Arrow airs on Thursday nights at 9 p.m. ET/PT on The CW, following episodes of Supernatural. "Shifting Allegiances" debuts on April 26.

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