The 20 best Arrowverse characters ranked
From heroes like Supergirl and The Flash to villains like Prometheus and Deathstroke, we're counting down the best characters from The CW's mega-franchise
TV Features Arrowverse
With the cancellation of Stargirl on Monday by The CW, it’s now official: the Arrowverse is dead. The superhero franchise will end with The Flash’s ninth and final season, which is set to air starting in January 2023. The interconnected series dominated The CW for a decade, ultimately encompassing seven standalone shows and nine crossover events. (Yes, Stargirl takes place on a parallel earth, but several characters from the show appeared in the Crisis crossover, so we’re counting the series as part of the ‘Verse.)
Over the years, Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl, DC’s Legends Of Tomorrow, Black Lightning, Batwoman, and Stargirl gave us some unforgettable characters, from well-known heroes like Superman to lesser-known villains like Prometheus. While DC’s films were beset by very public problems, including production issues, conflicts over creative decisions, and poor critical receptions, the Arrowverse was quietly developing some of the best character work and some of the best superhero portrayals on screen. (There’s a reason why fans have been campaigning for Grant Gustin to take over as The Flash on the big screen, and it’s not just his alliterative name, which sounds like it came straight from the pages of a comic book.) Now, in honor of the franchise’s legacy, we’ve ranked the 20 best Arrowverse characters.
106 Comments
You swapped Wynn and Cisco.Also you messed up #1, you meant it to be this feller:
Really, I just checked in to make sure Arrowverse Slade Wilson made the cut and Arrowverse Ra’s al Ghul didn’t. I leave happy.
Waitasec, where the blazes is Joe West? Solid detective, and one of TV’s all-time great dads.
Joe should be #2. Barry and Iris, on the other hand, are not top 20.
Also, where is Gary? Damien Dahrk? Is Bee-Bo not a character!?
Yeah not to be mean but Iris kind of sucks most of the time and Barry caused so many of the problems on Flash that he doesn’t deserve to be on the list.
I just hope that Legends of Tomorrow has proven that just because the hero is surrounded by colorful characters, they don’t need to be boring and stupid in order to further the plot each week (the Disney+ Marvel writers have figured this out about Daredevil). The only time Gustin’s Barry was much fun was when we was buddy cops with Green Arrow or Supergirl on the cross-overs.
Yep, crossovers and the first season when he was learning how to use his powers.
Barry was such a breath of fresh air when he first turned up. The biggest mistake the Flash writers made was to give him an angsty backstory and then just continue to pile on the trauma. Gustin is a gifted comedic actor and naturally charismatic but he simply does not do well with unhappiness and drama. And the Flash, out of all superheroes, should be fun above all else.
You’re right, it’s easy to forget how much fun Gustin was having as Barry in Season 1.
I think DC only added the “Barry’s dad wrongfully convicted of Barry’s mom’s murder thanks to Thawne” backstory for Flashpoint (I think) but it always seemed so forced and over the top for such a light-hearted character. Especially since Thawne killed Iris in the comics years prior. But we got Joe West because of it, so it’s not all bad.
Iris sucks…because the writing constantly letting her down. The first couple seasons in particular…
Oh yeah Candice Patton is a fine actress but the material is not great.
Welding Iris to Barry as a love interest crippled her character. And this after they made the bizarre choice to have them be stepsiblings.
Let’s not forget Mary. And Mick. And the Zaris.
Honestly, I prefer Quentin Lance as the best Arrowverse TV dad. He went through a lot.
I liked Batwoman’s ‘Alice’. I liked her story and whenever she was around things got fun. Rachel Skarsten really sparked things up.
She reminded me so much of Callisto on Xena, one of the best villains of all time.
Alice was a great character, but I quickly got tired of her being on the show like every week. I dropped out after season 1 because every episode seemed the same.
The Alice-Mary sister relationship ending up being really great, which on paper made no sense, and seems almost like sorcery by the actresses to make it work
Justice for Zari 1.0!For real though, fun to read this list and remember how much I enjoyed so many of these shows early on.
First Zari is, indeed, best Zari.
I came to love Zari 2.0 as well, but Zari Prime would be the one on my all-time team lineup and character ranking. She was a cool third-wave feminist superhero that even her other self found intimidatingly awesome and difficult to live up to!
The lack of Zari is indeed disturbing.
Man, in spite of all of the flaws in this group of shows (and there were many I complained about on this very site), I sure did love me some Arrowverse. The best place for TV superhero fun for years and years. These slides were a great stroll down memory lane. I especially enjoyed the cross overs after years of watching the shows-they brought me back to the days of having all my comics spread out on the floor, reading Wolverine v. Spider-Man or Hulk v. Thing. I had a giddy smile on my face during each one.Also: Season 2 of Arrow remains one of my favorite seasons of television of all time. It certainly wasn’t prestige TV, but it sure was fun.
Legends of Tomorrow to me had the best run of any ArrowVerse show, but Arrow s2 was the best and most thrilling single season. I have never had an experience quite like watching several episodes and believing they must be about over because so much had happened, checking the time and it was only like 15 minutes in.
Absolutely. And then, I would just hate it when it was over and I had to wait for next week. It had been a long time since a show had pulled me in like that, where I would actually groan at the end of an episode because I wanted more.There are a lot of people commenting in this thread whose comments I really enjoyed reading under the old Arroverse reviews, including yours and AmaltheaElanor. Thanks to you and everyone for all the great, insightful comments over the years!
Thanks! I miss the old TV Club forums and commenters too
The commenting community for the Arrowverse shows – especially during crossovers – was a blast and I miss it terribly.
Honestly, the only thing that keeps me from revisiting Arrow (as opposed to Legends, which I will happily binge anytime) is that I really never warmed to the “half the episode is flashback” structure, especially in the early seasons. (Soft whiny baby Oliver is like nails on a chalkboard to me.) Then after season 5 when we were finally caught up to the present, and I thought I’d made it out — they decided it was time for a flash-forward structure instead.
s2 was the only season of Arrow where the flashbacks really worked I thought, because they had Slade AND Sara
I’m sad it’s pretty much dead (though this has been coming for a while) but it has been a hell of a ride. I have had so much fun these past ten years with Arrowverse.
Season 2 Arrow is the high-water mark of what network superhero shows could be. Especially since it was an actual full season of TV at like 20 eps. I can’t believe Deathstroke is so low on this list. He made that season. (though to be fair his subsequent appearances just couldn’t capture the excitement of him as the ultimate antagonist.)I already miss the Arrowverse crossovers. People complained about LOT of stuff in the Arrowverse, especially in the later years, but I don’t think we really appreciate how good we had it- fun, basically low-stakes superhero shows that weren’t all tied down to a decade-long story. I loved those crossovers, combining all the shows, but you didn’t really need to know anything more than the broad strokes of each show to watch them.
Agreed, and that was my main thought about this list: Slade is too low. The Promise is still one of my favorite hours of television, and he carried it.
The crossovers were the best part. Honestly, one wishes they could have just consolidated all the serieses (except maybe Legends) into one big live-action Justice League show. The main characters were almost uniformly the most interesting ones, and it would have dispensed with a lot of the unnecessary drama and dragging subplots that weighed down some of the individual shows.
Swap Oliver with Barry (though I get where you are coming) and add Beebo somewhere (for me personally instead of Killer Frost) and this is a pretty great list. I miss Beeboverse already so much, cancelling Legends while keeping the Flash was such a terrible decision.
I could never get into Arrow since I was used to his comic book version in the late 70s with Green Lantern/Green Arrow series. The character there was seasoned-wise cracking-hothead etc. CW Oliver Queen was absolutely boring as a character.
I’d have Ollie #1, Sara #2, Thawne #3. Felicity #4 then Barry #5.Without RDJ as IronMan, the MCU isn’t a thing. Same goes for Amell as Ollie. Made me glad he lost the Spartacus lead to Andy, bc he shined as Ollie – even in the shadows.Sara is awesome and well stated in the write-up. Legends took my fave guest stars/characters, gave them a show, then said “have fun”. Also, Matt Ryan’s Constantine needs some love. Hard to imagine any other actor in the role.Thawne at #3 bc I literally watched Flash to see what Cavanaugh would do next. Literally stole every scene with his charisma.Felicity was the Harley Quinn (break out, created-for-the-show character) and should be applauded more. Emily is such a good actress.Nice write-up on Hoechlin as Superman. He’s a fitting follow-up to Welling’s TV version of Clark. Another scene stealer.
The entry and the text for Winn and Cisco are switched, which I am guessing is part of the joke?Also, I would rank early Felicity near the top, but the later Felicity and her plot cancer was so bad it should drag her off the list. (No offense to the actress, who does great work). Oliver/Felicity and Felicity in general became a lead weight on the show in the back half and really destroyed the show.
I agree. When I think of Felicity, the first thing to come to mind is that giant drag out fight between she and Oliver because he didn’t tell her he had a kid. A kid he only JUST found out about and was still trying to process the existence of, but she found a way to make that about her.
Season 4 was going so well until then and then it was just a dynamite stick of melodrama that blew up any potential the rest of the season had.
…and stealing Barry and Iris’ wedding. And the fact that for about three seasons, basically every male character was in love with her (which admittedly is more of a personal pet peeve).The reason I liked Felicity to start with, was she was a bright counterbalance to all of the Oliver-Laurel moping. And then everything Felicity-related got suuuper mopey and angsty.
At the time of the wedding episode I was only watching Legends and was like ‘Holy crap that bitch stole Barry and Iris’s thunder!’I think they actually reference it in the one later Flash episode so at least one team of writers noticed it.
They totally did reference it later, it was so cathartic!
I think The Shade from Stargirl should be on here – Jonathan Cake is perfect in that role and IMO the best part of the show since he arrived in S2. And I’d probably have had Joe West as well.
Definitely, his Shade is awesome.
STARGIRL is cancelled? Aaahhh fuuuuuuuuck. No more Grade A dadding from Pat? No more hilarious condescension from the Shade? What a world we live in.
No more Zeek being goddamn hilarious or Sportsmaster/Huntress going WAY over the top, we are indeed in a shitty timeline 🙁
I don’t know if I would say Javica “quickly found her stride”. I feel like she didn’t hit it until the 3rd season when they could finally tell a story ABOUT her rather than having an entire season dedicated to Kate Kane.You made a mistake here because under Schott’s section you talked about Cisco.I STILL quote Snart to this day. Make the plan, execute the plan, throw out the plan, improvise. It’s crazy how often you can you can drop that when you see someone wonder why a company didn’t stick to their original vision or idea.They explored the Green Lantern stuff just far enough for Diggle to say he didn’t want it. It was a good resolution in the midst of the CW starting to cancel all the shows.Can we take a moment to acknowledge how great Tom Cavanaugh was on The Flash? Before The Flash, any time I saw him pop up I could only see him as Dan, JD’s unambitious older brother from Scrubs. Now though? I see him as a legitimate actor, I feel like he carried a lot of The Flash on his back and without him the show wouldn’t have been nearly as good.And now you have Schott’s stuff under the Cisco section.Melissa Benoist deserved a better written show.
Yeah, Cavanagh was consistently the only good thing about The Flash, especially the longer the show went.
Cavanagh was fine for the first few seasons but the different iterations of Wells just got more annoying and ill-defined. They should have just stuck with Harry.
Sherloque was goddamn hilarious.I’d be his Watsune!
That…is an opinion you have.
It is indeed, I see you have one too!
I could argue for some favorites who didn’t make the list like Zari, Cindy/ Shiv, or John Henry Irons (and Natalie), but instead I will say that I mostly agree with the rankings, including especially Sara being #1 and the inclusions of Alex Danvers, Killer Frost, Snart, and Mick Rory.
Alex Danvers may actually be one of my least favorite characters of the entire Arrowverse run. Just a wet blanket most of the time. I’d rather put Laurel Lance in that spot. She started as pretty much the worst character in the early years of the Arrowverse, but finished pretty strong.
It’s funny how Supergirl so often tried to get Kara in romances when it was clear that the central relationship in the show was her and Alex. At least until Lena became more prominent in later seasons.
Supergirl was a show with such great potential & Lena maybe the one character with the most underserved potential. The Kara-Alex relationship they did justice to & the most iconic & best scenes in the show possibly were the sisters hanging out. Lena they kept changing too radically & altering how she & Kara saw each other & related to each other.
I’m not sure I agree about Lena, just because I feel like she was created to be mercurial in nature and her obsession with Kara remained the focus of her character regardless of what permutations she went through. That said, the execution could have been better, which you could say about almost everything on Supergirl. The sad thing is as messy as the show was, it probably gave us the most iconic characters the Supergirl mythos has ever had. It’d be a really good idea for DC to enfold Kara, Alex and Lena as they were on the show into comics continuity at some point. I mean really, what other iteration of Supergirl do readers even remember anything about, weird horse romance plots aside?
The new-ish Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow miniseries by Tom King was basically perfect. Admittedly, there isn’t too much competition for good story arcs from the character’s back history.
Sara topping this list is perfect. No notes.
Yeah, there’s too many Flash characters, but overall a decent list.I might add in a few more villains. Like Barrowman’s Merlyn and McDonough’s Damien Darhk — yes, they both felt run into the ground from overuse by the end, but damn did they have fun moments when the various shows were at their peaks.
Oh, and it would be nice to find spots for Thea Queen and Ava, but now I might be asking for too much.
Personally, I would have included Patty Spivot, the woman who should have been kept around as Barry Allen’s love interest. The dynamic between Barry and Patty was far more interesting and had more potential than Barry/Iris.
Not to mention the fact that she was smart enough to figure out on her own that he was The Flash.Also, it lacked that weird “but Barry is kind of in love with his sister” vibe.
Patty and Barry made each other happy, while Iris and Barry constantly made each other miserable. I like Barry, why would I want to root for a relationship that’s clearly no good for him?
Iris and Barry had the weird distinction of starting as a will they wont they and somehow maintaining that energy well after actually getting married. They never feel like either of them expect this to be a long term thing.
That’s a really good way of putting it. ‘Post-getting-together will they / won’t they’ is generally a problem in TV, almost no one knows how to write interesting but stable marriages that aren’t constantly on the verge of collapsing.
Hell, I recently re-watched Flash S2, Ep3 and even Joe was encouraging Barry to “hit that”.
It would have kept Barry from the weird incesty relationship he had with Iris.
Oliver is my personal fave, but I can’t contest having Sara Lance at number 1 too much, since she would be a very close second for me.My top-tier (in no particular order) would be: Oliver, Sara, Kara, Slade, Moira, Nyssa, Laurel (yes really – Earth-1 and Earth-2), Cat Grant, and whomever Tom Cavanagh is playing depending on the season.I also love Snart, Rory, Thea, Lance, Killer Frost, Nora, Diggle, Alice, and Mary.
Laurel definitely had the biggest turnaround. Just wretched in season 1, ended up one of the best by the end.
Laurel wins the Most Improved award for the entire Arrowverse, narrowly beating out Ray Palmer, Adrian Chase, and Hawkguy (since he only had like one episode of redemption).
Felicity at #10? bruuuh ☠
WHERE. IS. HAWKGIRL.
Working as a barista in a coffee shop.
At the barista shop?
Not on this list, and that’s perfect.
Ava Sharpe!!!Seriously though, you’re going to have to go in and fix the Cisco/Winn entries. Make it a Top 25, rejigger things a bit. Ava is at least top 12. Damien Darhk and Lex Luthor are at least equal to Snart (or under by a skosh). Lena Luthor? … and … Joe West. Top 25.
That’s true, Lena is a big omission. Certainly she should be ranked higher than Winn.
Not to be pedantic, but no, “several characters” did not appear in the Crisis crossover. Unless I’m wrong, Stargirl has a version of Jay Garrick’s Flash, as played by John Wesley Shipp, but it’s not supposed to be the Earth-2 Jay Garrick he also played in the Arrowverse (and I can’t think of anyone else who would count, aside from the quick Stargirl cast’s “hero shot” at the end of Crisis ep. 5.)
You are correct.
Calling Cisco “The Vibe,” not including Papa Joe West, and not having Eobard in the top 3 are but a few mistakes this list made. Yeah, lists can be subjective, sure. On the other hand, we also have to be able to identify right from wrong.
I knew Sara Lance was #1 and it’s not close. I also have Barry at #2 and again the gap between him and #3 is huge.My Favorite Arrowverse shows (I didn’t watch Arrow, Batwomen or Black Lighting).1. Legends of Tomorrow2. Stargirl (for only 2+ seasons so far it’s perfect)3. Flash (I actually think Flash should be #1 if we got rid of 3 seasons but that’s the problem)4. Supergirl which I love but is a step behind the others.I enjoyed the arrowverse, sorry to see it go. Hopefully some of the characters show up in Titans or Doom Patrol or Superman and Lois.
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I realize this is an unpopular opinion but I’ve never understood the obsession with Caity Lotz/Sara Lance. Everything she does is just okay. I’m never impressed or particularly annoyed by her performance. There are some really great actors in the Arrowverse that every now and then manage to turn in an actually memorable performance, but she’s more like the Olive Garden of actors. And she’s written at about that level, rarely asked to do anything challenging. (I eventually tuned out of Legends but I was there for the majority of seasons.) I get that her character’s a badass and an eye-roller and a queer icon. From episode to episode, though, I just don’t see anything that would put her close to the number 1 spot for me.
This list is making me want to dig into these shows a bit more. I watched the first two (maybe three) seasons of Arrow, and eventually watched all of Legends of Tomorrow. Arrow I just got tired of, but … didn’t not like it. Supergirl seemed fun but I only saw the first few episodes. I saw that Flash kid on one of the shows, and jeez, he’s a ton better than the Ezra Miller, in my opinion. Main problem is there is so many shows to watch, not just Arrowverse shows. I have a life, damn it. Sort of.
I’m kind of there with you. I was watching all the shows for the first 3 or 4 years, but they started to feel very…repetitive?…or something. Except Legends of Tomorrow. I watched all of that, and it was a weird, messy, wonderful joy to experience. If some of the shows were aiming to be a complete dinner, LoT was a delicious, heaping garbage plate with Pop Rocks on top. It was glorious.
where’s Constantine?
Grant Gustin made a good Flash, but the supoorting cast made that show (I tuned out two seasons ago): Wells, Cisco and Joe West were always great to watch.Pretty much the entire cast of Legends could fit in here. That show went from blah-by-the-book to utter weirdness and was all the better for it. Shout out to Snart, Mick Rory, Sara Lance, Ray Palmer and his bromance with Nate, the first Zari, John Constantine (Matt Ryan is such perfect casting), and Behrad.Damien Darhk had a scene where he beats the crap out of a group of cultists to the tune of Return of The Mack. That alone should put him on the list.Haven’t watched the other shows enough to comment, but John Diggle was consistently pretty cool. His throwing up whenever the Flash rushed him anywhere, or his ace delivery of lines like “I had a cousin who got hit by lightning once. He just developed a stutter” was absolute gold.
The Superhero Shows were the only reason I watched the CW. The other shows they have are garbage. I guess I’ll be watching other channels more now.
Yes….The ‘Arrowverse’ did create some high-concept Superhero Drama, crossing-over and sustaining on-and-onward…..
Where DC has generally failed to score multiple Big Screen successes like Marvel; the DC Small Screen efforts were considerable successes…..Not always great—but still there, slugging away…Highs-n-lows, crap-amongst-the-gold, etc….And the CW itself? …It is truly sad to see this venerable venue of creative fantasy slide headlong into mediocrity, skewing to so-called ‘unscripted’ series…..
I can almost smell the multiple rip-offs of ‘Survivor’ and ‘American Idol’ on the way!
Ray, Cold AND Stargirl in the bottom 5?! Goodbye, am this list from Bizzaroworld? Hello!
(Yes, Stargirl takes place on a parallel earth, but several characters from the show appeared in the Crisis crossover, so we’re counting the series as part of the ‘Verse.)Then Doom Patrol also counts. They show up in a 2 second snippet celebrating the universe not being destroyed. Also, Superman Returns.
You ranked Tom Cavanaugh much too low, and Candice Patton much too high. Iris was actually the reason I stopped watching The Flash. I found her annoying and too reliant on standard “cute girl” posing.
This lost all credibility when Slade Wilson was listed so low.
Cisco was my favorite character on the Flash but he was constantly getting what I call Willowed. He was the best friend supporting character that became a hell of a lot more powerful than the series main guy so the writers had to constantly find stupid ways to knock him back down. Whedon did the same thing when Willow went full on Dark Goddess then spent years afraid to use her powers. (Im addicted to magic…woe is me…Im in recovery except when the storyline needs me..)
The secret power of the Arrowverse was in its casting. Especially in its early years. Most regulars and guest stars were experienced in genre TV before. The first season of Arrow was a “murderers row” of people we loved in prior shows:The Undefeated Gaul (Manu Bennet)The Borg Queen & Queen of Gilboa (Susanna Thompson)Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman)Stephanie Horton of Mad Men (Caity Lotz)We even developed a new appreciation Dolph Lundgren after his decades of DTV films. (He was massive and scary for a 60 y/o)
A big part of why I decided I should watch Arrow (just after hearing The Flash was coming and trying to figure out if I wanted to be fully versed) is that so many actors from Spartacus had appeared on it. Not just Manu Bennett, but Cynthia Addai-Robinson, Katrina Law, and Nick Tarabay all showed up.
Don’t forget Liam Mcintyre as the Weather Wizard on Flash.
Katrina Law was one of 2 reasons I bothered with the Training Day series. Of course Bill Paxton was the other.
Moira Borg Queen!
The Universe has robbed us of a confrontation between Suzanna Thompson and Jessica Walter. The two of them would have set TV’s on fire with their acid wit.
Sara Lance deserves the top spot for sure. Gideon should be on this list
I don’t know if I could disagree more with a list. Felicity and Sara shouldn’t even be on this list. Diggle and Slade Wilson should be way higher. Laurel should be somewhere. Nora Dahrk too. And Ray Palmer should be top five. Leonard Snart as well. And just too many other changes…
Definitely thought Damien Darhk needed to make this list, probably in place of Prometheus, who I am honestly having trouble remembering even after reading the blurb. Not only was Neil McDonough consistently entertaining as Oliver’s nemesis, he was part of the excellent Legion of Doom storyline that completely turned the Legends of Tomorrow series around, and even completed a face turn so his daughter could be with Ray Palmer. Definitely a top-20 contender.
How could you not include Arrow’s Malcolm Merlyn/Dark Archer, briefly Ras al Ghul? He was played by John Barrowman, who is gorgeous, a fine actor and handled the weaponry well. Admittedly, he was betrayed by the writing later on (the Magician becomes a cut-rate thug) but those first few seasons were wonderful.
No Billy Wintergreen? His 30 seconds of screen time was what I looked forward to the most in the early Arrow episodes!
Damien Dahrk has an actual redemption ark and you leave him off? The hell?