Apple cider vinegar Is Pilates for you? 'Ambient gaslighting' 'Main character energy'
TV
Marc Guggenheim

'Arrow' digital comic aims to set up new TV season

Brian Truitt
USA TODAY
The digital comic "Arrow: Season 2.5" sets up the next season of the CW action show starring Stephen Amell.

Arrow TV fans have to wait until Oct. 8 for the return of their favorite emerald-clad archer — unless they make good use of their iPads.

Launching today, the weekly DC Comics digital-first series Arrow: Season 2.5 fills in the five months between where the May season finale of Arrow left off and what happens when star Stephen Amell's Oliver Queen — and the small-screen take on the Green Arrow mythology overall — returns to The CW's airwaves next month.

And to replicate the viewing experience for TV fans as much as possible, executive producer Marc Guggenheim tosses in the usual episode cold open but with "an action sequence we could never film on the show given our time and budget limitations," says the writer of the Season 2.5 series with Arrow TV scribe and co-producer Keto Shimizu.

"We wanted to take advantage of the theoretically limitless scope of the comic-book medium."

This bridge arc sets up Oliver's headspace for upcoming episodes, Shimizu adds. "It's really laying the foundation for what's going to be a very exciting Season 3 but also tying up some loose ends and having Oliver confront some old enemies and really just getting him ready for a very difficult year."

In addition to unleashing the boxing-glove arrow from Oliver's expanding arsenal of weaponry, Season 2.5 promises the return of the antagonistic Brother Blood (played by Kevin Alejandro in the show) as well as the Canary, Sara Lance (Caity Lotz).

The comic also will answer some leftover questions from the last season finale, such as what happens to Starling City cop Quentin Lance (Paul Blackthorne) after he collapsed on the docks. And when he wakes up from unconsciousness, he is going to have a serious heart-to-heart with daughter Laurel (Katie Cassidy).

All of Team Arrow are major players in the digital series, including confidants Felicity Smoak (Emily Bett Rickards) and John Diggle (David Ramsey), and Guggenheim and Shimizu revisit Slade Wilson (Manu Bennett), the big bad Deathstroke who murdered Oliver's mom and was last seen being dropped off in an underground prison cell on the island of Lian Yu.

"There's more for him and Oliver to discuss after their last discussion," says Guggenheim, also teasing a heroic improvement for Roy Harper (Colton Haynes) in the costume department.

He'll have new threads in the upcoming season premiere, and "one of the things we'll be discovering in the comic book is what events prompt him to put that on."

The covert organization A.R.G.U.S. and Amanda Waller (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) are being touched on in the comics, and Shimizu, who co-wrote last season's Suicide Squad-centric episode, brings the gang back for an exotic, geopolitical adventure.

The Squad will be in full action, she says, "as well as some cool villains and other characters in the DC Universe that we couldn't probably ever have on the show but we can have them exist on the page."

Arrow: Season 2.5 also sets up the next step in Oliver's overall evolution, according to Guggenheim. The first season took him from being a vengeful guy out to permanently cross off a list of names his father left him to being a dude interested in helping his hometown, while the second season cemented his status as a true hero.

As the new year kicks off, Guggenheim says, "he's trying to balance his identity as Oliver Queen with his identity as the Arrow. That duality is really going to be tested and it's going to force Oliver to make some difficult choices.

"And we're going to start laying the pipe for those choices and dramatic moments here in the comic book."

Featured Weekly Ad