The Arrowverse started with Arrow, and the Green Arrow drama allowed all the spin-offs to become possible on The CW. As the series is currently in its eighth and final season, the Stephen Amell-led show has over 160 episodes worth of material for the internet to play with. With great fandoms comes great responsiblity for memes and fan-art, and Arrow is no exception. There is no debate that the gritty superhero series has taken itself incredibly seriously from it’s inception. Despite that, the fandom has always managed to crack some accurate and hilarious jokes about certain elements of the series.
With the end of the series coming up in January 2020, Arrow will leave a big void in the Arrowverse. However, with the internet being what it is, there will always be hilariously funny memes to keep the show alive in its own way. With that said, these are the 10 most hilarious Arrow memes from the fandom.
Fair Assumption
One of Arrow’s biggest storytelling devices in the first five seasons were the flashbacks. As we followed Oliver in the present, the flashbacks followed our hero as he went through the transformation to become what he is today. When it was revealed that the series would be done with flashbacks after the fifth season, it was mostly seen as a good thing.
Given how the flashbacks sometimes didn’t fit in with the episodes, viewers seemed relieved that the following season would be done with flashbacks. However, as this meme fairly asks, what if the series had started telling flashbacks from season one?
The Immortal Merlyn
Malcolm Merlyn (John Barrowman) has always been one of the Emerald Archer’s greatest foes, following the comic history. On the TV adaptation of Arrow they stuck with that tradition, and Malcolm served as the big bad for season one. Over the course of the series, Malcolm made it very clear that it wouldn’t be easy to get rid of him.
Despite Oliver seemingly killing him in the season one finale, Malcolm kept coming back. Even after getting his hand chopped off in season four, Malcolm wasn’t down for the count. So even when Malcolm dies, he simply doesn’t. It’s even fair to say that perhaps Malcolm is still alive somewhere, despite getting blown up on Lian Yu in the season five finale.
The Lies
In the first two seasons of Arrow, Oliver had the tendency of making big statements (to say the least). That’s why this meme becomes as hilarious as it is, because so many of Oliver’s big claims turned out to be so wildly inaccurate. Sara (Caity Lotz) actually didn’t die and Oliver certainly didn’t kill Malcolm (although he certainly tried his best).
Other foes such as Slade Wilson (Manu Bennett) and Floyd Lawton (Michael Rowl) survived, despite taking an arrow straight through their right eyes. Maybe Oliver should have triple-checked the facts before declaring someone officially dead?
Use the Flash
One of the ongoing jokes about Arrow is the ultra-seriousness that Oliver brings to The CW’s superhero universe. While Oliver certainly smiles and cracks a joke every now and then, ironically it’s almost even funnier how serious he has been for the duration of the show.
And since Oliver is so consistently mopey, it’s no surprise that even a lot of the promotional material from The CW would always put Oliver in a brooding mode. Perhaps if they had just used a Flash (or The Flash), as this meme remembered to, we would see more of Oliver’s happier sides.
Flawed Arrows
Throughout the course of Arrow’s run, a lot of arrows have been used to take characters down. That’s what you would assume of a Green Arrow television series. But then we got this meme that reminds everyone, hilariously, how so many arrows have failed to keep people down.
It’s a miracle that Oliver never trades his bow in for a gun. Or perhaps an ax. Honestly it seems like even a javelin may have done a better job. Although he did call it quits several times throughout the series, so there’s that to take into account.
Unkept Promises
While Arrow had Roy Harper (Colton Haynes) and Oliver work closely together, the Emerald Archer had hilarious ways of letting his sidekick down. One famous moment is in the third season after they encountered Ray Palmer (Brandon Routh) suited up as The Atom. During the showdown, Ray blasts Roy with electricity which knocks him out.
After Oliver has a heart-to-heart with Ray, our hero just leaves the scene and forgets about his unconscious partner. That became one of the most memorable moments for Arrow and gave a lot of people a big laugh. However, executive Marc Guggenheim admitted later on that they messed that scene up. For someone who insisted on promising Roy that he would never abandon him, Oliver sure struggled with that.
Alternative Civil War
Captain America: Civil War had its big storyline that pitted the Avengers against each other when they found themselves on opposing sides, and so much of it was fueled by the animosity between Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) and Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) throughout the whole film.
But what if their big feud had been about something a bit simpler? Imagine if Steve and Tony clashed because one was a Hawkeye fan and the other a Green Arrow fan. That’s a Civil War we would be down to watch (while Clint Barton and Oliver just chill on the side and being best buddies, obviously).
Shading Season 4
The fourth season of Arrow was one of its more controversial ones, to say the least. From the show’s inconsistent play with magic, through Damien Darhk (Neal McDonough) to the death of Laurel Lance/Black Canary (Katie Cassidy), Arrow wasn’t at its best back then. While Laurel was surprisingly killed off, it wasn’t long before Katie Cassidy was back in the Arrowverse.
A few weeks after her death on Arrow, she appeared on The Flash as the villainous Black Siren of Earth-2. That episode set the stage for this version of Laurel to become a bigger player in the following seasons of Arrow. It still doesn’t take away from this meme that uses one of her biggest lines in that episode to shade the disaster that was season four.
Diggle Speaks the Truth
John Diggle (David Ramsey) has always been one of the wiser voices on Arrow, if not the wisest one. When Oliver began his crusade, it’s fair to assume that he never imagined the constant battle from people to unmask him.
He probably never imagined that he would out himself to the city as being the Emerald Archer several seasons later either. Remember how no one could know his secret? So many people have had to die because of that and yet, as this meme so pointedly puts it, that comment didn’t age well at all.
Arrow Struggles with Death
It can’t be stressed how much this show struggled with death. Despite several characters having been claimed to have died, many of them came back anyway. However, there’s also the issue of inconsistency. Laurel died from getting stabbed by an arrow, even though she was expected to make a recovery after being taken to the hospital.
Felicity Smoak (Emily Bett Rickards), however, magically survived an insane car accident caused by Damien’s henchmen. Nobody is saying that Felicity, as well as Laurel, ever deserved to be killed off. But it doesn’t change the hilarity of how a single arrow stab killed Laurel while Felicity survived one of the most dramatic car accidents on this show. While she was left paraplegic for a few episodes, that got taken care of quickly after Curtis Holt’s (Echo Kellum) implantable bio-stimulant. So, like this meme says, how did she survive and Laurel didn’t?
