In a show that runs for more than a few seasons, characters come and go as cast members decide to leave and/or are written out. In the Arrowverse, you've got four/five different shows, each with their own sets of characters and a collective of over ten seasons and counting. Someone's going to get forgotten, and not all stories get wrapped up in neat bows.
So what happens when we get all attached to someone who hasn't shown up in a while? Or maybe your favorite character bit the dust, and you're waiting for comic book shenanigans to bring them back. Whatever the reason, here are fifteen Arrowverse characters who either haven't been seen in a while, are too good not to see again, or just deserve a bit more time on screen to resolve a few of their issues. They might be gone for good...but in a universe inspired by comics, you know that pretty much anything is possible.
15. China White/Chien Na Wei
You probably remember China White (or ‘Chien Na Wei’) as the Chinese crime boss with wicked knife skills, an affinity for peroxide and a willingness to do "anything for a friend". She was last seen way back at the start of season two, after having been a persistent thorn in the side of the fledgling Team Arrow. Oliver left her secured to a telephone pole, presumably to be picked up by the police, after which she’s only been seen in flashbacks to Oliver’s time in China.
We’ve now entered season five of Arrow, so what are the chances we’ll be seeing China White at some point in the future? Not terrible, as it turns out. She’s definitely not dead, her actress has expressed interest in returning, and overall, she was the kind of villain the show really needs: gritty (she’s a street crime boss, after all) but with a bit of pzazz to make her a match for a guy who leaps around the rooftops in a green hood with a bow and arrow.
It’s practically impossible for Chien Na Wei to ever become a major villain at this point -- that honor is now reserved for the big-name supervillains that the average viewer stands a chance of knowing -- but still, with Star City now overrun with more crime than ever, it’s about time someone busted China White out of prison so she and her gang can have a crack at the all-new Team Arrow.
14. Black Siren
Speaking of villains locked in tiny cells, is Black Siren still knocking about underneath Star Labs? We’ve heard nothing of her since then, so she’s presumably still down there, screaming at the walls and wondering if she’s ever going to get that long-awaited bathroom break like everyone else they keep in the Pipeline.
We now know that the original Laurel Lance made Oliver promise that she wouldn’t be the last Black Canary. And sure…we can’t see Black Siren taking up that mantle, given that she’s an evil psychopath who knocks down buildings and murders people for fun, but whoever actually becomes the newest canary could have a powerful rival to deal with in the future. Whether this means that evil-Laurel will be coming into contact with the folks over in Arrow is uncertain, but there’s plenty of story opportunity to be mined from a villainous Canary counterpart running around on our Earth.
There’s always the slim chance that she’ll somehow recognize the error of her ways, but it’s not something we should be counting on. Nope, Black Siren just works better as a sadistic, destructive, dang-nasty-evil version of Laurel who has no qualms with using that familiar face to manipulate those who knew the Earth-One version. Whatever happens, nothing good will come of her (eventually?) escaping that cage.
But then, there are plenty who like her better than the original Laurel, so maybe there is a last-minute conversion on the table.
13. Katana/Tatsu
The Suicide Squad movie recently added to the DCEU seemed to be shooing out all the associated characters in the TV universe, presumably to prevent fan confusion. Amanda Waller and Deadshot were killed off, Harley Quinn got nothing more than a fleeting cameo, Task Force X was abandoned entirely, and with Lyla now in charge of the organization, it’s unlikely she’ll be organizing any villainous squads any time soon.
On the other hand, we have Tatsu Yamashiro, AKA Katana, who here has no real connection to the Suicide Squad and may have escaped the great purge for now. Established as having a significant connection with Oliver in the past and present, the last we saw of Tatsu had her hanging around in a forest doing a really average job of guarding a magic potion.
Given that the character was properly built up over a long period and went through some heavy on-screen trauma (watching her son die, her husband fall into darkness and then killing him as well), it’d be a huge waste to just have her dumped in the forest for the rest of the show’s run, just because Suicide Squad had someone with the same name. We’ve yet to see Tatsu’s sword display any special, soul-sucking characteristics, and Team Arrow is currently in flux with a fresh batch of newbies. We’re not saying we want Katana to join full-time -- she must be very busy with all that magic potion guarding on her plate -- but surely bringing her back to Star City for a brief spell isn’t out of the question. There’s no denying Rila Fukushima’s strong performance…as well as that awesome costume that we’ve only briefly seen her wear.
12. Ronnie Raymond
Between time travel, flashbacks, dimensional tears, alternate Earths, and every second warehouse in the Arrowverse containing some kind of unstable chemical mix, death seems just about as permanent as…well, your average comic book death.
Ronnie Raymond has already ‘died’ once, which then had him merged with Martin Stein and highly unstable before Team Flash was able to sort everything out. His second death was equally unclear, with him and Stein separating in the heart of a singularity and Ronnie being presumed dead. You may recognize this as pretty vague, with no body ever found and no real evidence that Ronnie truly died.
He’s currently counted as lost by all his friends and thoroughly replaced by Jefferson Jackson. So yeah, if Ronnie strolled through a wormhole one day and found Stein with another body-buddy, things could get a bit awkward. Still, Ronnie is very much his own person and capable of existing outside of Martin Stein, perhaps even dramatically changed by a trip through the wormhole into realms unknown, plus with Caitlin now steadily transforming into Killer Frost, things could get real interesting real quick.
11. Captain Boomerang
As with practically everything in the Arrowverse aside from the Trickster, Captain Boomerang got himself a gritty makeover when he finally showed up in a Flash/Arrow crossover. No more boat hats or neon costumes; in fact, he’s more of a Green Arrow villain, which ramps up the grunge factor to eleven. Nope, this version is all about efficiency, and also black leather.
Given that he’s traditionally a goofy Flash rogue who no one really takes seriously, it’d be nice to see Captain Boomerang leaning more towards his roots. It’s a bit too late to make him Australian (unless he takes a really hard hit to the head and wakes up with the accent), but neither does he deserve to spend the rest of the series staring at a wall in an underground Lian Yu prison. This isn’t some no-name original villain in the same vein as China White; this is Captain Boomerang, one of the Flash’s dumbest and most persistent foes. It’s likely he won’t stay locked up forever, but it’s about time he took his place among the Rogues instead of all that black gear relegating him to a one-time Arrow villain. Right now, he’s been little more than a blip on Barry Allen’s radar. Just saying…that’s no place for a guy bold enough to go up against a super-speedster with nothing but a few sharp objects that come right back at your face when thrown.
10. Double Down
To be honest, there are plenty of evil metahumans we’re happy to never see again. We’re totally fine with Multiplex staying dead, everyone’s already forgotten that guy who can turn into smoke, and you’re unlikely to ever see a Change.org petition to bring back Rainbow Raider. That’s all they were: gimmicks. Gimmicks that were pretty quickly figured out and dealt with.
Meanwhile, we have Double Down, who has slightly more nuance than your average accidental metahuman, complete with the skills to back up his claim to fame. His power of creating cards from tattoos is awesome to see in action, allowing him to go toe-to-toe with the Green Arrow and come out without a scratch (even if he didn’t finish the job).
Double-Down was left in an odd position, threatened with painful death by Damien Darhk if he failed his mission but last seen incarcerated in Iron Heights. With Darhk’s death, Jeremy Tell might just be off the hook and a free agent again. Not that Team Arrow really needs any more on their plate, but with Double-Down alive, well and willing to hurl razor-sharp cards at people for money (and make it look good), we’d like to see him back in business. It’s hard not to enjoy a snappily-dressed assassin who’s basically Gambit but…not.
9. Lonnie Machin
For someone who’s completely nuts and has no ability to blend into anywhere that isn’t a third-degree burn treatment clinic, Lonnie Machin did pretty well for himself throughout season 4. He managed to escape all skirmishes with Team Arrow, torture information out of one of Darhk’s ghosts, infiltrate Tevat Noah, bring the entire place down and escape once again while fending off Oliver, Thea and Diggle all at once. He’s handy with a three-section-staff and has a massive toolbox of other skills that make him a less of a thorn in the side of the good guys and more of a huge tusk, just…sitting there, causing havoc.
And now he’s in jail. In a somewhat anticlimactic ending to his reign of anarchy, Machin was taken down in the opening moments of season 5 by Oliver alone, and was later arrested. Given the guy’s track record, it’s unlikely that he’ll stay in jail long enough to have to even make his bed, but it seemed like a swift execution to the menace he’d become. He’s nowhere near the Anarky from the comics, but Lonnie Machin became a wild card addition to the Arrow villain stock, always following his own agenda and not taking orders from anyone. He may not be set up to become a main villain, but like China White, Machin can do a lot of damage all by himself. That is, if they don’t sweep his entire existence under the rug.
8. Mirror Master
Speaking of classic Rogues with brief appearances, we finally got a glimpse of Mirror Master, clocking in near the start of season 3 of The Flash. Those hoping he’d finally be a major non-speedster villain for the series were let down when he turned out to be just some guy in a suit with vague mirror powers, robbing all of one bank before being taken down with his own powers.
It wasn’t a bad episode, and Grey Damon’s version of the character was fun to watch on the screen at least. Still, there’s a lot of untapped potential here that we didn’t get to see, with Sam Scudder locked up in a cell with no reflective surfaces like any old metahuman criminal of the week. In other words, he’s been no Captain Cold, and didn’t even seem to adopt his supervillain name during the course of the episode.
We undoubtedly haven’t seen the last of Sam Scudder, though we’d be wanting to see him sooner rather than later. A villain as iconic as Mirror Master deserves more than a single-episode stint to stretch his legs, and with this version a metahuman rather than just toting around a sciencey mirror gun, there’s no telling how cunning he can be if he learns from his mistakes and returns with a vengeance.
7. Patty Spivot
Google ‘romantic false lead’ and your first image result may as well be Patty Spivot. Thing is, she was never a bad character; she just happened to step in at a time when the showrunners were struggling to find blockades for Barry and Iris being together. Bingo: an attractive, metahuman-obsessed police officer enters the fray, and now Iris is the one reduced to gazing wistfully at Barry from a distance.
That’s not to say Patty never had depth, either. Her motivations for doing her job were strong and she was immediately established as being Barry-level awkward, making it a shame that all her development was eventually tangled up in Barry’s love life and jettisoned when it came time for the main character to receive one nasty kick in the teeth after another at the end of the season.
So where’s Patty now? Off to college, learning to be a CSI. She’s not dead, never had any major falling out with anyone, and at the rate that Central City police officers get killed off, they could use some fresh blood in the force. Patty Spivot could return at any time, not as Barry’s erstwhile love interest, but instead a competent investigator, skilled and experienced in metahuman cases and in on the Flash’s secret. Joe needs someone at the precinct who’ll back him up when he tries to explain where Barry spends all of his time out of the lab.
6. John Constantine
Remember that guy?
John Constantine had a rough time in the Arrowverse after his own show on NBC was cancelled. He was relegated to cameo appearances on Arrow, where his plot relevance appeared to be slipped in via someone inserting a page of fan-fiction into the script. Still, it was great to see him back, both in flashbacks and the modern era. Now, apparently, he’s in hell. Like, actual hell.
We don’t know if Matt Ryan has any plans to return to the role (in live-action, anyway), but we wouldn’t say no to Constantine stepping back into the Arrowverse if the time was right. Of course, he brings with him a whole plethora of magic-related plots, and with the demise of Damien Dahrk, season five just might not be the time. That doesn’t mean there aren’t other avenues worth taking, however. Ragman is currently stalking the streets in his definitely-magical duds. The folks over on The Flash haven’t dealt with nearly as much magic as they should’ve at this point. Vixen has the main character wearing a magical totem around her neck, and Legends of Tomorrow pretty much deals with any and every plotline possible. His show may have been axed, but John Constantine is still out there, waiting to swagger in and offer magical solutions to everyone’s problems in that weird, Jack Sparrow-esque voice he seems to be running with.
5. Esrin Fortuna
Speaking of magic, there are those out these who are decidedly better at it than John Constantine. We first met Esrin Fortuna near the end of Arrow’s fourth season, when Oliver needed a way to stop Damien Darhk from freezing arrows in mid-air and tossing everyone around like ragdolls.
Charming, charismatic and infinitely mysterious, Fortunate indirectly gave Oliver the skills he needed to summon light magic and combat Darhk’s…well, dark magic. She may not have been the most patient teacher, but perhaps Oliver learning on the go and using that power himself was her plan all along. Whatever her methods, we’re keen to see Esrin Fortuna crop up again in some capacity.
And no, she’s not joining Team Arrow and integrating with their merry band. Somehow we just can’t see an immortal shaman leaping across rooftops in a mask alongside a bunch of children who are several hundred years younger than her. No, if Esrin Fortuna ever makes another appearance, it’ll be for something huge, a magical threat that’s far beyond anything of Damien Darhk’s calibre. She doesn’t even have to be on screen for long -- perhaps just long enough to deliver a few more jabs at Constantine -- but it was hard not to enjoy Gabriella Wright's portrayal of an immortal sorceress with a thing for gambling.
4. Hartley Rathaway/Pied Piper
One of the earliest hints that time travel can shift the universe around in major ways, Hartley Rathaway was introduced to us as a disgruntled former Star Labs employee with a penchant for soundwaves and an ego the size of the sun. Barry’s time meddling drastically altered the events of their original adventure, and the next time we see him in the present, Hartley is a swell dude, willing to help out Team Flash and apparently having made amends with his parents.
Not that we’re complaining, but it was an odd shift. If he’s not going to have any major role in the future, why take the Pied Piper and turn him into a good guy? The answer is either ‘because it solved the very specific problem we had in that episode, shut up’, or possibly, that there are plans for Hartley in the future. The fans seemed to like him, his tech is interesting enough, and there’s always the chance they’re just setting him up for another fall into villainy. Or maybe they’re planning to kill off Cisco and they need another genius to jump into his place.
In any case, the new and improved Pied Piper is out there, an ally to Team Flash if they ever need to consult someone on the subject of soundwaves. Or if Cisco dies. Which totally isn’t going to happen, probably, but if it did…
3. Helena Bertinelli/Huntress
You’d be forgiven for utterly forgetting Helena Bertinelli, as after her arrest in season 2 of Arrow, she’s barely scraped a name drop.
The bizarre habit of season 2 characters to vanish off the face of the Earth is a quandary for another time, but right now? One of DC’s most ruthless female vigilantes is apparently just sitting in a jail cell, quietly serving her time like no one ever does in comic books, ever. Her entire existence seemed to be more of a moral lesson for Oliver than her developing a character, and more than a few fans were displeased with how they turned the Huntress from the comics -- a brutal-yet-just vigilante -- into a straight up villainous killer whose repentance came all too late.
But she’s not dead; not yet, at least. Helena Bertinelli still has time to become the Huntress she could be, still willing to break a few bones, but more like the Green Arrow of now in his unwillingness to kill. Whether she’s back as the Huntress or passing the mantle onto someone else, Helena’s story doesn’t have to be over just because she’s been gone for a while. She was more than just Oliver’s pet moral project, and it’d be a shame for her to be forgotten.
2. Alternate Barry Allen (and the Earth-2 Crew)
What if Barry was twice as awkward and about ten-thousand times slower? Earth-2 certainly gave the writers an entire playground of characters to mine for comedy value, which we saw pretty clearly in their version of Barry Allen. Bespectacled, adorned with a bow-tie, and as much of a dork as humanly possible, this Barry somehow still managed to woo Iris and was doing pretty well for himself (with two living parents to boot) before his alternate self came stomping in and ruined it all.
Now that Hunter Zolomon/Zoom has been put down for good, we’ve yet to see Earth-2 rebuilding and recovering from the metahuman menace…which is really a shame, because there are so many characters there to love. It’s the home of Harry and Jesse, Mayor Snart (who we’ve yet to see) and a whole lot of interesting architecture. It’s like the entire world is one big throwback to the Golden Age of Comic Books, and it’s a world that we’d like to explore a little bit more. Plus, we’d never say no to Grant Gustin ramping up the geek factor in portraying his doppelganger once more, because he was everything adorable about Barry Allen times twelve. He was even married to Iris, if you can believe it.
1. Jonah Hex
We’re getting more of Jonah Hex in an upcoming episode of Legends of Tomorrow, because they’ve got those Wild West sets and you can bet they’re going to get all the use out of them they can. Also…time travel.
In his one appearance thus far, Hex was a guest star who happened to be around when the team stopped in the 1800s for reasons which everyone has now forgotten (but could probably be summed up with ‘something something Vandal Savage, hawk people, magic macguffin, something something’). But we might even go so far as to say that he could work as a more permanent addition to the Legends as they jet around in the Waverider. Rip Hunter is currently lost in time, and there’s room at the top for a badass in a long coat with a fondness for revolvers. This would give Hex the opportunity to travel to the present era, meet up with the modern members of the Arrowverse, and just generally be given more depth than a single episode can provide.
Jonah Hex is a weird sort of DC mainstay, never truly a part of the main cast of heroes and keeping to himself and his own time as much as possible. So in other words, he’s just the type of misfit who could fit into the cast of Legends of Tomorrow, at least for a brief stint. Those people will recruit anyone.
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Are there any forgotten characters that we've...forgotten? Let us know in the comments!