There's been some complaining about the CW's new superhero series Arrow. I've heard complaints about cheesiness, about actors, but the complaint that had me the most intrigued was the city's name: why would they change the comics' perfectly good Star City into Starling City? So I did some digging. And some reading. And came up with a hypothesis. Those of you who have Mike Grell's 1987 Longbow Hunters run may have realized by now that Arrow is channeling Grell pretty directly. Longbow Hunters was keystone for a number of reasons. It was the first time comics saw Green Arrow deliberately take a life, making a blatant shift from his trademark gadget arrows to plain old broadheads designed for one thing. The character was never referred to as Green Arrow; in fact, the whole time Grell wrote the character there was no real mention of superheroes. If Ollie ever interacted with other characters from the DC universe (Hal, for example) it was on a man-to-man basis, not as heroes. He never wore a mask. And Grell decided to move the character to Seattle, a city notorious for its uncontrollable population of...starlings. So my theory is that, as a nod to Mike Grell and the way he helped shape the character, the CW has opted for a name that echoes the city we all associate with the character but has a referential connection to the setting Grell chose for the Emerald Archer.