‘Arrow’ Season 7 synopsis revives ‘Super Max’ concept

The CW SDCC panel announcement came with a few surprises, including the sheer number of cast members that will be in attendance. For ARROW, the show that launched their current superhero universe, things came full circle in the synopsis for the seventh season. The text below will contain some spoilers for the Season 6 finale, so you have been warned.

When we left Ollie (Stephen Amell), he had just just been outed to the public as Green Arrow was swiftly led into a cell. When the show returns in October, Oliver will be adjusting to his new life behind bars in a storyline that may be familiar to longtime fans.

There has been no shortage of close calls for Oliver Queen when it comes to protecting his Super Hero identity, but in the season six finale, he was finally backed into a corner and forced to reveal himself to the world as the Green Arrow. Now, Oliver will come face-to-face with many of the criminals he placed behind bars, as he makes a new home for himself at Slabside Maximum Security Prison. Oliver will find himself vulnerable in a way unlike ever before when a mysterious new enemy begins to unravel his work as Green Arrow, challenging him to redeem his name or risk losing everything.

We’ve known for a long time that there was a Green Arrow film in development prior to the launch of the television series. To quote my own book, Moving Target: The History and Evolution of Green Arrow, and do a bit of shameless self-promotion:

[T]he long-gestated film proposal Green Arrow: Escape from Super Max, developed by writers Justin Marks and David S. Goyer, [was] a baffling prospect. While it never got beyond the script stage, it proposed a Green Arrow movie that would introduce the character in medias res, before sending him to the titular super max prison alongside some of the DC Universe’s biggest villains. It became what Goyer described as “the most elaborate heist we’ve ever seen, involving superpowers. Because the prison itself kind of has superpowers!”

While this revival of an old idea might be indicative that the show is running out of steam, it’s great to see the showrunners going back into the well and sourcing some stories that had already been developed. If this had been released as a film, it would have been an injustice to the character. Now with six seasons of stories backing it, the Super Max story at least makes some kind of organic sense to the show and fpr Ollie. Now how about that Hard Travelling Heroes arc?

The Season 7 premiere of ARROW is on 15 October 2018 on CW in the US, and in Australia on Fox8.