Board Thread:Arrow discussions/@comment-807326-20170202010018/@comment-3221148-20170211122946

JQuake101 wrote:

Who brought men into this? Ya know what, now that you did, let's discuss this. Imagine if instead of the Black Canary, we had Batman on this show. Imagine them cycling through four or five different people calling themselves Batman and more than half of those people conviently having the first name 'Bruce'. Imagine the outrage from hoards of fanboys that their white male iconic hero was being butchered, disrespected, and side lined the way Dinah Laurel Lance was through her entire time on Arrow and even in death. The Black Canary is not a legacy, it's an exclusive daughter-mother mantel. But as is evident (and has always been), Arrow has zero respect for comic canon, and is misogynistic. Again: Laurel Lance was not even the original Canary on Arrow. Her sister was. Who's got shafted because the producers wanted to try something new with Laurel.

Arrow is, most of all, an adaptation of the comics, and often does not follow the intricacies of comic canon, as adaptations often do. Tim Burton had Batman with no problems about killing. Christopher Nolan turned Joker into something very different. Zack Snyder had killed Jimmy Olsen immediately after introducing him. Meanwhile, Arrowverse shows had no problems changing the characters' looks (Olsen), names (Sara, Curtis, Harrison Wells), origins (Vertigos, Oliver himself, Hawks). And in Arrowverse, the Canary is a legacy title, started by Sara Lance. Sara was succeeded by Laurel, who directly wanted to continue the legacy of her sister, despite Sara's death. Their mother was never the Canary, boo hoo. How does that somehow translate into misogyny boggles my mind.

And if you care about adapting comic canon so much (I do, for example), then why are you making a fuss over Laurel, when Sara, despite having a different name, resembled the Canaries from the comics in both looks and personality from the time she was introduced as a vigilante in Season 2? Why is there no demand to have Sara back in the role she fit on all fronts (except for not being a metahuman)? Because she didn't have "Dinah" as a middle name, like Laurel had?

And why did you even bring the non-existent Batman example, when the show already has men with legacy titles, like Vertigo, Wells, Arrow and Flash? Though, to answer your question: guess what, Bruce Wayne had been killed/crippled and succeeded in main comics. He was also brought back to act in a slightly different role. You know, like what Arrowverse did with Sara, Eobard, Hunter Zolomon, Malcolm Merlyn... Killing and replacing a major character is a common ploy to shake the status quo (after all, it's sci-fi, so you can just bring the character back if it comes to fan demand). Sara was killed so that Laurel could succeed her as the Black Canary, for example.

The question comes down to: is the change done in a quality way? And I do understand blaming Arrow for giving Laurel a weak finale in her role. Heck, from the very start I suspected that her condition wouldn't be permanent (and certain comments from the showrunners imply that so did they, with Flashpoint or something), but something didn't add up in the end, possibly with having Katie Cassidy in the main cast for another season, forcing a change in plans. But calling out Marc Guggenheim and Wendy Miracle, of all people, on misogyny, for making errors in production, or free run on adaptation, is ridiculous.