Arrow executive producer Andrew Kreisberg and writer Ben Sokolowski have been tapped to take over DC’s Green Arrow comic this fall. And they will be bringing a fan favorite character along.
Kreisberg and Sokolowski will pen the series while Daniel Sampere will do the art for the series beginning with October’s issue #35. They will take over for writer Jeff Lemire and artist Andrea Sorrentino, who began writing the series with issue #17.
But this Green Arrow won’t simply be an adaptation of the successful CW series; rather, the writers tell Hero Complex, it will be “more about cross-pollination,” using things that have worked on Arrow and previously in the comics.
“We really want to bring the old-school Oliver Queen voice back to the character,” Sokolowski says. “In other words, the opinionated, liberal Robin Hood-esque hero that has fallen through the cracks a bit, both in the comics and TV models.”
Something else Arrow fans can look forward to is that “some of our favorite Arrow characters will feature prominently in the comic,” Sokolowski says. “Though they may not necessarily be clones of their TV personas. I think our goal with this comic is to make it an echo of the TV series.”
Kreisberg adds that actress Emily Bett Rickards, who plays Felicity, “was over the moon” when she found out her character would be in the comics.
Felicity, though, won’t be the first Arrow character to make it to the pages of DC’s comics. John Diggle, an Arrow original character, made his comic debut last year.
As for Oliver Queen, “I think the version Ben and I are going for now is an amalgamation of the TV version and his comic book persona,” Kreisberg tells Hero Complex.
“[A]t his core, Oliver is an optimist. He believes in people. On the TV show, that optimism is buried under years of torture and suffering, but it’s still there. In the comics, he’s been a bit more fun, a bit faster with a quip, so we are trying to add some of that zest for life.”
Kreisberg also notes that he and Sokolowski approached DC about writing the comic. “We thought there was a real opportunity here not to do another adaptation of the TV show, but infuse the comic world of Oliver Queen with some of the stronger elements of the show,” he says.