Over the next two years, the Arrowverse is in for some serious changes. Batwoman will get a new lead in January. Supergirl and Black Lightning are ending. And Superman & Lois is definitely coming to a TV screen near you. Also possible? Wonder Girl, based on a new character whose comics debut hasn’t even been published yet; and Painkiller, which could spin out of the world of Black Lightning in the same way Supergirl ushered in Superman & Lois. But with Arrow gone and the prospects for its female-led spinoff seeming pretty dim, there are going to be fewer familiar faces on The CW for the next little while.
Combine that with COVID-related travel and business restrictions, which might make certain actors much harder to bring into Canada for appearances, and you have a recipe for a very odd year or so coming up. So why not bring back some old friends to ease into things?
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The ever-evolving universe of The CW’s interconnected family of DC shows has given us plenty of great supporting characters (or even some one-offs with history in the DC Universe), who have left for one reason or another. The pandemic is giving us a season that will likely be more stand-alone and feature shorter arcs (so that if production is halted or significantly delayed, the whole season isn’t derailed), so a lot of these might be harder to do if the actor lives outside of the greater Vancouver area, if only because quarantining for two weeks (likely on the studio’s dime) in order to shoot for ten days after that seems like a doomed proposal.
Still, we can dream! And with so much changing in the Arrowverse, here are some of the folks we’d like to see some more of.
The Ray
After a significant role in the “Crisis on Earth-X” event, The Ray (Russell Tovey) got his own animated miniseries, telling tales of his days before the fall of the Fourth Reich on Earth-X. He also had a brief “red sky” cameo in “Crisis on Infinite Earths,” as we watched Earth-X be consumed by antimatter.
But more recently, Cisco Ramon’s notes on The Flash seem to suggest that The Ray existed on Earth-Prime all along, and is no longer bonded to Earth-X. Now that he’s not only alive, but has a completely different personal history, it would be fun to check in with him…and maybe even get a better helmet for the dude.
Bill Henderson
This one would be tricky, as it would require raising the dead and that is very rarely a thing that happens on Black Lightning, at least relative to many other genre shows. Still, Damon Gupton delivered a flawless performance as embattled cop Bill Henderson, and had a death last season that felt a bit underwhelming and arbitrary given the importance of the character.
One option would be to bring him back to Superman & Lois — Henderson originated as a Superman character anyway and only found himself in Black Lightning comics years later. That’s a show that could explain it a little more easily given the scope of Superman’s powers and the nature of the world he inhabits.
Alternately, you could explain it using something about the Crisis and doppelgangers, although that’s dangerous ground since we’ve already seen a couple of doppelgangers who hung around longer than the universe though they should, and generally things don’t end well for those people.,
The Huntress
A major part of early Arrow, Helena Bertinelli vanished and was rarely even referenced again. Fans, though, asked all the time whether Jessica de Gouw might want to pop over to Arrow for a visit. Now that Arrow is gone, it’s harder to see where she might fit, but with her character now having more cache due to the Birds of Prey movie and Warner newly willing to let the TV and film characters coexist, it’s worth at least exploring.
Mister Terrific
Curtis Holt became a hero during his time on Arrow, and went through a lot of stuff along the way. He had a less closed-ended sendoff than most characters, and that might partially be because The Flash showrunner Eric Wallace had a pretty great (if short) run on Mister Terrific in the comics.
Wallace did admit to us during Comic Con International in San Diego in 2019 that he would like to use the character on the show.
We’d love to see him come over and geek out with Cisco a little more than what we would get in the crossovers, and possibly even suit up. You can never have enough T-spheres in your life.
Hawkman and Hawkwoman
Hawkman (Falk Hentschel) and Hawkwoman (Ciara Renee) disappeared at the end of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow season one, and have hardly been referenced since. This may be because the characters weren’t especially popular, because the first season of Legends is almost uniformly thought to be a rough season that struggled to find its identity.
Still, such major characters in the arc of the Arrowverse, and who have long ties to history in the comics, stick out like a sore thumb when you’re thinking of characters you haven’t seen in a while.
Wildcat
After teaching Earth-1 Laurel to fight and preparing her for the vigilante life that ultimately got her killed, Ted “Wildcat” Grant briefly suited up again — only to get absolutely demolished in a fight with Brick during Oliver’s post-“death” disappearance. We are to understand he got better, but…that’s about it. He hasn’t shown back up since, in any capacity. At this point, it would be surprising to see him return since the character has been cast on Stargirl.
Jay Garrick
Jay Garrick is tough, becuase obviously his world is gone and we saw the John Wesley Shipp version fo Barry Allen die in “Crisis.” A solution? Jay Garrick lived in the ’90s and lived the experiences of the Shipp Barry. That way we can still have John Wesley Shipp show up from time to time, even if it requires some poking and prodding of the timeline to do it. And “Crisis” gives you the freedom to do that poking without breaking the continuity much.
Wally West
A great character, played by the great Keiynan Lonsdale, it’s always fun to see Barry. And usually when he speeds by, people want him to stay longer…but given the nature of production during the pandemic, it kind of makes sense that he could be there for a 1-2 episode mini-arc and then vanish again…which seems to be the way Lonsdale likes it.
