Posted in: DC Universe, TV | Tagged: arrow, entertainment, HRL, Justin Hartley, smallville, stephen amell, television

When Oliver Queen Met Oliver Queen in San Jose

What made the CW executives comfortable about launching a series in 2012 about Green Arrow, a character basically known as a cross between Batman and Robin Hood? No matter how good the pitch was, it was asking the network to take a gamble on a somewhat obscure character — except it wasn't that obscure to their viewers. The prior year saw the final episode of the 10-year run of Smallville, and for the last five of those seasons, Justin Hartley played the Emerald Archer. What the executives most likely saw was a character that had grown in popularity on their own network, but made over in Christopher Nolan/Batman Begins style.

Hartley gave way to Stephen Amell as Smallville opened the door to Arrow and all that followed. Hartley, who had also starred in the pilot for a potential Smallville spinoff starring Aquaman, would go on to appear in shows like Revenge, Mistresses, and the Young and the Restless, but now finds himself on the critically acclaimed NBC series This Is Us.

This weekend at the Heroes & Villains Fanfest in San Jose, we got the rare meeting of the Oliver Queens. The over-the-top, flashy Green Arrow met the brooding loner Green Arrow and we get to see it in all its glory thanks to Amell posting it to social media.

At this point, these are the only two men to have played a live-action version of Green Arrow/Oliver Queen. With the way the Arrowverse is set up, the Smallville universe could easily be on of the multiple-Earths. Maybe we can have a very different type of crossover next year with Hartley and Smallville's Clark Kent, Tom Welling.

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