Honestly, I’m kind of surprised the Arrowfam isn’t more popular amongst the tumblr fandom, especially considering what I’ve seen of Batfam fan content.
(CW: Point Eight has mentions of CSA)
Reasons/Propaganda under the cut
First, Oliver Queen is the “too woke friend”. Superheroes can already be left-leaning in their central ideas and actions, but Oliver takes those ideas and fucking runs with it.
Second, Oliver is actually a good dad. While Bruce can be inconsistent with whether or not he’s canonically a good dad, Oliver pretty consistently is one. I don’t know where this idea that Oliver is a shit dad to Roy came from besides him having a bad reaction to Roy’s drug addiction, but they’ve been on good terms with Roy having fully forgiven him for years now (both real-world and in-world timeline) and Oliver was already making moves to make up for what he did by the end of the Snowbirds Don’t Fly story. Which makes sense considering a core idea of his character is responsibility. Not the “with great power comes great responsibility” type, I mean the “I used to be a really terrible person and now it’s my responsibility to do everything I can to make up for that now” type.
Third, Green Arrow and Black Canary is a genuinely good straight ship, but if that’s not your style, they also have incredibly homoerotic relationships with Hal Jordan and Barbara Gordan respectively.
Fourth, the Arrowfam has a lot of hot women, which I know is a plus for a lot of people on tumblr.
Fifth, there’s actually quite a bit of range in the moral codes of the Arrowfam. A lot of fans like to make members of the Batfam more morally gray, but I’d argue all of the core members (save for Alfred) have personal, strict no-kill codes that they really don’t want to break. Not even Jason kills anymore. Meanwhile the Arrowfam has everything from Connor’s “I’d prefer not fighting at all if I can help it” to Oliver’s “If the only way to stop you from hurting people is to kill you, then I guess I’m killing you” to Roy’s “I’ve killed for my family before and I’ll do it again”.
Sixth, the Arrowfam is hypercompetent, and not just about archery. They are hella good hand to hand combatants (and stealth operatives for that matter), Black Canary, Red Canary, and Sin in particular. Those three are walking representatives of “my hands are rated E for Everyone”. Arsenal is literally named after the fact that he can use so many different weapons. Oliver is an extremely good survivalist (in the most recent Green Arrow run, he got stuck in a different time and he essentially built himself a new life outside of the city just using what he could find) and I’m fully convinced that he taught those skills to all of his children, if not his whole family. (This section is mostly because I’m sick of seeing the opinion that the Arrowfam is just “dumber Batfam” and if I see one more person say or imply that any Batfam member has better aim than any of the Arrowfam’s archers, I’m gonna crashout.)
Seventh, if you’re uncomfortable with Batman being a billionaire—especially in these times—that is somehow not necessarily a problem with Green Arrow. There’s a shocking number of comics where Oliver doesn’t have any of his wealth. It’s almost a 50/50 shot if he’s going to actually be rich at this point.
Eighth, I’ve seen quite a few things that add Jason—for lack of a better term—selling his body for money when he was young (which has no basis in canon as far as I know (which is fine, this is fanon, do what you want)). However, if want a character with a backstory like this or a storyline about this with a bit more of a canon backbone, I’m going to direct your attention to Mia Dearden, also known as Speedy. She was canonically sex trafficked when she was a minor and is now HIV positive because of it. Oliver actually met her when she was being trafficked. (There’s more to her backstory, but I’m gonna leave it there.)
Ninth, there’s a lot more that I’m not getting into because I started typing this at 4:00am and am burning out, so here’s some miscellaneous stuff: Cynthia Lance (or Sin) has a venom thing going on now that she’s sharing a body with the magic vine thing Megaera. Sin also met Dinah when she (as in Sin) was being trained/groomed to be the next Lady Shiva (and Birds of Prey by Kelley Thompson does not milk the potential dynamic between Sin and Cass as much as I would’ve). If you’re looking for Asian rep, the Arrowfam has quite a bit of it. Lian is back so now you can choose between her being a cute 5-7 year old (Sorry, I don’t remember how old she was when the building dropped on her) or her being a teenager who spent years watching her family from afar because, for somewhat complicated reasons, she wasn’t able to interact with them. Also she took up her mom’s name Cheshire (she’s a catgirl and she has blue hair and pronouns!) and became pretty skilled on her own and when Jade found out she was alive, she didn’t tell Roy (which he was predictably pissed about when he found out). Cissie technically, kind of qualifies since she worked with the family during the most recent Green Arrow run and she got a much better hero outfit (Amanda Waller forced her to do hero work again for a little while). The Arrowfam has some pretty good designs overall, including the women—which, if you read comics, can be hard to come by sometimes. There are multiple long-lost-family stories, if you’re into that (Connor Hawke is Oliver’s son, Emiko Queen is Oliver’s half-sister, I already mentioned Lian is back from the “dead”). And other stuff that I either don’t feel like typing or don’t know about because I’m relatively new to Green Arrow/Arrowfam comics.
Point is that a lot of people are sleeping on the Arrowfam. We got both dumb fun and unashamedly political commentary, we got we got canonical gender, ethnic, sexuality (Connor’s ace btw), and combat diversity, we got found family, we got redemption arcs, we got hurt/comfort, we got dilfs and milfs, and we got all that in roughly ten characters.
Side Note: I bring up the Batfam quite a bit in this (or at least batfanon), but I’m not actually trying to make the argument that fans of the Batfam should actually be fans of the Arrowfam because 1. I like both and would prefer more people also like both rather than one or the other and 2. That depends a lot on what you like about the Batfam. I bring them up because sometimes I see fanon Batfam stuff or fanon heavy stuff like WFA and can’t help but think it’s more in line with the Arrowfam’s family dynamics. The Batfam is really good for complicated interpersonal dynamics that are hard to define using traditional familial terms and content about people who are deeply devoted to each other and love each other (for the most part), but struggle to actually be there for each other or understand each other’s needs as a result of their trauma. Which is why, if you want stuff more like WFA or angsty stuff but where the characters are actually good at helping each other, may I direct your attention to the Arrowfam? They are not without their disfunction or trauma, but damn it do they try (which is a bit more than the Batfam’s avoidant personalities can say).
CONNERS WHAT-
