There is an interesting Question that has come up while thinking about the Differences between Arrow and The Flash
“Why do Villains on the Flash generally work, but they do not on Arrow? Even though its the same Guy sometimes?”
The Answer to this question is surprisingly simple, yet complex.
Lets first of all take a look on what kinds of Villains exist.
In the broadest and most basic sense possible, there are 2 kinds of Villains:
The first one beats the Hero because his Abilities and Physical Capabilities are greater than the Heroes. Sometimes this is achieved by just being, stronger or faster. Sometimes it’s archived by being the better fighter or just by having powerful abilities.
An example for that would be Killer Croc who is able to overpower Batman with pure strength.
Or if you prefer Marvel, you may recall the so called “Abomination”.He was the villain in the second Hulk Movie.
Generally these are the ones that are harder to write for because most of the time their Motivation and methods are very simple. Hence why we see less and less of the pure Physical threat and shifted more to the second one.
The second kind of Villain is a bit more complex than this..Its the smart one. The cunning one. The villain who does not attack the Hero physically but mentally. Who outsmarts him, weakens him and slowly destroys him..
The smart villain is interesting because he needs nothing more than his own wits. I remember when Doctor Otto Octavius was barely more than a walking corpse.
He was not even able to move anymore..He was dying..
I may not like it but i have to admit, to end of days..
Doctor Otto Octavius beat Spider-Man.
The smart villain is the one we as the Audience see the most. They are the ones who can be most similar to the Hero, even a close friend or ally. They hold this infinite Potential while maybe being so Normal.
I am sure you all can name more of those than of the first type.
But that has another reason: Over the years, these villains started to blend into each other.
Somebody like Bane is not only stronger than our hero but also a brilliant Tactician, using it to wear the Batman down.
Magneto is not only a brilliant Man but also the Master of Magnetism.
But how does that help our initial Question?
Well we need it to understand that whats most important about a Villain is the setup.
It is easy to fall into a trap and think a villain just works because he is powerful or he does not because he is not powerful enough.
I see this daily in stories. People try to make up this Leviathan of a Villain, something the hero can only barely overcome..if even that.
Yet nobody buys it. Nobody believes it for a second.
Because of how it was set up.
Lets take a simple example to show you what i mean.
When we talk about simple evil, the most basic Villain Motivation possible, it is necessary to mention the Anti-Monitor.
I will not bore my Readers with “Backstory you do not care about but need to know to understand this”.
The Anti-Monitor wanted to eat the DC Universe.
And there was not a single Thing the Heroes could do.
No. There was no deep motivation for him. No “I do it to be whole” kind of thing.
He just wanted to eat our Universe because that was his purpose. Thats what he wanted.
And there is nothing more to it.
And no, you could not reason with him either. He did not care about us. He had no “good core” or “Appreciation for Life”.
He was Death. The end of Worlds.
And if you think about it..Thats beautiful.
It is the most simple Villain i can think about. He is not smart. He has no grand plan.
He just wants a single thing and is powerful enough to get it.
You are no food to him. Not even spice or decoration.
He is not giving a damn, the slightest trace of thought about you.
And that’s all there is to it.
But the pure grandeur, the pure scale of it make it enough. Its enough for everybody to unite, for everybody to stand up and fight. Not necessarily because they believe they can win
Not even to save their own lives.
It’s because that’s what Heroes do.
This simple Motivation, that simplistic Villain still manages to make our Heroes shine in the brightest light possible.
Because the setup shows you: This is important. This villain is important.
And he is something we should care about.
But that’s not always an option. You cant just threaten to destroy the Universe every time you want to make a Villain look epic.
Even though too many people do that..
No. Its about scale. If you want to make a Villain a threat to a single person or team, you have to look at what that Hero/Team can do.
Because here we start to answer our Question.
Why do villains work on The Flash but not on Arrow?
For that let’s examine this scene from when Zoom first fights Barry allen:
Zoom is basically the first type of Villain. He is not necessarily smarter than barry or the rest of the team.
But he is better. He is faster, has more control over his speed and is more experienced.
At the beginning of the Fight barry is not scarred. He is confident in himself. If you remember: The team even made up a plan to defeat Zoom. A good one
Confidence. The believe that we can overcome every opponent. Thats what the entire beginning of the episode is all about.
The true setup of Zoom begins at 1:25 when he catches Barry’s lightning.
We had not seen that before. We did not even know it was possible.
But for Zoom? It was nothing.
And then, within a Minute the mood suddenly changes.
We see Zoom just whaling on Barry, beating him harder and harder, making him bleed and suffer. The feeling of hope, the smiles, everything just starts to vanish..
Zoom shatters our Hero by literally breaking his spine, taking the thing away that defines the Flash:
But Zoom is not done. He drags Barry to all the Places we hold dear. To his friends, his allies, the ones who could protect or serve the City with his help.
And he shows them what he has done.
Zoom wants to show the Team, the World and the Audience that he won. That he is the better Speedster. Not because of a trick or because he cheated or something..
No.It was because Barry is weak.
And at this point he drives home the point. He leaves us at the end of the episode, just like he leaves the Team.
I remember just looking at the screen and asking: “How do you beat..THAT?!”
Keep in mind. I know the Comics. I know what Barry can do.
But even i was just blown away.
And that’s what i mean by setup. They used Zoom in the most effective way possible. They set it up in a way where the Audience felt absolutely certain that Team Flash could win.
They made the Team come up with a smart plan, let Barry become faster than he ever was, learn all this new cool Abilities.
Only to show us that it was not enough. That we as the team and the audience are not done. We still have to get better, have to evolve.
And they did it by breaking us.
It elevated Zoom from a Man with a Mask to a Monster. To something we can not ignore, something that haunts us.
It turned Zoom into the Villain.
And that's why Flash Season-Villains always come off as so good. They are always set up big, strong and as a serious threat, while never making the Heroes look incompetent. Quite the Contrary actually:
The Heroes always look like they are on top of their game..Till the villain shows them that they have seen nothing yet.
While i can not show a special clip or give a special instance i can show you what i wrote about a plan from Malcolm Merlyn once
If you read through it, you will quickly notice on just how many “what ifs” and “maybes” this plan relies.
And even more important: On the Team and Oliver Queen being incompetent.
This is the cardinal sin commits all the time even with their most basic One-off villains.
There are 2 ways to make a Villain look big:
Either by making the Team absolutely Competent but the villain just a tick better..(the right way)
Or by making everybody except the Villain stupid and giving the Villain all kinds of shit to make him powerful. (the wrong way)
Every single Villain except Malcolm in the first season and Deathstroke till the middle of the second, fell into this trap. Whenever Arrow makes a Villain he is almighty by default and their Heroes are just powerless and incompetent. Even Deathstroke as a villain fell apart halfway through.
Prometheus is now so awesome that he can completely defeat Team Flash (at least in terms of security), knows everything about the Waverider, Sara Lance, the Legends of Tomorrow, Team Flash, Zoom, alternate Realities AND the secret Pipeline. And that’s before you remember that he apperantly knows every detail of Laurel Lance life, including the fact that she was the Black Canary. And Alcoholic.
He also knows every single thing about Team Arrow, including their Secret Identities ,the location of their Headquarters AND the names on Oliver's list.
Yet he refuses to just go in there and place some bombs, instead preferring to literally abduct somebody incarcerated in a secret prison, guarded by a Man who can run THROUGH TIME, without anyone noticing. And then putting this person in a position where she has to spy for him ON A TEAM HE KNOWS EVERYTHING ABOUT!
And not once in this entire scheme does Team Arrow ever act in anyway competent.
And this keeps on happening:
Hell does anyone even remember this guy?!
Yes. Thats the guy who had no superpowers, was out spoken to no be a meta..And yet let people take a shot at him when he fought them. Who literally had been shot into the head..And it did little to nothing to stop him.
Do you see what i mean when i say that they are totally overblown?
We as the audience can not possibly care for this.
If the villain is so powerful, so great than there is a question left for us:
“Why does he not just kill the hero?”
With the Flash we figured that out when we realized that Zoom is dying. We found out that this Man has a weakness and that only the Hero can cure him.
None of that. At any point they could have just walked in and killed everybody. No reason why they let the hero live.
So the hero can overcome him.
And when we as the audience realize that there is nothing at stake, that there is nothing we can loose; or that this Loss is just there to have one?
When Laurel died the second biggest complain after killing her was how she died.
Killed by some random albino motherfucker with magic powers.
When Savitar kills Iris we are invested because Savitar is such a great Villain. We are invested because we feel like there is something at stake. And that the only way to win is to go all in.
Just remember how the Flash beat Zoom.
He raced him. Outsmarted him. And then used the rules we established so far for time travel, to his advantage.
He used everything he got.
No great win. No epic conclusion.
It’s not that Flash just feels bigger because it incorporates time-travel, multiple universes and all that stuff.
But rather because it does everything it can to make us feel invested and welcomed. To make every Villain feel like the next step, a threat to overcome. A dragon to slay.
Arrow does none of this. It has no dragons to slay. Only small fires that quickly burn out..
And that’s why Villains work on the Flash. And not on Arrow
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