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Sep 03, 2017
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As memes become increasingly popular on social media, there’s virtually no celebrity, movie or television show that is safe from the text-based form of ridicule. Shows like Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl and Legends of Tomorrow are particularly susceptible, thanks to their far-fetched storylines, undeniably cheesy moments and diehard fandoms that never miss a detail. You see, on the flip side, the ones surrounding small screen entertainment are often made by fans in jest. As they use imagery and over-powering text to address something that they themselves find funny about whichever show they fancy and more often than not, the meme gains traction because it resonates with other dedicated viewers too.
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So really, it’s a form of flattery if your show has garnered millions of memes, right? Not only do they act as amusing talking points for people with common interests, they’re ridiculously easy to make too. All you need is an app and a small amount of wit. But it’s not that simple to make your meme supreme; they’ve got to have a sense of truth about them. Like these do… Behold 16 of the dankest — or if you’re not-so-well-versed in all things Urban Dictionary, best — Arrowverse memes the internet has to offer!
16. FRIENDZONE FLASH
It became glaringly obvious in the show’s very first episode, that Barry Allen has had a crush on his friend Iris West since they were childhood friends. But while they might be a loved-up pair in The Flash now, that wasn’t always the case. It took a pretty long time for Iris to realize her feelings for Barry were more than platonic.
Seeing as Barry has an extensive history of traveling back in time and altering the timeline for his own personal gain, fans tend to jokingly question why he didn’t do it in order to make Iris love him sooner. Or perhaps he did? Barry has changed the timeline on so many occasions now, it’s hard to know whether Iris would have ever truly falling for him in his original one. Oh, Barry.
Despite being close to billionaire Oliver Queen since he was a young boy, Star City police captain Quentin Lance didn’t work out that he was actually the Green Arrow until the end of the show’s third season. Despite Oliver’s skills when it comes to covering his tracks, we think fans could agree that that’s pretty lousy going for a detective.
What makes that storyline even more ridiculous, is the fact that Lance deduced who Roy Harper was because he wears a red hoodie all the time (and has shot a few arrows in his time). Wasn’t so obvious with Oliver though, despite the character owning a club called Verdant — which quite literally means green — and the titular vigilante showing up shortly after he arrived back from Lian Yu.
Every time someone tells Barry Allen to run in The Flash, it’s always worthy of a giggle. For a hero whose only real power is super speed, you’d think he’d know by now what he’d have to do to defeat whichever baddie he’s up against without being told. And yet, in the show, he always seems to ask his allies — particularly Harrison Wells, or whichever version of him it happens to be at time, more accurately — what his best move is.
Thankfully, one fan called The Flash out on its repetition, with a meme that sees Barry constantly demanding battle tips from an increasingly exasperated Wells. “Barry… you do one thing…,” he ends up replying. We’ve all got the idea, it’s time the Scarlet Speedster does too.
Since it was released in August, Netflix’s The Defenders has become a hot topic on social media. So when we discovered this Iron Fist-based Arrowverse meme, we couldn’t help but add it in to this list. Every DC Comics fan knows that Oliver Queen likes to refer to himself, in the third person, as the Green Arrow a lot. In The Defenders, Danny Rand does the same as he constantly mentions to those around him that he is the Immortal Iron Fist.
The similarities don’t just end there either. Both are highly trained in hand-to-hand combat, particularly martial arts, and both were isolated from their families for years while they learned those skills. They both grew their hair and developed facial hair too, as this meme likes to point out.
In both The Flash television series and the comics, Barry Allen’s favorite hobby is undoubtedly disrupting timelines, so most humorous memes that feature on the character focus on that aspect. It shows Grant Gustin’s eponymous character looking very worried, as the meme sarcastically states: “That’s a nice timeline. It would be a shame…if someone…messed it up.” As each part of the sentence is spoken, it zooms in a little closer on Gustin’s face with brilliant comedic effect.
Something tells us Barry won’t take heed when it comes to these memes himself though, and when The Flash returns to the small screen in October, he’s sure to start messing up those timelines yet again. He just can’t get enough! Although, maybe his time in the Speed Force will have finally put him off.
In Tropic Thunder, Robert Downey Jr plays Kirk Lazarus, an Australian method actor who undergoes controversial “pigmentation alteration” in order to play a black army sergeant. In one of the film’s most memorable scenes, Lazarus — as the sergeant, who himself is impersonating a rice farmer — explains to Ben Stiller’s character Tugg Speedman: “I’m the dude, playing the dude, disguised as another dude!”
This meme hilariously parallels that character with The Flash’s Harrison Wells, who was actually revealed to be Reverse-Flash himself, Eobard Thawne, having assumed the identity of dead scientist, Wells. Played by Tom Cavanagh, Wells has had many versions on the show, including Earth Two’s Harry and Earth 19’s HR, so Cavanagh certainly is a dude, playing another dude, disguised as another dude.
The best kind of memes are often the silliest and this one is no exception. It features Arrow characters John Diggle (David Ramsey), Roy Harper (Colton Haynes) and, of course, Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) as well as a quick cameo from The Flash’s Barry Allen, which acts as the basis of its gag.
The top image — which only stars Dig, Roy and Oliver — has been brightened to give the illusion that the trio were photographed using the flash. Meanwhile, the second — which features a grinning Grant Gustin aka Barry — is much darker. They didn’t need the flash because The Flash is already in the shot, right? Okay, we know it’s cheesy but it’s a classic pun that is sure to get a smile out of fans.
When the Legends of Tomorrow found themselves up against Damien Darhk in the show’s second season, Caity Lotz’ Sara Lance practically begged Rip Hunter to let her go back in time and save her sister Laurel from being killed by the smug supervillain with supernatural powers. As expected, Rip lectured her about the repercussions of them altering timelines due to their own personal vendettas, despite the fact that his own was the reason the group got together in the first place.
But in reality — yes, literal reality — Rip couldn’t allow Sara to do such a thing was predominantly because Laurel was a character in Arrow, not Legends, and that show’s writers had her killed off for a well thought-out reason. It would be too much of a pain for them to have to awkwardly pencil her back into Arrow’s storyline, just so Sara could have her vengeance.
Most comic book enthusiasts revel in fans finding a way to crossover the two giants of the genre; Marvel and DC. This meme does just that. It depicts a photograph of Melissa Benoist’s Supergirl and Grant Gustin’s The Flash with the words: “I’m sorry, Oliver.” The other half is a picture of Stephen Amell as the Green Arrow alongside the caption: “So was I.”
The text has been lifted straight from Captain America: Civil War, when, towards the end of the film, Cap tries to stop Iron Man from killing Bucky Barnes aka The Winter Soldier. In an emotional scene, the former explains to his fellow Avenger that he’s “sorry, Tony” and that he “wouldn’t do this if [he] had any other choice.” He continues, “But he’s my friend,” as Stark replies: “So was I.”
Long before Wentworth Miller and Dominic Purcell began playing Leonard Snart aka Captain Cold and Mick Rory aka Heat Wave on The Flash, the duo starred in the crime drama Prison Break together. So it’s understandable that a fan got a bit confused when they saw them in the back of a police vehicle in the show!
Snart and Rory went on to become such popular figures that they also became leads in Legends of Tomorrow, opposite the likes of fellow existing characters such as Ray Palmer, Martin Stein, Jefferson Jackson and Sara Lance. The acting buddies’ former glory days were referenced on the show when Snart stated: “This isn’t my first prison break,” before embarking on a mission in the fifth episode of the first season.
Who’d have thought assassin Floyd Lawton aka Deadshot was a such a fan of pop music? In Arrow, Lawton — who is brought to life by Canadian actor Michael Rowe — tattoos the names of each of his victims onto his body. Heck, it’s an easy way for him to keep track of his accomplishments for when he needs to send off his invoices, we suppose!
In this funny meme, it depicts an image of Lawton’s ink-filled torso and arms alongside the lyrics: “I’ve got a blank space baby, and I’ll write your name” from the Taylor Swift song, “Blank Space”. While it’s certainly more ominous to see a killer next to those words than the track’s actual take on messed-up relationships, it sure makes for an entertaining social media share.
If social media is anything to go by, Starbucks employees find it difficult to write even the simplest of names on their customer’s coffee orders. So we’d like to see them attempt to jot down merely ‘Barry’ or ‘Oliver’ when the duo love to give a little more detail to their titles. Somehow, we don’t think “I am the fastest man alive” or “for five years, I was stranded with only one goal… survive” etc, would fit on a takeaway cup.
Okay, so we all know it’s just a way for the brand to get free advertising — they’re not really stupid — but heck, it’s still pretty funny whenever they fluff up an easy name like Simon or Barbara. We’d like to see the baristas try and get Arrow or The Flash’s intro, word-perfect. One thing’s for sure, they’d have to order a venti.
While fans love to mock Barry Allen for how many times he messes up the timeline, the heroes in Legends of Tomorrow regularly travel back to significant points in history and muck things up too. The only difference is, fans seem to love when they do it! This Joker makes that very point as they candidly write: “Legends of Tomorrow mess with the timeline all the time and no one bats an eye, but when The Flash does it, everyone loses their minds.”
Additionally, they seem to take issue with the fact that the Legends can change things throughout time and it have no ripple effects while merely going back to certain points in his life seems to alter things for The Flash. “Legends of Tomorrow mess with timeline all the time and nothing happens,” the meme maker says. “But when The Flash does it, everything goes crazy.”
Before season four was released back in 2015, Arrow’s executive producer Marc Guggenheim said that the show was set to take on “a lighter tone” going forward. He continued: “I think that one thing we all collectively understood was season three beginning with Sara’s death, because it’s the death of a major character on the show, it set a tone for the remainder of the season. “I’m not the least bit apologetic for that tone. I like the fact that Arrow is a pretty dark show.”
Turns out, that season four was actually one of the most emotional seasons yet, culminating in Team Arrow being completely fractured after trying to defeat the magic-wielding Damien Darhk, and the tragic death of Laurel Lance. This meme perfectly sums up how fans felt, looking back on Guggenheim’s initial comments.
Legends of Tomorrow’s second season was awesome and that’s largely down to the fact that the show brought together some of the Arrowverse’s best villains to act as its main antagonists. Malcolm Merlyn, Damien Darhk and Eobard Thawne teamed up to become the Legion of Doom, despite none of them being members of the villainous group back in the DC Comics.
One Legend of Tomorrow who was famously linked to the Legion back in the comics was Captain Cold. But sadly, Snart couldn’t hang with the aforementioned trio because he’d previously sacrificed himself at the end of season one. (Don’t feel too sorry for him though. He does get to join the crew eventually, when Thawne travels back in time to recruit pre-Legends Snart in order to carry out their dastardly schemes).
Superheroes often have many names due to them so often having normal life alter-egos as well as a world-saving alias. In both comics and TV shows, they sometimes have nicknames too. For example, The Flash is frequently referred to as the Scarlet Speedster and Supergirl, the Girl of Steel.
Throughout Arrow’s run though, Oliver Queen has been given so many names, it’s hard to keep track. He’s been Arrow, the Green Arrow and Al Sah-him, during his brief time living at Nanda Parbat. This meme takes it even further too, as it spills into actor Stephen Amell’s personal life. It shows him dressed as Superman and Batman when he was a young boy, as well as Tarzan. Who’s to know who the real Stephen or Oliver are anymore after seeing all that!
Do you know of any other hilarious Arrowverse memes? Let us know in the comments!
