Is Deathstroke leaving Arrow (again) due to DC’s feature films?

Is Deathstroke leaving Arrow and its greater universe in the near future? Consider this another reminder that sometimes, DC stinks when it comes to how they limit some of their most-popular characters within the TV world.

Earlier this season on Arrow season 6, we got three appearances from Manu Bennett as Slade Wilson and his occasionally-evil alter ego. Bennett is in our mind the perfect Deathstroke — he has the capacity to be warm and welcoming, but can easily access this darker energy that makes his dangerous, mysterious, and downright terrifying. His killing spring in “Deathstroke Returns” has to be one of the most badass sequences we’ve seen on Arrow over the past six years.

We feel like if Arrow producers and Bennett had it their way, we’d see a lot more of Slade Wilson than we do. Unfortunately, the character is being used within the DC film universe at the moment — there was a Deathstroke cameo at the end of Justice League — and because of that, the character is heading onto the shelf once more.

For more on that, take a look at what executive producer Marc Guggenheim had to say recently (per ComicBook.com) while at ACE Comic Con:

“These are DC’s characters, we’re just renting them ya know, so we use the characters that they tell us we can use when we can use them, and we work around whatever limitations that places us … For a time they were saying ‘you can’t use Deathstroke’, and that changed and we were able to have Slade Wilson back on the show, and now we’re back to ‘you can’t use him’. They’re working on the feature film version, it really is sort of now that you’ve got obviously Slade, spoiler alert, Deathstroke appears at the end of the Justice League movie.”

The one small bit of good news at the moment is that Slade is still alive and, with that, there are chances to see him again down the road. It’s just a shame that silly rules — or possibly fears that the TV Deathstroke would outshine the movie one — are limiting how much one of Arrow’s best characters gets to appear on-screen. We suppose we shouldn’t be complaining too much given that at least Slade didn’t get the Deadshot or Amanda Waller treatment.

Who else do we want to see back on Arrow this season?

If you head over to the link here, you can see a full list of characters from past seasons who we’d like to see make some sort of return trip!

Meanwhile, like CarterMatt on Facebook right now in the event you want some additional insight regarding Arrow, plus many of the other shows we cover at the site. (Photo: The CW.)