While many viewers may be hoping that the CW’s Arrow will be another Smallville, there are some basic differences between the shows.  For one thing Arrow will be a lot darker, billionaire playboy Oliver Queen has been damaged by his experiences, and unlike Smallville’s Clark Kent (Tom Welling), Queen doesn’t hesitate to kill the gangsters that control the underworld of Star City.  Secondly, no one in Arrow will have superpowers.  While it was true that, especially at first (see "No Flights, No Tights"), Smallville played down (or at least limited) Clark’s superpowers, they were present from the beginning and expanded as the series progressed.

 

Arrow producer Marc Guggenheim made it clear to ZaptoIt that Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy is his template for Arrow: "Chris Nolan took Ra’s al Ghul, somebody who in the comic books is literally immortal and has supernatural elements to his character, and presented him in a more realistic manner--took his immortality and gave it a sort of real world twist in Batman Begins. Same thing with Bane, who has superpowers in the comics, is presented as just a man in The Dark Knight Rises."

 

Another difference from Smallville will be the absence of big name DC Comics guest stars.  As Guggenheim put it: "I think as far as big names like Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, Hal Jordan, and Diana Prince, we are going to shy away from that, especially at first because we want to establish Oliver Queen as our hero and out lead."

 

The new three-and-one-half minute trailer uses footage that has, for the most part, been seen in previous trailers, but shapes the material artfully to present the premise of the new series, which is focused on the vigilante mission Oliver Queen undertakes after his five-year stint marooned on a remote island where he honed his remarkable archery skills.