‘Arrow’ Returns January 16 With Firefly. No, The Supervillain.

The snarkfests that are our Arrow liveblogs will be returning in two weeks with the show itself, but until then, here’s the Arrowverse take on a Gotham arsonist. Damn, he’s ugly. So what’s Firefly’s deal in this show?

The episode, tastefully titled “Burned”, guest-stars Andrew Dunbar, who fans of Stargate Universe or Tower Prep might recognize underneath the makeup. Keeping in an ongoing theme with this show, this Firefly is not a former visual effects artist and raving pyromaniac nutcase, but instead somebody who got severely screwed by Starling City’s inept and corrupt government.

Which, frankly, is a huge improvement since the original Firefly was inspired to get his name from Batman being dumb enough to mistake a glowing insect heinie for a lit cigarette. Why, yes, he was first introduced in the ’50s. How’d you guess?

It’ll be interesting to see how a kind of flat villain from the comics will be translated to the small screen. It looks quite a bit like the Arrow team is giving Firefly a little dimension, which is fairly welcome from this show.

Now, if he can just burn down Queen Manor and take everybody but Ollie and Diggle out, that’d be great. Maybe leave Quentin alive as well.