It’s the End of The CW As We Know It, and We’re Not Fine

With the news that The Winchesters, Kung Fu, and Walker Independence have all been canceled, it’s clear that The CW as we know it will soon be coming to an end. That’s not a huge surprise seeing as the network was acquired by Nexstar in 2022, but it still smarts. When the massive broadcast conglomerate took majority ownership of the broadcast channel, they made their intentions clear by canceling 10 series — including Legends of Tomorrow, Charmed, Batwoman, and Roswell, New Mexico — immediately. With only two current CW series, Walker and All-American, currently picked up for another season, not to mention Superman & Lois, All American: Homecoming, and Gotham Knights still in limbo, it’s all feeling very final. And, while the network has long been maligned for its campy “teen” programming, The CW was actually far more influential and impactful than people gave it credit for. 

In our world where every second blockbuster is based on a comic book — and every streamer has multiple superhero TV series — it might be hard to realize just how unusual it once was to have a successful primetime show based on comics. The CW had form with Smallville — that it brought over from The WB — but other attempts like Birds of Prey had failed. If you want to find a live action Marvel equivalent you’d have to go back 2001 with the less impactful Mutant X, and before that it was the far more beloved 70s Hulk TV series. And yet in 2012 The CW launched its DC Comics series Arrow and changed superhero TV forever. 

When Arrow became successful enough, it inspired creator Greg Berlanti and Warner Bros. to add another series in The Flash. It was there that The CW set a new precedent: Creating a connected world of linked TV series that could cross over just like the comics before them. It was clearly a reaction to the MCU, but the long-form storytelling of TV gave the creators a leg up. The fact that Warner Bros. was part owner of The CW meant untold access to 1000s of characters who, unlike Marvel’s roster, mostly weren’t tied up in licensing contracts at other studios. One of the coolest things about the immense amount of characters that The CW had access to was that it allowed the shows to reimagine many lesser known heroes and villains, something that would ultimately make The CW one of the most diverse spaces on television. 

ASIDE: Warner Bros. did have some issues with characters from film being used in the CW’s television series, leading to some weird on-screen deaths and character departures, and a distinct lack of Gotham-focused storytelling during its early years but that’s an editorial for another day.

The Flash quickly became the most watched show on the network and began to introduce broadcast TV watchers to deepcut comic book concepts like the Speed Force, Metahumans, and outrageous characters like Gorilla Grodd and Captain Cold. While DC’s live-action movies had massive ups and downs and quickly became divisive talking points, The CW crafted an expansive world which viewers could visit weekly rather than waiting years for the next installment, making these characters household names. Whether you like it or not, The CW Arrowverse shows have played a large part in keeping DC Comics characters on the map and in the public consciousness for over a decade. This was accessible comic book storytelling that could be watched for free on broadcast TV or the next day on the two ad-supported CW apps.

Sure, the MCU was making superhero movies the biggest films on the planet, but The CW was presenting a huge audience with comic book storytelling literacy as well as seeding an acceptance of just how weird and wacky things can get. With the casting of the brilliant Candice Patton as Iris West, The Flash blazed a trail for more inclusive superhero storytelling while setting the stage for the wildest, queerest, and — in this writer’s opinion — best Arrowverse show of all: Legends of Tomorrow. Debuting in 2015, the show began as a time-traveling romp led by Rip Hunter (Arthur Darvill). But the Legends quickly became TV’s queerest superhero team, reintroducing Caity Lotz as the immortal bisexual Sara Lance, and over the years filling their ship with other iconic queer heroes like Constantine (Matt Ryan), Ava Sharpe (Jes Macallan), and Charlie (Maisie Richardson-Sellers), as well as an alt-universe version of Leo Snart (Wentworth Miller). The lesser known heroes and freedom the creators were given allowed Legends to become one of the most experimental, fun, and ambitious superhero projects ever while also utilizing impactful — and sometimes emotionally devastating — storytelling.

Though grit and grime are so often at the center of “serious” superhero storytelling, Legends of Tomorrow rejected that wholesale. Vibrantly colorful, absolutely ridiculous, and totally joyful the show traversed deep space cults, killer unicorns, the French Revolution, and much, much more under the guise of superhero science fiction. It was free to fly its freak flag from the Waverider as the extremely queer crew delved into the kind of multiversal mysteries the MCU could barely dream of. The rotating cast of characters kept things constantly fresh and opened the doors to the most diverse cast of any Arrowverse series, making its cancellation a true loss for viewers. 

For folks who grew up reading comics and understanding the joy of diving into the back issue bins at your local comic shops, The CW was a smorgasbord of superheroes. In 2016, Supergirl had joined the fray, coming over from a solo series on CBS to become a major player in the Arrowverse. The show would evolve into another hub for queer representation with Kara’s sister, Alex (Chyler Leigh), and later the brilliant Nicole Maines making history as DC’s first on-screen trans superhero, Dreamer. In its later seasons, Supergirl would also use its white protagonist to give viewers a look into white privilege to varying degrees of success. “Blind Spots,” an episode written by Azie Tesfai — who plays Kelly Olson/Guardian on the series — and directed by David Paul Ramsay (known and loved for his role as Diggle on Arrow), is the most successful of these attempts, all of which highlight the network’s dedication to telling stories that matter.

Compared to the ever-lacking big screen superhero stories, the Arrowverse offered up multiple queer characters from the happily married Curtis Holt/Mr. Terrific (Echo Kellum) in Arrow to Black Lightning’s vigilante Anissa Pierce/Thunder (Nafessa Williams), who would become the first lesbian Black superhero on screen. And when Javica Leslie put on the cowl in Batwoman, Ryan Wilder became the first Black gay superhero to lead a show. 

It didn’t just set trends in front of the camera but also behind them and in production. As far back as 2012-2013, Women in Hollywood reported that “Programs airing on the CW featured the highest percentage of female characters (51%).” And that “The CW was the only network featuring female characters in accurate numerical proportion to their representation in the U.S. population.” They also noted in the 2019-2020 season that “The CW was the most LGBTQ-inclusive broadcast network, with 15.4% of series regulars identifying as LGBTQ.” In 2016 — years before Tesfai and Ramsay would tackle Supergirl’s “Blind Spots — Greg Berlanti revealed that season’s Arrow would have half its episodes directed by women and people of color and that his other shows weren’t far behind. And he was right, it only got better from there — at one point the network’s showrunners were 67% women. 

The CW was also a space for trying out new and untested concepts like multi-platform storytelling. Remember how excited everyone was when James Gunn revealed DC would be telling a simultaneous story over multiple mediums including animation and live action? The CW was doing that years ago, introducing characters like Vixen (Megalyn Echikunwoke) and the Ray (Russell Tovey) via animated canon shorts before bringing them into the fold in live action played by the same characters who voiced them. And they went just as big on their crossover events, which would become a hallmark of the Arrowverse and introduced the concept of the Multiverse to TV viewers years before Marvel or DC did the same on the big screen. 

DC Comics has long been setting the trends for the Multiverse from its annual Silver Age multiversal issues of Justice League to George Perez and Marv Wolfman’s seminal Crisis on Infinite Earths comic book event to the TV crossover of the same name. DC was the first publisher to realize that an easy way to explain away all the different and disparate parts of your decades-long publishing history was to say that it was taking place in multiple universes, thanks to writer Gardner Fox, creator of both the Justice Society and Justice League. 

While the word Multiverse is currently synonymous with superheroes for better or worse, when the Arrowverse started playing with it the term was likely unknown to most TV watchers. But by the time that Doctor Strange entered the Multiverse of Madness or three Spider-Mans appeared in the record-breaking No Way Home, millions of viewers had already seen the Multiverse collapse in The CW’s Crisis on Infinite Earths, including seeing the DCEU version of the Flash (Ezra Miller) appear to talk to The CW’s Barry Allen (Grant Gustin). The network gave audiences the space to learn about the wildest parts of comic book lore without having to leave their houses, and while doing so it introduced many viewers to the joys of reading comics. 

Saying goodbye to The CW means that we’ll lose this extremely unique space for lower budget comic book storytelling. After all, would Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa’s chaotically brilliant Archie series Riverdale ever have been greenlit for a streamer like HBO? Unlikely. Which would have been a deep loss for those of us who love campy horror and ambitious sci-fi storytelling. In fact, some of the shows that were made for the now defunct DC Universe app would have likely thrived on The CW where they failed on the burgeoning entertainment hub. That was proven when Swamp Thing debuted on the network to great numbers after being canceled on DC Universe. Even outside of the comic book world, it’s hard to imagine another channel where the network’s longest running show — the outrageous Supernatural — could have had 15 seasons. 

The CW ending this way is a deep loss for fans of genre TV, inclusive storytelling, and weird comic book stuff. It’s also hard not to look at the choice as part of Zaslav’s trend of cutting diverse storytelling and programming at Warner Bros. Discovery. With the end of The CW as we know it and programs like Riverdale, Legends of Tomorrow, and Supergirl, we’ve lost a legion of LGBTQ and PoC representation in one fell swoop. For that to happen in any genre or space is gutting, but in on screen comic book adaptations — where films and tv have struggled to even keep up with the still imperfect representation in the comics — it is devastating. Over the years, The CW became a hub for exciting, experimental storytelling, and an inclusive talent incubator which launched the careers of many brilliant actors and creators. And now that’s all gone. 

Whatever your feelings about The CW may have been, the real truth is that viewers didn’t know how good they had it with the ambitious, inclusive, campy, and groundbreaking TV that The CW put out, and people likely won’t realize until the network as we know it is gone forever. 

Rosie Knight is a contributing freelancer for IGN covering everything from anime to comic books to kaiju to kids movies to horror flicks. She has over half a decade of experience in entertainment journalism with bylines at Nerdist, Den of Geek, Polygon, and more.