Green Arrow is in the news again for two very different reasons. First, Tracker star Justin Hartley, who played Oliver Queen on Smallville for five seasons, expressed his interest in returning as the character in James Gunn’s DCU. Secondly, DC Comics just published Absolute Green Arrow, which reimagines the green archer as a serial killer who is severing fingers and gouging out the eyes of evil billionaires. Yes, it’s a very strange time to be a fan of The Battling Bowman.
During an appearance on The Jennifer Hudson Show, Justin Hartley expressed his interest in returning to superhero roles, especially now that he’s a bit older. Of course, Green Arrow, the character he once played on Smallville, is still his first choice above all the others. Jennifer Hudson was quite excited about the idea, and so was Hartley.
“Now that I’m older, I have different life experiences, and I would approach it differently, and I think it would be a different story,” he said. “I’d like to jump back into that Green Arrow suit — maybe not that exact suit, but something a little hipper.”
He continued: “I think you’d find him in a different place, and you could tell different stories. He’s been through stuff, and I think it would be interesting.”
Smallville has been trending again now that it’s been added to Netflix internationally in recent months. The new wave has once again sparked interest in a continuation, which the show’s leads, Tom Welling and Michael Rosenbaum, have been developing for some years now. Unfortunately, they haven’t received the green light from James Gunn or DC Studios, who are currently in the middle of their DCU launch, which started with 2025’s Superman. Although it’s hard to imagine how Welling and Rosenbaum’s animated revival show would interfere with the live-action film plans.
While Hartley pitched an older and wiser Oliver Queen, the comics division has been quietly burning the character down and rebuilding him as something almost unrecognizable to fans.
Absolute Green Arrow, the new limited series by Pornsak Pichetshote and artist Rafael Albuquerque, is set in DC’s Absolute Universe. That’s the same comic book line that gave us an extra-large Batman with an axe who isn’t a billionaire and anti-system, and is described as the Caped Crusader for today’s generation.
Absolute Green Arrow continues that idea by reimagining the character as something much darker. In this world, Oliver Queen is dead, and someone else has taken over the mantle.
The first issue opens with the murder of a corrupt billionaire who is accused of being a sex trafficker. The story is told from the perspective of Dinah Lance, an ex-MMA fighter turned executive protection specialist, who is trying to hunt the killer down.
The pitch from DC’s editorial blog promises a really dark tale: “This Green Arrow is a ruthless killer who stalks his prey from the shadows. He’s like the shark from Jaws, a killing machine that strikes, tears apart his victims and then disappears until his next attack.”
The good news is that critics and fans have responded well to the new take. The first issue received a perfect 10/10 from SuperHeroHype, which called it “a rare first issue that does everything right”. Also, the first issue sold out almost immediately. Thankfully, it will be back for a second print soon.
So, for the first time in a long time, Green Arrow is in the news again. That’s the first good news. Fans of the character are finally getting to see their hero again, although in a very different way.
Unfortunately, Hartley’s idea for a Green Arrow film or TV series probably won’t go further than interest at this point. Although Gunn’s DCU seems to be closely tied to Smallville, even using some of the actors from the show in different parts, nobody from the show has returned to revive any of their characters. Gunn already has to deal with the whole DCEU vs DCU confusion, with some DCEU characters surviving the reboot and others being reimagined. Adding Smaville characters to that would just further complicate everything.
Also, Hartley is nearly 50. At that age, it’s probably better to move on as the studios generally favor younger actors for superhero roles. And we can’t imagine that he’d want to return as the Absolute Green Arrow version of the character.
Whether James Gunn’s DCU makes room for either version — the legacy casting or the slasher mythology — remains to be seen.
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