'Arrow' shoots for small-screen superhero success

• CW is going realistic and gritty, rather than campy, with its character
• Billionaire-turned-vigilante Oliver Queen will have island flashbacks
• Deadshot, Huntress, China White and the Royal Flush Gang put in appearances

Most weekdays, frequenters of a local Vancouver gym will see a new TV superhero in their midst.

Stephen Amell puts in a lot of work to look as good as he does shirtless in promotions for the new CW action drama Arrow (premiering at 8 ET/PT Wednesday), filming north of the border. And only part of his regimen is due to vanity.

"There's an element of that that's true, because it's TV, but also in the pilot I break a guy's neck with my bare hands," Amell says. "I want people to believe I could do that if I wanted to."

Amell's billionaire-turned-vigilante Oliver Queen, based on DC Comics' ace archer Green Arrow, is one dangerous dude when he puts on his green leather hooded jacket as the costumed protector of Starling City. And he's a powerful piece of male-oriented counterprogramming to CW's female-heavy lineup of Gossip Girl, 90210 and America's Top Model.

Oliver was a callow, womanizing playboy before a boat trip in the Pacific turned deadly and he was stranded on a remote island for five years. During that time, he fostered a new perspective on justice and morality — as well as some sweet skills with a bow and arrow — and returns to his hometown looking to make a difference and protect those who need his help the most.

The aim of Arrow's creators, including executive producers and comic-book fans Greg Berlanti (Everwood), Marc Guggenheim (Law & Order) and Andrew Kreisberg (Fringe), is true — to do the grittiest, most realistic superhero show ever — although television series based on comic books have a fair-to-middling record of success over the years.

While Spider-Man, Iron Man, The Avengers, Christopher Nolan's Batman films and much other superhero fare make for huge business at the theater, that success hasn't trickled down to the small screen. The 1960s Batman series is still held in high-camp regard, and Wonder Woman and The Incredible Hulk had pop-culture punch in the late 1970s. But many more have failed, including The Flash and Birds of Prey, while others, including pilots for Aquaman and David E. Kelley's Wonder Woman, never saw the light of day. (An Avengers spinoff series S.H.I.E.L.D. is being developed by Joss Whedon for ABC.)

Networks will often try to re-create that cinematic box office with comic-book adaptations, says TV historian Tim Brooks, but there are differences. "With a series, you have to have characters who viewers can live with over time, and who have relationships with each other that are interesting in and of themselves on a small screen," he says, "and that may seem ironic in a day of 57-inch screens."

Along with its soapy niche, CW has a heritage of superhero or cult shows such as Smallville and Supernatural appealing to men, says Brad Adgate, senior vice president for research at ad firm Horizon Media. Early reviews have Arrow as CW's best new show of the season, and if done well, "it could very well attract, heaven forbid, a co-viewership of young males and young females — brothers and sisters watching the same show."

No matter the gender, any audience will have to hang with Oliver Queen for as many as 20 weeks a season instead of spending two hours with Spidey. And there's one other important difference: Arrow takes the "super" out of the "hero," says Katie Cassidy (Gossip Girl), who plays Oliver's ex Dinah "Laurel" Lance. "You're not going to see any webs coming out of his hands or anything like that."

Adds Kreisberg: "The show has amazing production value, but we're not doing explosions and having aliens and Hulks and people in metal suits flying around."

Arrow's producers had plenty of DC characters to choose from to build a series around (DC is a part of Warner Bros. Entertainment, the "W" in CW), but none seemed to have as timely a raison d'etre as Green Arrow.

Introduced in an issue of More Fun Comics in 1941, Oliver Queen was up to Robin Hood-esque shenanigans and foiling wealth inequality years before phrases like "The 1%" or "Occupy Wall Street" littered headlines.

"In the 1970s, he got his 'social justice avenger' moniker from the stories of the awesome (writer) Denny O'Neil, when he lost his billions, hit the streets and fought for 'the people,' " says Ann Nocenti, current writer of DC's Green Arrow comic book.

Kreisberg, himself a former writer on comic Green ArrowandBlack Canary, felt what Arrow needed was a "movie-star-quality actor" to pull off the concept. He found a "Tom Cruise charm" in Amell, who starred on HBO's Hung and ABC's Private Practice.

Growing up in Ontario, Amell was much more into professional wrestling than comic books as a youngster, and he has based his Oliver Queen on Christian Bale's Bruce Wayne in the recent Batman movies and, oddly enough, Breaking Bad baddie Gustavo Fring.

"Oliver, when he's in his disguise and in plain clothes, is very measured all the time," Amell explains. "He fixes his gaze and that's it. I just focus on not blinking and staying in one spot."

The Arrow getup itself is extremely form-fitting, he adds, "so when you put it on, it changes your body language and things become different. It makes me stand upright and puff my chest and make a fist."

Thus far in filming, Amell hasn't fired off too many actual arrows himself, as that was deemed a bit too dangerous for the lead actor of a TV show. Instead, he has perfected his form of drawing and releasing, so they can put in a CGI arrow later, he says. "It's still believable."

His archery arsenal aside, Oliver Queen is a living weapon, and Arrow shows off Amell's physicality, including his exercises on the salmon ladder, a low-tech piece of equipment that allows for really extreme pull-ups.

Some actors need a muscle suit to make sure they look superheroic enough, but Amell's toned pecs and abs on CW promotional art speak for themselves. Oliver's burns, scars and tattoos on that bare skin also have a story to tell, that of his five years of island living that will be seen in flashbacks throughout the first season of Arrow.

"Each one of them means something, and none of that happened by accident," Amell says. "If we get a chance to go for a while, you're not going to look at that photo and say, 'Wow, they just wanted to show him shirtless.' You're going to be like, 'That makes sense in the context of the series.' "

Watching fight scenes between Amell and stunt guys is a sight to behold, even for those also acting."I felt like such a dork," Cassidy says. "I literally went, 'I can't believe you guys are doing this! I can't wait till I get a piece of this.' "

Chances are, she will; Her character is based on the superheroine Black Canary, who sports fishnets and a talent for punching evildoers. "Having read up on the comic book, the Black Canary is fierce. She can really kick some (butt), so it'll probably be really intense," says Cassidy, who already has had "a little taste" of fight training. Kreisberg teases a moment in the third episode where fans will see "a glimpse of the Canary future," but she's at least a little ways off from joining the Justice League.

"It took Oliver five years to go from roguish cad to dark warrior for justice," the executive producer says. "Anyone in the series who is going to transform into their own comic-book persona, they have to go through a similar crucible of time and pain."

In the meantime, Kreisberg promises lots of easter eggs and DC heroes and villains whom fanboys know and love, much like how Smallville often brought in reimagined characters in the Superman mythos. (That former show had its own Green Arrow, too, who was played by Justin Hartley.)

The supervillain Deathstroke's mask is seen on the island in the debut episode of Arrow, and upcoming episodes feature Deadshot (Michael Rowe), the Huntress (Jessica De Gouw), China White (Kelly Hu), the Firestorm supporting character Felicity Smoak (Emily Bett Rickards) and the villainous Royal Flush Gang.

"There are days when I wake up and I cannot believe I'm sitting around talking about Deathstroke and they're paying me to do it," Kreisberg says.

What will keep the majority of viewers coming back to watch Oliver Queen, though — much like Smallville's Clark Kent and The Incredible Hulk's Bruce Banner before him — is the fact he's relatable to an audience that has family issues, relationship strife or a desire to improve the world, Kreisberg says. So, for him overall, Arrow is more crime thriller than superhero show.

After finishing the pilot, Amell recalls asking Kreisberg what his favorite part was, and because the producer is a comic fan, the actor expected him to say it was when he put on the Arrow costume.

Instead, Kreisberg fawned over an emotional scene between Laurel and Oliver. "If you are invested in those characters, then with all the superhero stuff — all the fighting, all the costumes, all the action — you have a stake already so you'll be interested," Amell says. "We're telling an origin story where there's no seminal event. He's not bitten by a spider. This is the making of a superhero."