Arrow: City of Heroes, Review
The season 2 premiere of Arrow isn't exactly full of the unexpected, but it does look like the show is aiming to become more unapologetically superheroic!
Arrow is back for its second season. That’s right, folks…a show about Green Arrow has made it to season 2. Once upon a time, The Flash, a character with a much higher profile, cooler costume, and power set only lasted one season. Hell, Batman only lasted three! But the CW’s Arrow, while still plagued by some of the usual shoehorned-in soap opera elements, looks like it’s going to do it’s damndest to expand its pool of DC superheroes and villains this season in a hurry. That’s a good thing.“City of Heroes” kicks off a year after the events of the Arrow season one finale. Oliver Queen has exiled himself back to the island in order to deal with his guilt over the death of his best friend, and Diggle and Felicity have hopped a rickety plane to go bring him back. In short order we get a nifty little stunt involving Ollie and Felicity, and right away, the show seems to have a more, I dunno…swashbuckling feel to it.Meanwhile, Starling City is still recovering from the earthquake, and a gang inspired by Arrow, “The Hoods” are terrorizing the people they feel are responsible for Starling City’s woes. Yeah, I know…the Dark Knight vibes continue a little into this season. It isn’t long before they decide that the Queens are an obvious target, and kidnap Thea (after an attempt on Oliver’s life fails). It isn’t much of a plot, and it’s certainly not an earth-shattering season premiere, but there’s still plenty to be excited about. For starters, unlike, say, Smallville, Arrow is clearly looking to go all in with its superhero approach this season. Ollie is looking for a real code name (screw this “Hood” nonsense), and he’s looking to reduce the body count he leaves in his wake every time he goes out on the town. We’re looking at a lot less “mission of vengeance” this season and a lot more “trying to be a real hero.” I’m into that. With the side plot that Roy Harper has been wandering the streets in his free time and busting up petty crime, it’s probably not going to be all that long before that relationship gets taken to its logical next level.Need more? The island flashbacks are still present and accounted for, and we’re in for plenty of Slade Wilson and Shado training Ollie, which pretty much automatically ups the action potential in every single episode. While we still get the obligatory dose of romantic navel-gazing, it certainly didn’t permeate the episode, and a series of solid fights and stunts made the rest pretty easy to forgive. Funny enough, though, the best “hell yes” moment of the night came with nobody in costume and not a punch being thrown. SPOILER TIME: That sure was Black Canary raining on Roy’s parade at the end, wasn’t it?FLASH WATCH: Could the seemingly random mention on the news of a STAR Labs particle accelerator coming to Starling City be an indicator of how they’re gonna deal with Flash’s origin on this show? It would make sense…BRING ON THE DCU: So, just to be clear, tonight we got Roy Harper (almost) fighting crime, Slade Wilson, Shado, the introduction of Isabel Rochev (a soon-to-be supervillain), and a possible hint about Flash’s origin. And it’s only the first episode of the season. What did I miss? Let us know in the comments!Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for all news updates related to the world of geek. And Google+, if that’s your thing!
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Mike Cecchini is a man with a deep and abiding love of comics published before he was born, low-budget sci-fi, lo-fi garage rock, giant monster movies,…