14 Years Ago Today, DC Television Changed Forever (& It Told Some of DC’s Best Stories)

Skip to content It has been 14 years since DC released the television show that changed DC television forever. Before that, it had been 11 years since Smallville premiered on The WB and one year since that show ended after 10 successful seasons. That series took a chance and told the story of Clark Kent and his journey into becoming Superman, although he never put on the costume until the final episode, 10 years after the show premiered. While that show was popular, it was self-contained, and while there were spinoffs suggested, including one based on Aquaman, they never came through. When Smallville ended in 2011 on The CW, the network was looking for a replacement, and what it found changed everything.

On October 10, 2012, Arrow premiered on The CW. Just like on Smallville, the show decided to take a popular DC Comics hero and create a series that refused to even call him by his name, the Green Arrow, at least up front. However, unlike Smallville, this show set up spinoffs that were released, and it started the Arrowverse. In the end, the Arrowverse lasted for 11 years, consisted of several core shows, and even had an Arrowverse-adjacent spinoff in Superman that stretched the franchise out for one more year before ending things in 2024.

When Arrow started, it seemed like a mix of Smallville and a show like Lost because it shows the origin of Oliver Queen and his morphing into a vigilante, and it structured it just like Lost, with flashbacks and present-day scenes to tell his origin while also showing what he is doing now. Most of the early episodes were full of flashbacks, in which Oliver was seemingly trapped on a deserted island, where he met Yao Fei, who trained him, and later trained under Slade Wilson, who eventually became one of his greatest enemies, Deathstroke. In the present day, he had put together a team of his own, including his confidant and bodyguard John Diggle and his future love interest and IT expert Felicity Smoak.

However, what Arrow really did well was open up the DC Universe onto the small screen. Arrow introduced the world to a new television version of The Flash, and that resulted in the most successful show to ever appear in the Arrowverse. While Arrow lasted for eight seasons, The Flash beat it out with a ninth, and it was the last core Arrowverse show before The CW ended the entire franchise. That also led to Supergirl, which ran for six seasons, and Legends of Tomorrow, which ran for seven. On a smaller scale, Black Lightning ran for four, and Batwoman ran for three. With adjacent shows like Superman & Lois and both Constantine and Stargirl being pulled in, there was a lot here to work with.

Thanks to all the characters at its disposal, the Arrowverse became known as the franchise that told the most notable DC Comics stories of all time on the small screen. Arrowverse had several crossover events, and the biggest of them all was the “Crisis on Infinite Earths” crossover event, which adapted the most important DC storyline of the 1980s, a story that rebooted the entire DC Comics Universe. This was so big that the Arrowverse really pushed the event by bringing in characters from past shows, like Smallville and even the 1990s Flash series, to show that all these worlds were interconnected.

The other crossovers included “Crisis on Earth-X,” which is considered the best of all the crossover events, “Invasion,” which was the first one that crossed over all the shows (and adapted a 1988 DC Comics miniseries), and “Elseworlds,” which was the direct setup for “Crisis on Infinite Earths.” This was also on display in other shows. The Flash Season 3 had an adaptation of “Flashpoint.” Arrow Season 5 loosely adapted the comic book storyline “Justice League: Rise and Fall.”

The biggest storyline was still to come, and the Arrowverse had plans for it before The CW cancelled the series. According to The Flash showrunner Eric Wallace, the Arrowverse had plans for a “Blackest Night” adaptation. This could have been an incredible television crossover event if it had happened, and with the rumors that the DCU might be planning this after the success of the Lanterns HBO Max series, it is interesting that the Arrowverse almost did it first. When Arrow came to an end in 2020 after the death of Oliver Queen, it marked the beginning of the end of the Arrowverse, but while it was on, it was the best that DC had to offer.

What were your favorite moments from Arrow and the Arrowverse shows? Let us know in the comments below.