Across its six seasons so far, The CW’s Arrow has ticked off pretty much every major aspect of the Green Arrow’s lore from the pages of DC comics. We’ve seen him stranded on Lian Yu, form a team of allies including Black Canary and Arsenal, face villains like Deathstroke, etc. One classic element of Green Arrow’s character that’s persistently refused to surface, though, is Oliver Queen’s traditional goatee.
Sure, Stephen Amell’s version of the character is still recognizable for his facial hair, but he’s typically sported stylish stubble instead of the goatee we all want to see. It sounds like that’s about to change, though, as the actor’s revealed that the goatee is finally coming to Arrow in season 7. The star dropped the announcement to the assembled crowd at Motor City Comic Con this weekend, saying:
“Just because you’ve been polite, and just because everyone has been so nice to me today, I can break some news for you and let you know that in Season Seven I am going to debut the goatee.”
Before you get carried away with the idea of the beard becoming part of the character’s regular look, however, Amell did warn that the goatee might not remain permanently. He also promised that he’ll never wear Green Arrow’s Robin Hood-like hat, which never left his head back in the Golden and Silver Ages.
“I can’t promise that I’m going to keep [the goatee] forever. I can definitely promise that I’m not going to wear the stupid hat.”
Amell explained that the topic of the goatee had come up during conversations about how Green Arrow’s outfit would change after the shocking revelations of the season 6 finale – that being Oliver Queen has finally been publicly outed as a secret vigilante. Given that everyone will know who he is, Ollie will have to work harder to disguise his identity.
“We’ve actually been thinking a lot, assuming that Ollie gets out of prison if he suits back up as the Green Arrow, what does that costume look like?. Because there’s no more secret identity. That cat is out of the bag. Not that it was that secret before, but we will see.”
Other changes we can expect to see in Arrow season 7 is the full-time return of Colton Haynes as Roy Harper and, for the first time ever, a member of the Bat-family will appear in the Arrowverse in the form of Batwoman. Unfortunately, we’ve now got the whole summer to wait until it returns to our screens, but suffice it to say, there’s much to look forward to when it does.