Post by Deleted on May 11, 2018 13:59:26 GMT
I blame the Olicity fans for all this.
They weren't sure how well the more "comic-booky" items would be taken, so they muted them. Plus they had the more "grounded" Dark Knight universe as their jumping off point.
Not Green Arrow, but The Hood. Not Star City, but Starling City. Not Dinah Lance, but Laurel Lance.
Laurel was a Lawyer and a spurned ex-love interest. They never quite knew what to do with her since they weren't embracing the comics, so she just ended up as a standard, bland "She can never know my secret" character. They tried a million other things to make her more interesting, (drinking problem, etc.) but they always had to build on that flawed base.
The show was dragging and kinda dull, and then in came Felicity who added a spark of life to the show, which it needed. But then, she became the more interesting female character. (And hate on Olicity all you like, but everyone admits that she was vital to the show finding it's footing in the early seasons.) Then, in the second season, with the rousing success of the Marvel Films (Avengers came out the same year and cemented that the audience was there for true comic book entertainment) they started dipping their toe into that by introducing Black Canary, but obviously a more "realistic" version. Laurel wasn't the right character to be her yet, so in came Sarah, and Caity Lotz simply OWNED it.
So now they were stuck with Felicity carrying the "personality" of the show, Thea as the rebel, and Sarah as the (ostensibly) perfect Black Canary. Leaving Laurel with little to do narratively.
Now they have Dinah, who is probably the closest they have gotten to the comics Black Canary...but she is much more on the periphery than Canary should be in a Green Arrow show.
It's true that it's convoluted, but it's the route they got drawn into.
Ahh. I kinda have to disagree with you there on the Marvel films playing any part in the reason we got Black Canary. The whole reason 'Arrow' exists is 'cause of 'Smallville' and the popularity of the character on 'Smallville.' 'Arrow' was originally meant to be a 'Smallville' spinoff with Justin Hartley playing the title role as mentioned in the last few issues of 'Smallville' magazine but somewhere along the way the showrunners decided they wanted to start afresh without any connection to 'Smallville.' The Black Canary was in 'Smallville' with a lot of other DC superheroes like Zatanna, Booster Gold, Hawkman, Saturn Girl, Doctor Fate, Aquaman, Cyborg etc and their version was a lot more closer to the comic book version than Sara and Dinah Drake and saw her make Clark's ears bleed with the Canary Cry but due to the actresses working on two shows and getting pregnant when they had plans to use her more she wasn't featured in the show as much as they wanted. In 'Smallville' magazine they said Black Canary was supposed to be upgraded to a season regular in Season 9 but Alaina Huffman couldn't make a full time commitment to the show. I don't mind Sara but she is nowhere near as powerful or as good as a fighter as Black Canary is supposed to be. The awful adaption of 'Birds of Prey' got one thing right with Dinah Laurel Lance which was she has psychic powers and more powers than just the Canary Cry. Black Canary is supposed to be able to read minds, use the Canary Cry to move objects like telekinesis and launch herself into the sky and fly among other things. They have depowered the heck out of her in comparison to what she could do in 'Black Canary' and 'Birds of Prey' comic books and Sara has no powers at all which I feel was a mistake.
