Smallville Green Arrow Series Coming to the CW? (Hartley not attached)

[jjgravitas]

Anyway, what I was planning to say was that I'm of two minds of this.

When I first heard they were doing a GA show on the CW without Justin, my initial reaction was, "well, that's stupid." And for what it's worth, I still think it's stupid. I mean, I understand why the creators want to go their own direction (the showrunners are not affiliated with Millar/Gough) and not be tied down to the continuity of Smallville. I get that. Heck, even Gough and Millar themselves went a completely different direction when they initially planned an Aquaman show, so I don't begrudge the writers for going outside the Smallville universe. But if that's the case, why bother doing a Green Arrow show in the first place?

The only reason, in my opinion, anyone ever clamored for a GA show to begin with is because they wanted to see a spinoff of the character as portrayed on Smallville. I know the CW wanted another superhero show to replace SV, but why not use a different character? There are, literally, hundreds of characters in the DCU to choose from. But Ollie was integral to SV for the last half-decade, why re-intro him to CW audiences if you're not going to tie it to the original?

I would be OK with a GA series even without using Hartley or following the continuity of the Smallville series. Because GA was cool even before Smallville. And you couldn't do a Hartley version continuous with Smallville if you didn't also bring in Allison Mack as Chloe Sullivan-Queen. And while I would love to see that, I can understand how complicated that becomes.

Spin-offs usually don't work. Rule of thumb: for a series to succeed, it has to be its own thing, exist within it's own universe.

Smallville worked in large part because it existed within its own universe, had its own unique take on the story. It drew inspiration and material from almost every version of Superman, including dozens of characters and scenarios from DC Comics. But even so, Smallville did it its own way, to the consternation of some, and to the delight of others.

Smallville's individuality, and its extremely long run, make it difficult for new series to spin off from it. All the actors and personnel have grown older and have moved on with their lives and careers.

That said, I'm still holding out for a series starring Phil Morris as the Martian Manhunter. That would be cool! Shaft with superpowers. Yessssssssss!

 

[Young Superman]

Michael Rosenbaum is the best live action Lex Luthor so far. Also I still love the scenes between him and John Glover and Him and Tom Welling.

 

[The Incredible Hulk]

wrong thread?

 

[NewYorkSpider]

I probably would be more interested in this if Hartley was attached.

 

[hithere144]

Michael Rosenbaum is the best live action Lex Luthor so far.

Yup, I can agree with that. I even did a long-format treatment of the character over at the Superman home page.