Arrow: Easter Eggs and DC Comics References in Broken Arrow

By Russ Burlingame

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Tonight's episode of Arrow was a potential game-changer for the CWverse, as it gave us the first-ever metahuman on the show who doesn't seem to have acquired his powers from the explosion of dark energy that came from the particle accelerator explosion at S.T.A.R. Labs.

Other than that, though, we didn't get a ton of fanservice. There was a lot going on, and like many episodes this year, they just didn't find a lot of space for random name-drops.

There were a few, though. Check 'em out, see what we saw and let us know what we missed!

Deathbolt

In the comics, Deathbolt was granted his powers after a biplane he was flying went down in a lightning storm and he was discovered by the longtime Justice League villain the Ultra-Humanite.

Like in the TV series, he has dominion over electricity and is able to channel it into blasts. 

Meta metas

Hey, wait...Arrow has an unexplained metahuman appearance on the same week The Flash had a regular old super-hacker?

That seems like a weird coincidence, particularly when you consider the fact that they each had guest stars on one another's shows this week, too.

Gantner and Yount

The cross street where one of Deathbolt's crimes was taking place is named after a couple of star baseball players from the '80s.

That'd be Milwaukee Brewers superstars Jim Gantner and Robin Yount who, along with Paul Molitor, made up one of the best infields in the League at the time.

Thanks to Ryan Mackman for being the first to call this out to us.

Supermax

All this talk about breaking Roy out of prison couldn't help reminding me that once upon a time, there was going to be a movie called Supermax, where Green Arrow was unjustly imprisoned and had to fight his way out of a super-maximum security prison.

The illusion of death

Oh, Merlyn's bag of tricks again!

Actually, to be fair, there are just so many people in this show who have seemed to die and then not really. It's almost a rite of passage. Roy joins Oliver, Sara, Merlyn, Slade Wilson and probably others I can't think of right now.

4116 Dixon Canyon

That street address is almost certainly paying homage to '90s Green Arrow scribe Chuck Dixon.

Opal City

Simmons was in Opal the night of the particle accelerator explosion, not Central City. That raises some questions...

...like whether Ted Knight helped to apprehend him. Deathbolt, an enemy of the All-Star Squadron, has tried to single out JSA and All-Star Squadron members including Starman before.

Metahumans!

How can he be a meta? Maybe there's more than one way. And if so, that's a game-changer not just for Arrow but for The Flash and whatever the spinoff is, as well.

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