Though Stephen Amell doesn’t have any upcoming DC TV shows on his docket — he’s set to star in the NBC spinoff Suits: L.A. — he’ll likely never stop going to bat for Green Arrow, having portrayed the Emerald Archer for eight seasons, providing a cornerstone to The CW’s Arrowverse. And as DC fans await John Cena’s pumped-up return in Peacemaker Season 2, Amell reflected on how James Gunn’s show and others would rather crap on the Arrowverse than honor it.
The Peacemaker Joke
To quickly catch anyone up who isn't already aware, Peacemaker featured a variety of DC character easter eggs in Season 1, with some coming across as more needlessly salacious than others. The streaming action-comedy waited until the finale to go for Oliver Queen’s throat (or another contracting orifice) with this My Little Pony-centric barb:
[Green Arrow] goes to Brony conventions dressed as the back half of Twilight Sparkle with a four-inch-wide butthole drilled in the costume.
It was a joke that certainly wouldn’t have flown very far on The CW, which skewed far more family-friendly with its Arrowverse humor, despite going fairly dark with some of the shows’ plots. At the time, Stephen Amell brushed it off, saying he hadn’t watched because he was too busy outclassing John Cena in the wrestling ring, which was…a bit of an exaggeration. But it clearly did get to him at some point.
Stephen Amell's Latest Comments
Stephen Amell popped by the podcast Insight with Chris Van Vilet to talk about Heels hitting Netflix, which has fans optimistic that the streaming service will order up Season 3, as well as his ongoing relationship with the WWE and various pro wrestling superstars. At one point, the host brought up the disparaging Green Arrow comments made in Peacemaker, and the Canadian actor smiled as he not only addressed the joke, but also the idea that the Arrowverse remains a punchline despite its continued popularity. As he put it:
Yeah, that was a little unnecessary. I didn’t fuckin’ appreciate that at all. And by the way, I don’t know if they…okay, I’m just gonna come out and say this: Between the movies and between Peacemaker a little bit, our show was kinda treated like shit, right? I get it, we’re on The CW. I get it, it’s TV. But I also get the fact that when people think about the most recent iteration of DC, they don’t think about the Snyder Cut. They think about the Arrowverse. And we got crapped on for years and years and years, and this just seemed excessive.
While I’m sure there are plenty of Snyder Cut fanatics out there who would wag a disapproving finger at that assumption, it’s easy to see where he’s coming from. The Arrowverse kept DC fans invested in its conspiracies, time-travel mysteries, Speed Force shenanigans and billionaire vigilantes for nearly a decade without much controversy, pumping out tons of episodes on limited budgets compared to the funding granted to DC TV shows in the years since.
Not trying to come across as overtly pissed off, Stephen Amell did keep his smile going throughout that part of the conversation, and confirmed that this isn’t the kind of thing that still keeps him up at night, even if it may always get under his skin. In his words:
Again, I’m not actually mad, but like, I just remember hearing that and being like, ‘Fuck those guys.’ Seriously, I’m up here working just as hard as anyone else. Do you know how hard it is to play a superhero with no superpowers for 23 episodes a year? It’s really, really, really hard. And I’m not looking for a prize, but maybe don’t shit on our show. We may have to cut this out of the podcast. [Laughs.]
It all comes back to the old adage: if you don't have anything nice to say, go complain about Marvel. Wait, no, it's to not say anything at all. And Amell followed up his complaints by pointing out that he's got nothing but love and respect for John Cena, if not the dude that'll be leading the DCU for the foreseeable future.
I’ve met John a handful of times. There couldn’t be a nicer, more genuine person. If I should be mad at anyone, it should be James Gunn for writing that in the first place, but he could not be a nicer guy. He’s such a good guy. So it’s not a personal vendetta against him.
What superheroes will Peacemaker poke fun at (without any My Little Pony orifices referenced) in Season 2? Will Amell's Suits: L.A. debut feature any Green Arrow easter eggs? We'll have to wait and see.
For fans who need more superhero antics in their lives, all eight seasons of Arrow can be streamed now with a Netflix subscription, while Peacemaker’s first season is available via Max subscription, with Season 2 hitting the 2025 TV schedule at some point.
