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In its prime, The Arrowverse was the most accomplished and impressive Superhero crossover series ever put on television. Leading the charge with shows like The Flash, Green Arrow, and Supergirl, the CW Arrowverse was a major part of the comic book landscape on network television. But after the roster of superheroes expanded, the Arrowverse seemed to lose all it's steam. The once beloved crossover phenomenon had become a bland iteration of the superheroes fans once loved where neither Supergirl, The Flash, nor Green Arrow could save the day.
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I mean, how often does the world almost come to an end
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Always like that. Since 2012, there's been no better or more consistent superhero universe on television
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than the Arrowverse, at one point ballooning to six TV shows on the air simultaneously
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all weaving an interconnected story. Sure, Marvel has had the Netflix shows and some stop and starts with things like Agents
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of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Inhumans, but the network adventures of DC's finest have taken the cake
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week in and week out. And yet, there's a yawning maw of uncertainty surrounding the crown jewel of the CW
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The brainchild of Hollywood super producer Greg Berlanti is seemingly on the verge of extinction
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Why? You can't save everyone, Clark. The moment I believe that is when I stop trying
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Starting in October of 2001, Smallville, a TV show aimed at teens
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shifted the paradigm of what comic book properties could do on TV
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Following the early days of Clark Kent's life in his titular hometown, Smallville was sexy, successful, and made a lot of money for its network, the WB. In fact
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when the network rebranded as the CW in May of 2009, the series was renewed for three additional
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seasons to help bolster the bottom line. After Smallville came to an end in 2011, the CW was keen
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to recreate the magic. They greenlit an adaptation of the popular Smallville supporting character
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Green Arrow, for his own show. The show would be a darker and more brooding version of the character
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In fact, you could almost say he wasn't the Green Arrow. He was Batman
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Well, you know us billionaire vigilantes. We do love our toys. In the comics, Green Arrow is known for being a street-level character with a wry sense of humor
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iconic green tights, and hopeful view for the future. In Arrow, Oliver Queen was dark, tortured, and brooding
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Yes, the pilot adapted from the acclaimed Andy Diggle and Jock Year One story
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but the show quickly developed its own personality Instead of attempting to slavishly recreate Smallville success Arrow opted for a mix of primetime soap and Pulp Street vigilante narratives
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Much of the production crew carried over from Smallville to Arrow, but the key factor in its early success
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was the brain trust who created the show. The very same brain trust behind Green Lantern
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Yes, that Green Lantern. The ring never makes a mistake. This time it did
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You see, prior to the studio realizing it might not be the vehicle they all wanted it to be
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Green Lantern was intended to launch the DC Cinematic Universe. However, we all know what happened there
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It bombed. The plans for a DC Universe on the big screen were delayed
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and the creatives involved went to TV. Andrew Kreisberg, Greg Berlanti, and Mark Guggenheim
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all are credited as the creators of Arrow. As soon as Arrow had proven that it had legs and wasn't going anywhere
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the brain trust's immediate goal was to set up more shows. they wanted to recreate the magic of the DC universe
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the promise of an interconnected tapestry of superhero narratives on TV. Starting at around Arrow's third season, they accomplished their goal
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Berlanti and Kreisberg worked with DC bigwig Jeff Johns to create a vehicle for the Scarlet Speedster
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I'm Barry Allen. No! What does that mean? How can this... This should be impossible now
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The Flash, who had previously had a one-season TV show in the 1990s
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was primed to appeal to younger audiences that the CW was gunning for
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Actor Grant Gustin was cast in the part and appeared in two soft backdoor pilot cameos on Arrow prior to getting his own show
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Much like the Arrowverse's version of Green Arrow, The Flash underwent some major character surgery as well
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Barry Allen, the Silver Age version of the character, was a stern crime scene investigator
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hit by lightning in a laboratory and given the ability to run faster than any human alive
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In the comics, his nephew Wally West, a wisecracking speedster with a heart of gold, took up the mantle when Barry died
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For the show they combined these two versions of The Flash into the Arrowverse version of Barry Premiering in North America on October 7 2014 the pilot was the second most watched premiere in the history of the CW
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right after Vampire Diaries. Needless to say, the Arrowverse was off to the races
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A race? Think you can keep up, Girl of Steel? Oh, just you watch Scarlet Speedster
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Supergirl landed at CBS, but the network decided to cancel the show. Thankfully, it got picked up at the CW
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And now with three live-action shows on the network, a reasonable person would assume they'd
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slow down on superhero programming due to market oversaturation. Well, that person would be wrong
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While these shows kept churning out tights and fights adventures, the CW greenlit three new shows
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The Legends of Tomorrow, Batwoman, and Black Lightning. During this era of the CW-verse
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the brain trust of writers and producers began attempting to perfect a recreation of the comic
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book crossover, large universe spanning stories that take advantage of the large ensemble and
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colorful characters. You got Shanghide into another crossover, didn't you? Initially, these shows would
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stage these crossovers as single one-off episodes, like the Arrow season three episode, The Brave and
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the Bold, or the Arrow season four episode, Haunted, which featured John Constantine. However, these
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one-off crossovers eventually developed into event series that the audience would have to view in
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sequential order. And as insane as this sounds, this didn't just happen once. It happened seven
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times. Flash vs. Arrow, Heroes Join Forces, Invasion, Crisis on Earth X, Elseworlds
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Crisis on Infinite Earths, and Armageddon. Crisis was five parts long across five TV shows
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Sometimes you just have to slow down. As these shows continued to merge and evolve
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the CW would greenlight Superman and Lois and Naomi. At this point, you can probably see the writing on the wall
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How much is too much? The shows began to overtake each other
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They were all stylistically similar all aiming for the same demographics and all suffering from the same problem Artificially manufactured status quos Much like their comic book predecessors the show started to alienate their core supporters
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by not allowing their characters to change or their status quos to grow and evolve
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How many times can Barry run so fast he turns time backwards? How many times can there be a new green arrow or different colored canary
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And then, as it is inevitable with all things, the good times started to come to an end
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An end. and a beginning. First, it was Arrow coming to an end
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and the spinoff series not being picked up. Then Supergirl dipping in the ratings
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and being canceled after season six. Then they gave the axe to Black Lightning
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Over the last few years, there's been a lot of change-ups in the media landscape. One of the largest has been AT&T's sale
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of Warner Brothers to Discovery. Because of this corporate restructuring, in May of 2022
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the Discovery higher-ups decided to completely overhaul the CW. Ultimately, in a shocking twist of events
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CW canceled seven of its primetime programs with an eye on a near-complete overhaul of the network's identity
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You look like the attractive yet non-threatening racially diverse cast of a CW show
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Currently, there are two CW-verse shows on the air that take place in the Berlanti shared universe
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The Flash, which is about to enter its final season, and Superman and Lois, which seems to be performing very well
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and is striking a chord with Superman fans. These shows are the final vestiges of the greatest shared TV universe ever put to film
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It's a sad reality that when bottom lines tighten, it's often the fans and the creative community who come away hurting
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However, it is resoundingly impressive that what started out as a let's-see-if-we-can-riff-off-of-Smallville show
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birthed hundreds of hours worth of television. It's just a shame that this superhero universe went the way of so many others
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They became overly complicated, self-involved, and refused to evolve. If there's one thing we know about superheroes, however, it's that even when they're dead
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they always come back
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