To Arrowverse dominated television for over a decade. Long considered the premiere form of superhero and comic book TV until the likes of Marvel Studios and Amazon Prime Video got in the game, it all started with Arrow on The CW when the show took over from Smallville, becoming the first linear and straightforward superhero show on television in far too long.
From that grew a universe (or multiverse) full of spinoffs like The Flash, Supergirl, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, Batwoman, and Black Lightning, as well as adjacent spinoffs DC’s Stargirl and Superman and Lois.
In the decade-plus since Arrow‘s debut, all of those primary Arrowverse shows have now ended. While it was hoped some of those shows’ endings would launch new beginnings, new ownership at The CW and Warner Bros. Discovery resulted in the cancellation of some, the beginning of the end for The Flash and the unjust end of the Arrowverse in general.
The eventual conclusion of The Flash has officially brought about the end of the Arrowverse (though its legacy lives on in Superman and Lois).
On that note, let’s look back at some of this world’s characters. Over the years we have fallen in love with plenty of heroes, villains, and everything in between. However, we’ve also disliked some of those characters too. Whether it be infuriating regressions or just far too much screen-time, these characters just haven’t clicked with fans like the creative teams wanted them to.
Fans always love to voice their feelings, so which characters became the most disliked among the Arrowverse fandom?
11. Cicada I
You want depth from your bad guys? Sadly you won’t find it from The Flash season 5’s main villain.
On paper, Cicada was actually a well put-together villain, so he really should have worked. Moreover, with his black hooded cloak, Bane-like mask, and lightning bolt-shaped dagger that dampened all nearby metahumans, he had an awesome look that made you understand why people feared him. Heck, he even had a solid backstory for his metahuman-slaying (his niece Grace was injured during The Thinker’s Enlightenment, so he vowed revenge on all metas).
The thing that let Cicada down was how it was all executed. He would show up in every episode attempting to kill a member of Team Flash, get defeated, vow revenge and then fly off. He was allowed to do that week in and week out, making for an endlessly repetitive season. And even though his backstory was good, it wasn’t revealed until too late in the season, so most of the time he just came off as a one-note villain mumbling the same old lines on repeat.
Chris Klein did what he could with the role, but The Flash season 5 had too many episodes so it just dragged the bland character’s arc out for far too long, missing an opportunity to give us a truly great villain.
10. Donna Smoak
Of all the characters on the Arrow wishlist that fans wanted to see through the years, Donna Smoak was not one of them. While she was played brilliantly by the amazing Charlotte Ross, the character was goofy, over-the-top, and added layers of daytime soap to a season of Arrow that was already weighed down by its melodrama.
This isn’t shade to the character herself, because most of the time she was fine. The issue that fans had with the show’s overreliance on her was the fact that it was just another way to make Arrow season 4 all about Felicity (don’t worry, we’ll get to that later). Donna was just a symptom of a wider problem that Arrow was going through at the time.
As great a character as Felicity was in the beginning, her downfall as a character led to the downfall of Arrow in general, and bringing in her family members for more than one episode was just a reminder of that. Throw in the fact that Donna started a relationship with Quentin Lance that went absolutely nowhere, and fans were just left wondering what the point of her character actually was.
Ross was fantastic in the role, but the show made Donna far too important of a character when it just wasn’t necessary.
9. Evelyn Sharp
Fans just couldn’t take to Evelyn Sharp on Arrow. No matter what storylines she found herself involved in, she just drew the ire of fans watching the show. As she ultimately became a secret villain in season 5, that’s not surprising.
It didn’t help that her introduction saw her steal the Black Canary’s costume after her death and nearly end up desecrating her memory, but even after that, fans just did not like her.
However, shaky introduction aside, the strong reaction to the character was actually a good thing, because it proves the writers nailed the assignment. In fact, fans did grow quite fond of her when she joined Team Arrow and took on the mantle of Artemis. And that made her shocking betrayal of Oliver and the team (and alliance with Prometheus) all the more disheartening, feeding the audience’s distaste for her all over again.
The character was presumably killed off off-screen during the destruction of Lian Yu at the hands of Prometheus, which was a little disappointing given how much time Arrow had invested into making her such a polarizing character. Nevertheless, Madison McLaughlin understood the assignment and played the infuriating character to perfection.
8. Mon-El
Mon-El developed into one of the Arrowverse’s great heroes, but it wasn’t always like that. Introduced in Supergirl season 2, the former Prince of Daxam was arrogant, infuriating, and really quite selfish. It was the result of living a life of luxury on Daxam, treating those around him like they were less than he was. While he didn’t necessarily do that during his early days in National City, it took him a long time to overcome his former way of life.
It was clear that there was good in Mon-El, but Supergirl didn’t always succeed in showing that. Yes, he grew into a much better person, but some found his backstory to be too extreme, so it was hard to forgive him for what he had done. And the fact that he lied to Kara about it also drew ire from fans, much more than it seems the writers were anticipating.
There was no denying the chemistry between Mon-El and Kara, but it seems that the relationship was doomed because of some of those creative choices. Thankfully, he grew a great deal (thanks in no small part to Kara’s influence) and helped save the world from his arrogant parents before going on to become one of the 31st Century’s most beloved heroes.
7. Vandal Savage
While Cicada had an interesting backstory on paper, the same can’t be said for Vandal Savage. That’s a name that strikes fear in the hearts of DC fans, but his Arrowverse interpretation was, well, less than stellar.
Portrayed by Caspar Crump, Savage was the villain of the second annual Arrow /The Flash crossover and he was a serviceable one at that, providing a strong enough threat to bring all of Team Arrow and Team Flash together. But then he was resurrected as the major villain for the first season of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow and things went downhill from there.
The problem with Savage was that there just wasn’t anything interesting to go on. He was an immortal tyrant intent on keeping that immortality alive. And to do that, he had to find and kill Hawkman and Hawkgirl every time they were reincarnated. It was all very surface level and did little to make him feel like anything other than a mustache-twiddling evildoer committed to evil deeds.
Fine in the short term (thanks to a wickedly devilish performance from Crump), Savage’s weaknesses showed when they increased his role in Legends‘ first season. Fans just didn’t take to him and thought he was a disappointing debut antagonist for a show that would find its strengths when it found a healthy balance between serious and silly.
That didn’t stop it from getting too silly from time-to-time, though…
6 and 5. Chester P. Runk / Allegra Garcia
We’re ranking Chester and Allegra together because, honestly, they were perfectly fine additions to The Flash when they both debuted in season 6. Chester was the socially awkward-but-lovable guy who accidentally stumbled onto Barry Allen’s secret, while Allegra was the edgier young woman who formed an unlikely bond with Nash Wells. Unfortunately, any originality that the pair brought had evaporated by the eighth season.
The show sacrificed any kind of meaningful development they underwent to instead shoehorn them into a romance. While they certainly have chemistry and are admittedly cute together, the show refused to actually put them together, attempting to pull off a will they/won’t they romance that took up way too much screentime.
By the time the final season of The Flash rolled around, Chester and Allegra were still taking up valuable screentime and the audience simply did not care enough about their would-be romance. It was also infuriating that the decision was made to kill off actual important Flash characters like Frost and Caitlin Snow while keeping them around.
These two had so much promise when they were introduced, but they were never meant to be main characters, so giving them too much screentime just to take their romance around in circles was literally wasting all of our time.
4. Mona Wu
Season 4 of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow is among the most disappointing seasons of the Arrowverse. While nowhere near as problematic as Arrow‘s fourth season or as frustrating as The Flash‘s seventh, it was a rare blemish for a show that was widely regarded as the Arrowverse’s most consistent at the time.
One of the biggest issues with that season was Mona Wu. She was initially a very enjoyable new aspect of the series, with her friendships with Nora Darhk, Ava Sharpe and Mick Rory among the most endearing parts of the season. But the more spotlight that she got, the more frustrating it became. Initially expected to become a love interest for the already goofy Gary Green (before she just became his good friend), she was also incredibly goofy and it just made a season that had already leaned too far into silly territory lose itself a little in the senselessness.
She was also a Kaupe (the result of being scratched by Konane) but her transformations into her alternate personality (a.k.a. Wolfie) lacked convincing CGI, which was just another disappointing element of the character for fans.
I personally liked Mona a lot, but season 4 of Legends of Tomorrow did push her a little too heavily to the detriment of the show.
3. Cecile Horton
I feel really bad putting Cecile on this list because she was one of my favorite recurring characters throughout the first four seasons of The Flash. In fact, the idea to make her a secret weapon in the war against The Thinker was inspired. However, the second half of the show’s run, fans have grown weary of Cecile’s repetitive storylines, invasive observations and, quite frankly, corny writing.
By the time the show concluded with its ninth and final season, she had less depth than ever, with her desire to be a fun-loving superhero overwhelming any potential in her storylines. She’s not a serious character, which is frustrating because she was more serious when she was featured in a recurring capacity.
Cecile was at her best when she has more grounded storylines, and Danielle Nicolet was an always-enjoyable part of the show. Unfortunately, the writers stopped caring about what Cecile would actually do in situations and turned her into a cartoonish-over-the-top character destined for little more than goofy storylines and a supporting role in the infuriatingly repetitive Chester and Allegra subplots.
She was a lot of fun when she was written right. But that hasn’t happened in a very long time, and fans regularly cite the mishandling of the character whenever talking about the weaker aspects of The Flash.
2. Chillblaine
Mark Blaine, a.k.a. Chillblaine, first made his presence felt in The Flash‘s seventh season when he became a potential love interest for Killer Frost. Arrogant, good-looking, and charming, he clearly had chemistry with the Team Flash hero, but that’s about it.
The show did very little to make Mark a strong character beyond his relationship with Frost and it was only when she died that he started to grow as a character. That is, until season 9 made him betray Team Flash and wanted audiences to believe he was a hero who deserved to be saved when he did very little to suggest that was the case.
I personally didn’t have that big of a problem with Chillblaine until season 9, but it’s easy to see where the fans were coming from. A relatively two-dimensional character that was fun from time-to-time, it was nice to see him get a little depth in the back half of season 8, but that wasn’t enough to justify making him a main character in a final season already overstuffed with meaningless characters. And the way he has acted throughout the Arrowverse’s final season has not justified that decision.
He was fine in small doses, but like with everything The Flash has done post-season 6, he was just another missed opportunity.
1. Felicity Smoak
It’s hard to believe that we ever made it to this stage because Felicity Smoak was once a breath of fresh air. A beloved, enjoyable addition to Arrow, she brought some much-needed levity to the show’s darker days, and Emily Bett Rickards was a delight in the role – so it was no surprise that Team Arrow’s reliable, lovable, tech-wiz became a series regular for season 2.
Unfortunately, the creative team failed to realize that you can, in fact, have too much of a good thing, so when Felicity graduated from supporting character to main character in season 3, the quality of the Arrowverse show significantly declined. Now Oliver’s love interest, the writers were forced to retcon the comic-accurate Oliver and Laurel romance that was clearly the show’s initial endgame, to force Felicity to the front of the show. When that happened, it became about Felicity, and only Felicity. And not even the great chemistry between Rickards and Stephen Amell was enough to save it.
The humor, heart, and overall fun that Felicity brought to the show had evaporated by season 4 and fans grew weary of her inconsistent writing. Within a year, Felicity managed to make the kidnapping of Oliver’s son all about her, ruined Barry and Iris’ wedding rehearsal by publicly arguing with Oliver because she didn’t want to get married, and then subsequently interrupted their wedding to announce that she actually wanted to marry Oliver at the same time.
With Felicity it was all about her. It was only about her. And as a result, one of the most enjoyable characters on the show became its worst aspect. Forget the Dark Archer, Felicity Smoak was Arrow’s biggest enemy.