‘Arrow’ season 2: Boss not concerned over ‘Agents of SHIELD’ comparisons

The age of the comic-book show is now upon us, but are all superhero shows created equal? In one corner, we have “Arrow,” which may be by our estimation one of the best shows ever in this genre. Then, we also have one of the most-hyped in Marvel’s “Agents of SHIELD,” which has had its moments but has also surprisingly been a bit boring at times during its first-season run.

So is there some sort of secret battle between the hero shows for supremacy? Don’t count on it. As “Arrow” showrunner Andrew Kreisberg notes to TVLine, he is really more concerned with just trying to make the adventures of Oliver Queen as interesting and addictive as possible for viewers at home:

“We don’t really feel like we’re in competition with anybody else … We’re only trying to outdo ourselves as we move forward.”

Kreisberg also is quick to highlight all of the superhero projects that are also coming up that are leading to a renaissance of sorts in this genre: You have Fox bringing forward a “Gotham” series that is a prequel to the “Batman” saga, and there are proposed series out there about Constantine, Hourman, and The Flash, which is produced by Kreisberg and stars Grant Gustin in the role that he made famous on “Arrow” in the first half of this season.

For “Arrow” moving forward, the biggest challenge is arguably going to be trying to make sure that the story does not get all about superpowers now that we are starting to see some of that introduced into the world. At the moment, Roy Harper and Slade Wilson represent the good and bad side of characters with powers, and it is not even necessarily guaranteed that Roy is going to be good now that he has the new sort of “Spider-Man” “great power and great responsibility” situation.