Warning: The following contains SPOILERS for Crisis on Infinite Earths: Part 3 and Green Arrow: Quiver
The Arrowverse event Crisis on Infinite Earths seems to be taking inspiration from Green Arrow: Quiver, which is widely considered to be the best Green Arrow storyline of all time. While not a note-for-note adaptation of the classic comic book miniseries, Crisis seems to share more elements with Quiver than coincidence could account for.
The end of Oliver Queen’s heroic journey has been a long prophecized part of Crisis on Infinite Earths and Arrow season 8. During the Elseworlds event in 2018, Green Arrow offered his life to the cosmic being known as The Monitor in order to prevent the deaths of The Flash and Supergirl. The Monitor accepted this bargain, saying that Oliver Queen would help him in preparing for the coming battle before his inevitable death, saving the multiverse. This came in the first chapter of Crisis on Infinite Earths, when Oliver sacrificed himself to buy his allies more time to evacuate Earth-38 before it was destroyed by a wave of anti-matter.
Green Arrow’s allies weren’t content to let him rest in peace, even before The Monitor said this was not how Oliver was meant to meet his end. They searched the multiverse for a working Lazarus Pit, which could restore life to Oliver Queen’s body while leaving him a soulless, savage being. This necessitated an additional quest, with warlock John Constantine leading Oliver’s best friend John Diggle and daughter Mia Smoak into Purgatory to retrieve his soul. However, before they could restore Oliver completely, they were confronted by a man named Jim Corrigan, who revealed that Oliver had died so that he could become the new host of The Spectre; a being of divine vengeance, whom Corrigan had previously hosted.
The quest to reunite Oliver Queen’s soul and body also lay at the heart of Green Arrow: Quiver. Originally published in Green Arrow #1-10 in 2001, the story was written by filmmaker Kevin Smith to bring Oliver Queen back to life and restore him to a prominent place in the pantheon of DC Comics’ heroes. Oliver Queen had originally sacrificed himself to save the people of Metropolis from a terrorist attack in the Where Angels Fear To Tread storyline in 1995.
The plot of Quiver centered around a mysteriously resurrected Green Arrow, who had no memory of the past few years of his life or his death. Eventually it was revealed that the new Green Arrow was a hollow; a body without a soul, which possessed the memories of Oliver Queen up to a certain point. This “hollow Ollie” had been created by Oliver’s best friend, Hal Jordan, who tried to resurrect his fallen friend using the cosmic power he acquired as Parallax, before going on to sacrifice himself to save the Earth in the Final Night event. The two friends would meet again in the afterlife, along with their friend Barry Allen, as Hal Jordan (who had taken over the mantle of The Spectre by this time) attempted to fix his mistake and convince the departed Oliver to return to Earth to inhabit the hollow body.
Beyond the resurrection storyline, Quiver is also notable for introducing the character of Mia Dearden; a homeless youth whom Oliver Queen adopted and eventually trained as the second Speedy. Mia Dearden inspired both the character of Thea Deareden Queen (Oliver’s younger sister on Arrow) and Mia Smoak, the daughter who is taking up the Green Arrow mantle for herself as part of Crisis on Infinite Earths. It may be a bit convoluted in its execution, but Arrow has finally adopted the greatest Green Arrow story ever for the Arrowverse.
More: Crisis On Infinite Earths: Every New World Made Arrowverse Canon
