User blog:MS225/Arrow Rewrite Project: Season Three

So this is part three of my rewrite project for Arrow where I redo the series to make it more like it's comic book counterpart. Unlike what I did with the first two seasons, I decided to take a crack at my creative side do a new story without Ra's al Ghul as the main villain, as I want him to be the overall villain of the series. As usual if you have any ideas or critiques please comment them below. Apologies for the length.

Following the Siege of Star City, the city is now rebuilding under the watchful eye of Green Arrow, Black Canary and Speedy. John Diggle is a soon to be father who has since become a police officer, Roy has graduated high school with flying colors and Dinah Lance has become the D.A. of Star City as Oliver Queen and Felicity Smoak are leading Queen Consolidated with the revolutionary discoveries of their top scientist Ray Palmer, who begins a romance with Felicity. Meanwhile, White Canary returns to town, freed from the League after committing an act she refuses to speak about.

As Team Arrow faces smooth sailing while taking down criminals, a Count from the country of Vltava named Werner Vertigo arrives in Star City after being banished from his homeland to being suspected of murdering his brother, King Zytle in order to get the throne. Werner begs for the Green Arrow’s help in clearing his name, having tracked the killer back to Star City. GA finds a murder similar to the one of Zytle and finds the killer's lair. He hears and noise and blacks out, and is awoken to police sirens. Oliver is dressed in clothes covered in blood, with dead bodies surrounding him. Framed for murder, Oliver is arrested and taken to the Supermax prison, now in captivity with every criminal he has taken down. The Canaries try to clear his name, arriving to conclusion that Werner has framed Oliver for the murders, and Werner comes out the public revealing evidence that Oliver trained with the League of Assassins for a year.

Sara later reveals that she committed the murder of Zytle in exchange for her freedom, causing conflict with Dinah. Meanwhile Werner comes out with his weapon, a device known as Vertigo that causes dizziness and sells it to the police in order to bring down the need for guns. As John transfers to Supermax as a guard, Roy tracks down a lead on Mia, finding her in Corto Maltese with Tommy, who has drugged her and made her into a weapon her intended to use against Oliver. As all of Star City’s heroes are distracted, Werner uses his riches to hire thugs to attack Star City and turn the city’s peace into chaos. With his technology aiding the police, Werner is christened the city’s hero, and welcomed back into Vltava with open arms. In order to keep the silence, Werner informs the police of the Arrowcave’s location, resulting in evidence being collected against the Lances and Felicity, resulting in their imprisonment in Supermax.

Werner than bribes the guards and some inmates, causing a prison riot that would result in the deaths of the Team Arrow members and the destruction of their public image. He did not count on Ray Palmer. During an experiment in his lab, Ray’s body was infused with dwarf star material, but his life is saved by his nano technology, giving him the ability to shrink down. Wearing a suit that will let him control his abilities, The Atom sneaks into the prison and saves the lives of Team Arrow, and they manage to save the guards and escape at the loss of them capturing a good number of their villains. The Team flees to Vltava, where they find Count Vertigo about to murder his niece, Queen Perdita. Without their equipment, they are defenseless against his vertigo attack.

The Atom however, manages to capture Werner on video confessing to setting them up, and he rescues the Queen, as Oliver and the Team take down Vertigo and his rebels. With the Queen and the evidence on their sides, the Team is cleared of all charges and return to Star City, which has been under the protection of Roy. The heroes then face off against Tommy Merlyn and the brainwashed Mia, but The Archer manages to escape, at the loss of Roy’s arm. With Star City saved, Roy recovers and is given a new arm made by Queen Consolidated. Felicity and Ray reunite, Diggle takes on the identity of Guardian, Sara leaves Star City to make peace with the actions she took and decides to look after Queen Perdita in Vltava and take down the remaining rebels. The season closes with Oliver asking Dinah to marry him.

Characters:

Oliver Queen: I liked what season three did by having Oliver be "dead" and allow the show to focus more on the supporting characters. I decided to do that here but have that occur over a longer amount of episodes. Also having the characters try to save Oliver instead of the other way around changes things up a bit and connects the side stories back to Oliver without him having to be directly involved. Since Oliver has Green Arrow since the beginning, that wasn't really any reason for him to have to loose his identity.

Dinah Laurel Lance: Having Dinah protect Star City without Oliver allows for room to show that she doesn't need her man around. Since I'm making it more like the comics, I kept her relationship with Oliver. Having the love of her life out makes her distracted, allowing for mistakes in the field that leads to consequences.

John Diggle: Since Quentin died in season two, I wanted Diggle to take his place on the police side of things. I also figured since everyone else was trying to help the city in the light of day that John would too, and there wasn't really a reason for him to remain Oliver's bodyguard. Since Oliver doesn't join the League, their friendship doesn't become strained. Most things, like him marrying Lyla, remains the same because he's awesome.

Felicity Smoak: Since Oliver and Felicity aren't together, I figured why not have her and Ray together. They had good chemistry so I decided to keep that. Plenty of geek talk between them, but without the crying over Oliver. Felicity remains more like her character in season two.

Sara Lance: I decided not to kill Sara, as I wanted to keep Mia out of Star City longer to keep the mystery of disappearance and have Roy distracted. There were other reasons, like wanting to keep Ra's away in the shadows (think puppet master) and I didn't want to have to just resurrect Sara and make death meaningless. Having Sara around secretly knowing she was partly responsible for what's happening gives more insight into her internal struggle with her darkness. She also weakens her relationship with her sister, similar to Quentin and Laurel in original season three (so he's dead oops).

Tommy Merlyn & Mia Dearden Queen: I wanted Tommy to be more a psychological villain. He knows he can't take down Team Arrow in a fight, so he's using his position as the former friend and as Mia's brother to secure his safety. He also uses Mia to get in close and take down Oliver, hoping that would tear apart the team. But since they learned to get on without Oliver this season, it kind of ruins his plans.

Ray Palmer: Since Oliver still has his company, I incorporated his scientist side from the comics instead of an iron man rip off. Still comedic and goofy though. Also taking out his fake death makes death a real thing (even though we all knew what happened to Ray).

Flashbacks: Having Oliver trained by the League brings Ra's into the flashbacks and shows how he helped create not only the White Canary but the Green Arrow as well. Having Oliver know Ra's and absolutely fear him makes him a terrifying force in the Arrowverse. It keeps the flashbacks more interesting, having his assignments regularly bring him into contact with DC characters. I also want to keep the Yamashiro's but not have the boring Hong Kong story, so Oliver gets his assignment to kill Maseo but refuses after he sees him with Akio, reminding him of his father. His refusal leads to Sara having to kill Maseo with Tatsu's sword, horrifying Oliver (which leads him to tell Dinah that she died on the Gambit rather than tell her what Sara became). Seeing Sara's beginning of her fall from grace also ties in to the present, showing how she became who she is. Also, since Oliver failed his mission, he's banished to Lian Yu by Ra's, rather than him returning for Amanda Waller.

And that's all. Thanks for reading and let me know what you think.