9 Years Ago Today, the Arrowverse Pulled Off Its Greatest Fake-Out By Introducing an OP DC Character

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The Walking Dead didn’t have a monopoly on shocking twists, though. Another franchise inspired by comic books, the Arrowverse, also delighted in scaring its viewers half to death. There was, of course, the whole ordeal in The Flash Season 3 that saw H.R. Wells take Iris West’s place when Savitar came looking to kill her. However, that moment was outdone in the franchise’s flagship show, Arrow, which used an OP DC character to pull wool over fans’ eyes in November 2016.

Oliver Queen Nearly Meets His End in Arrow Season 5

After heading out on the Queen’s Gambit with his father, Oliver Queen’s life changes forever. He has to constantly fight for survival on Lian Yu, and that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Once he returns to Star City, enemies come out of the woodwork trying to knock him down a peg. Most of them are no match for the Arrow, but there are a few who push the hero to his limits. R’as al Ghul even goes as far as to seemingly kill Oliver, leaving him for dead at the bottom of a snowy mountain in Season 3, Episode 9. Fortunately, subsequent episodes reveal that the titular character heals from his wounds and continues his work.

Season 4 gives Oliver a second job, becoming the mayor of Star City, which means he has twice as many targets on his back. Arrow‘s fifth season sees local gangster Tobias Church pick a fight with the politician, and he doesn’t feel like playing by the rules. Church hires an assassin to kill Oliver in Season 5, Episode 5, and it looks like money well spent when the target is lying in a pool of blood. However, it takes a lot more than a few bullets to take out the Green Arrow, as he’s always ten steps ahead, and his enemies don’t even know what game they’re playing yet.

An Old Friend Lends a Hand to Complete One of the Arrowverse’s Most Shocking Twists

Arrow does the right thing and doesn’t leave its audience. Later in Season 5, Episode 5, Oliver walks into the Arrow Cave like nothing happened. Another Oliver then enters the frame, and it becomes clear that a switcheroo took place. Since Team Arrow knew that Church was gunning for Oliver, it reached out to Christopher Chance, aka Human Target, a master of disguise who can perfectly impersonate anyone. Chance took the bullets, allowing Oliver and Co. to prepare for a fight that Church wouldn’t see coming. The plan works to perfection, with Church ending up in the hands of the authorities before the credits roll on the episode.

Chance isn’t a one-and-done character, though. When Oliver gets put on trial for the Green Arrow’s crimes in Season 6, the Human Target returns to Star City and makes it seem like Tommy Merlyn, Oliver’s best friend who died at the end of Season 1, is the person fighting crime after dark with a bow and arrow. But that bombshell isn’t enough to get the job done. Chance has to break about 1,000 laws by assuming the judge’s identity and overruling the jury’s verdict, allowing Oliver to walk free. Oliver makes quite a few powerful friends during his time in the Arrowverse, including The Flash and Supergirl, but nobody gets him out of a pinch like the Human Target.

The Arrowverse shows are streaming on Netflix.

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