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It’s our tradition for the Television Crossover Hall of Fame that November’s theme should be the Newsmakers, since it’s also the month in which elections usually take place in America.
“Newsmakers” is a wide category including politicians of course, but also the newscasters, newspapers, and as multidimensionals usually, also the televersions of the Presidents and sometimes other word leaders. (Many times that comes down to the actual people, being members of the League of Themselves.)
Since we’re celebrating the 20th anniversary of the TVXOHOF, our theme for the monthly showcase for the entire year has been superheroes and sometimes their arch-foes.
As such, there was only one superhero who came to mind who also fit the bill for a politician….
GREEN ARROW!
From Wikipedia:
Oliver Queen, also known by his alter-ego Green Arrow, is a fictional character in The CW's Arrowverse franchise, first introduced in the 2012 pilot episode of the television series ‘Arrow’. The character is based on the DC Comics character of the same name, created by Mort Weisinger and George Papp and was adapted for television in 2012 by Greg Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim and Andrew Kreisberg. Oliver Queen has been continually portrayed by Stephen Amell, with Jacob Hoppenbrouwer portraying a young Oliver.
In the series, Oliver, a billionaire playboy, who claimed to have spent five years shipwrecked on Lian Yu, a mysterious island in the North China Sea, returns home to Starling City (later renamed "Star City") to fight crime and corruption as a secret vigilante whose weapon of choice is a bow and arrow. During the first season, Oliver focuses on a list, written by his father, of targets that are taking advantage of the citizens.
Subsequent seasons have him venturing into all criminal activity, and he shifts from being willing to kill to having a rule against all killing as a means of stopping assailants. In ‘Arrow’, Oliver is known during the first season as "The Hood", but drops that persona once he vows to stop killing and starts using a new name "Arrow". He does not take up the "Green Arrow" name until season four, when Roy Harper publicly confessed to being the "Arrow" to protect Oliver.
He is a friend and frequent ally of the Central City-based superhero The Flash, White Canary, the leader of the superhero team the Legends, and the Kryptonian superheroine Supergirl from the parallel universe of Earth-38.
Amell has appeared as Oliver Queen and his vigilante persona in crossovers on the television series ‘The Flash’, ‘Legends of Tomorrow’, ‘Supergirl’, and the animated web series ‘Vixen’, all set within the Arrowverse.
O'Bservation - For Toobworld, 'Vixen' takes place in the Tooniverse.
He has also worked with John Constantine who showed up in the CW after his own series, ‘Constantine’, was cancelled on NBC. (Constantine was last month’s entry in the Hall.) And 'Batwoman' was launched in the last crossover between 'Arrow', 'The Flash' and 'Supergirl' in which she got to meet Green Arrow.
Once the Crisis Crossover comes along, we can add ‘Black Lightning’ to the mix as well as so many other DC superhero shows from the past.
This is the last season for ‘Arrow’ and it looks as though Oliver Queen may perish in the Crisis of Infinite Earths. But that’s too much of a downer. I think the powers that be behind this show will find a way to work out a proper ending which will be more amenable to its legions of fans.
Welcome to the Hall, Mr. Queen, Mr. Green Arrow….
This year, I’m trying my best not to even sample the new shows; my interests have been changing after 20 plus years focused on Toobworld. I’d say only a few have ensnared me – ‘Stumptown’, ‘’Perfect Harmony’, ‘Bob Hearts Abishola’ and ‘Evil’.
I’m not a big fan of horror anymore, but the people in charge of ‘Evil’ are responsible for ‘The Good Wife’ and its sequel ‘The Good Fight’, so I knew they had a good record. (Okay, they stumbled with that alien zombie politician show.)
As the series is focused on demonic possession, looking at both sides of the concept, comparisons to ‘The Exorcist’ were sure to pop up. And with the fifth episode, “October 31”, the series finally dealt with an actual exorcism. So they tackled the issue head-on with a nice little in-joke:
The top picture is of course the iconic image from the movie showing Father Merrick arriving at the Georgetown residence in which the exorcism was taking place.
The second picture shows Kristen’s mentor, a psychiatrist played by Kurt Fuller, arrives to give his opinion on what the Church is doing in their ritual. Except for the power of imagery, they didn’t clobber us over the head with the in-joke.
BCnU!
