Arrow Digital Comic To Deal With Fallout From Season Finale

The Arrow digital comic from DC Comics will deal with the fallout from last month's season finale before going on hiatus until the show returns to The CW, producer Marc Guggenheim, who writes the comic, revealed to CBR today. In a two-part story beginning with this week's Arrow #35, the writer will tell a tale that bridges the gap between the season one finale and the season two premiere, giving fans some insight with regards to what they should expect going forward and, probably, keeping them in the dark about some other key plot points (like whether the Dark Archer actually survived). Here's a few words from Guggenheim about how the story came together:

It's funny. This two-parter came about in a way that was different from the other "Arrow" digital chapters I've written for the show. Usually when I'm doing a digital chapter myself as opposed to working with one of the other writers on the show, I'm trying to scratch an itch I've had from the story room. I'm usually trying to fill in what I call "grout" -- the missing gaps between episodes. Ben Sokolowski just wrote this great chapter where he explains how Oliver got a plane and someone to pilot it in episode 21 when the Arrow rescued Walter. It's always fun filling in those blanks and writing those moments we didn't have the budget and time to shoot. In the case of ending Season 1 of the digital comic, I wanted to go out with a bang. I wanted to end the comics season with the same sort of muscularity as the televised version. We kicked around a whole bunch of ideas in service of that, and a lot of those ideas were the kind of thing where we said, "Let's save that for the show." Some of the ideas were impractical for a variety of reasons. Ultimately, I was the last to show up to the party with the idea of extending past the season finale mainly because at that time we hadn't broken the story for the season finale, and I couldn't figure out how it would all payoff. I didn't see how it could be extended in the digital comic because one thing you always want to avoid is making it feel like padding. I didn't want to just extend Season 1 of "Arrow" arbitrarily. I wanted you to feel like you were getting new information -- valuable information. What I ended up settling on was to make this a two-parter. All the other digital chapters #1-34 have been self-contained stories. So by making this a two-parter, we're already making it a little more special. Then in a departure for me, I approached this story from having a visual in my head. That's rare for me. I had this image of Oliver during the finale racing from Merlyn Tower to CNRI [where Tommy died] and experiencing the earth break through his POV. That just stuck with me, and as it continued to take shape as the story of Oliver getting from point A to point B, all these other ideas flooded in. It included this non-linear storytelling where we would flashback and flashforward to moments beyond the season finale. It allowed us to play with time in a way comics can do that can't be done in a TV show. But Oliver running from the tower to CNRI is the spine. Once the episode had come together, this idea took a furtive shape in my head as a story. It was one of those writing jobs where things came together in a very organic way rather than being all planned out. The reason it works is because I was writing to the moments I thought the audience would be most curious about seeing post-season finale.