Arrow Season 5 Spoilers From TV Guide Magazine!

Comic-Con is beginning in San Diego today, and at the convention (and newsstands everywhere) fans will be able to get a special Comic-Con issue of TV Guide Magazine.

Arrow didn’t get a cover this year, but there is a multi-page feature by the magazine’s Damian Holbrook with some quotes about what’s coming in Season 5. SPOILER ALERT!

Here are some highlights:

• “When we come back in Season 5, it’s overrun with crime,” Executive Producer Wendy Mericle says about the state of Star City, which has become a soft target for gang activity and corruption.
• Russia is indeed in the flashbacks, and the Russian Mafia will be causing drama for the new crop of vigilantes in Star City.
• With Diggle and Thea having departed (don’t worry – they’ll be back), Mericle says “Oliver’s going to have to go out and find some new people.”
• We will have a real origin story for Mr. Terrific in Season 5. Echo Kellum (Curtis) is now a series regular.
• The producers would love to bring Colton Haynes back as Roy. “If Colton’s available and we can make everyone’s schedules work, we would absolutely do it,” Mericle says.
• Oliver and Felicity were “the only two people left in the bunker,” which the producers felt was “symbolic” at the end of Season 4. Regarding the state of “Olicity” because of that, though? “We deliberately left it ambiguous,” she says.
• Season 5’s villain is someone that Oliver “unwittingly created when he was a killer in a hood.” He lost someone because of the Hood and has planned his revenge for several years. “He will be a dark mirror to Oliver Queen,” Wendy says.
• Will we get a third Black Canary? “I can’t say too much about that,” Mericle tells the magazine. “I can say with confidence that, in Season 5, our decision will make more sense… even to the fans who were really vehemently opposed to it.”
• Laurel’s last words will be revealed in the Season 5 premiere.

Elsewhere, Marc Guggenheim has an interesting thing to say about Laurel in the Legends of Tomorrow section, when asked if Katie Cassidy could be showing up on Black Canary there. “No, that conflicts with other plans we have… he said, intentionally misleading and hopefully teasing,” Guggenheim says. Hmm.

You can get your Comic-Con TV Guide Magazine now; a fantastic job was done by all.