A lot of new faces from DC comics have been hitting the airwaves recently, and The CW’s Arrow will be bringing in yet another. As it happens, however, this character won’t be jumping directly from page to TV. Rather, she’ll be moving to the small screen from…well, the even smaller screen. Vixen will be making her transition from animation to live-action after the success of her late summer web series of the same name on the CW Seed website.
TV Insider reports that Vixen will come to live-action life with actress Megalyn Echikunwoke. Echikunwoke provided the voice behind Vixen, so fans of the character from the web series won’t need to worry about a recast. She’ll appear in the fifteenth episode of Season 4 of Arrow, tentatively scheduled to air on February 24, and you'll probably recognize Echikunwoke from her live-action roles on CSI: Miami, The 4400 and The Following, among other things.
Vixen – or Mari McCabe, as she is domestically known – inherited the ability to mimic and use the powers of any animal thanks to a totem passed down through her family. Although she tragically lost her parents, Mari has learned to use her powers for good.
Although only appearing on CW Seed thus far, Mari has been a member of the DC universe on The CW from the beginning thanks to the vocal appearances of Arrow’s Stephen Amell and Emily Bett Rickards, as well as The Flash’s Grant Gustin and Carlos Valdes. The Flarrow-verse has been primed and ready for some Vixen action since before either show even premiered their latest seasons.
There was a question of whether Arrow or The Flash would be better suited to showcase a live-action Vixen. Prior to Season 4, Arrow was relatively grounded in realism. Now that supervillain Damien Darhk has brought magic to Star City in a big way, Vixen meeting up with a team more entrenched in mysticism than science should work well.
Of course, one of the problems that has plagued Arrow in its third and fourth seasons has been the amount of time dedicated to establishing different DC heroes when Oliver Queen still has so much story as the star of the show. Mari as Vixen has the potential to fit in perfectly, thanks to her origin story already established on Vixen and no introductions needed to all of the Arrow characters. If anything, Mari appearing on Arrow should be more akin to Constantine’s awesome appearance earlier in Season 4 rather than Ray Palmer’s obtrusive origin story in Season 3.
Mari McCabe really should be a fantastic addition to Arrow. Vixen’s run on CW Seed amounted to only six installments of a few minutes each, and Megalyn Echikunwoke looks to be more than capable of making the jump from animation to live action. It should be interesting to see if Arrow addresses Mari’s previous home in Detroit; Oliver may have appeared on Vixen, but Arrow has almost exclusively only mentioned fictional locations. February 24 can’t come soon enough. Hopefully, Arrow will bring Vixen to the small screen in the way that she deserves.
Arrow returns from hiatus on January 20, 2016. In the meantime, check out Vixen on CW Seed.
