No matter how much fans love them or how hard a studio fights to keep them around, sometimes
the actors on superhero shows simply can't continue saving the world week in and week
out. Keep watching to find out why the following actors left the superhero world behind.
In March 2019, news broke that Arrow's upcoming eighth season would be its last. The show
ultimately led up to Oliver Queen heroically sacrificing himself to save his allies from
the Anti-Monitor and help form a new multiverse in the massive crossover event "Crisis on
Infinite Earths." The actor behind Mr. Queen, Stephen Amell, explained to fans in an emotional
Facebook video that he'd told Arrow producer Greg Berlanti at the end of season six that
he wanted the seventh season to be his last. His decision was informed by the demands on
his life outside the show, which was fitting as his character had become a husband and
father.
"It had always been my hope that we would know when we were gonna finish this journey
and not limp to the finish line, so to speak."
Amell ended up extending his run on the show for one final season, though season 8 was
only 10 episodes, less than half the count of all previous seasons. In the series finale,
Oliver's friends and loved ones honor his life, and before the credits roll, we see
him reunited with his wife Felicity in the afterlife.
By Legends of Tomorrow's fifth season, Brandon Routh was one of the only series regulars
from the show's first season still left on board the Waverider. But he wasn't destined
to stick around forever. The Season 5 episode "Romeo v. Juliet: Dawn of Justness" saw Routh's
character Ray Palmer leave the Legends for good, along with Nora Darhk, played by Routh's
real-life wife Courtney Ford.
In August 2019, Legends producers told Deadline that Routh and Ford were leaving due to what
was characterized as "a creative decision to wrap up their storyline." But when Routh
spoke to Entertainment Weekly in March 2020 about how things were handled, it was clear
that he wasn't happy about it. He said that he wasn't a part of the discussions to have
his character exit the show, and that considering the years he'd spent playing Ray Palmer,
"It made what could've been a happy, positive exit, the opposite."
One saving grace was that the crossover event "Crisis on Infinite Earths" gave Routh the
chance to once again play Superman, whom he first portrayed in the 2006 film Superman
Returns. As Routh told EW,
"It was an amazing experience...It made all the difference. I honestly don't know what
would've happened to season 5 of Legends of Tomorrow if that hadn't been offered."
Just a couple of days after Batwoman's first season concluded in May 2020, Batwoman herself
announced that she would not be returning. Ruby Rose, the actress behind the title crimefighter,
didn't cite any specific reasons for her departure. It didn't take long, though, for speculation
to spring up around the Internet. One possible reason presented was a back problem that Rose
had endured during the show's filming. In September 2019, she revealed that she'd suffered
a spinal injury while performing stunts for the show that proved serious enough that she
needed emergency surgery to stop her spinal cord from being severed.
While it would be understandable if that serious of an injury would dissuade Rose from continuing,
anonymous sources have since come forward to claim that it actually wasn't a factor.
A day after Rose announced her departure, word arose that the reason had more to do
with her demanding work schedule. Variety reported that multiple sources claimed that
Rose wasn't happy with her long hours on the set, and that unhappiness led to friction
between her and the rest of the cast and crew. The decision for her to leave was apparently
a mutual one agreed upon by Rose, The CW, and Warner Bros.
Only a few weeks after the announcement that Arrow's eighth season would be its last, Emily
Bett Rickards told fans that the final season would move forward without her. She played
Felicity Smoak, Oliver Queen's partner and longtime love interest who eventually became
his wife. In a rather unique way to announce this kind of thing, Rickards let her fans
know with a poem on her Instagram. A couple months later, she was blunt about not wanting
to return for the Arrow series finale. She told Collider,
"I don't know if anybody is going to like what I'm saying, but I feel like Felicity
has done her time. We knew this was coming for a while, for over a year, so the whole
thing is exactly what we wanted to happen. I trust the writers, and that's in their hands."
Thankfully for fans of Felicity, Rickards ultimately changed her mind. While she was
still absent for most of Arrow's final season, she did return long enough for the finale
for Felicity to reunite with Oliver Queen in the afterlife.
"I wanted to be where I first saw you."
When Time Master Rip Hunter disappeared after Legends of Tomorrow's second season, it was
more than a little weird considering that he was the guy who assembled the ragtag group
of heroes in the first place. Legends without Rip is like Charlie's Angels without Charlie.
It just doesn't make sense. Arthur Darvill eventually returned to play Rip as a recurring
part, and in the season 3 finale Rip sacrifices his life for the Legends in their battle against
the demon Mallus.
It turns out that Darvill left the Waverider to help bring a conclusion to another series.
A few years before Legends premiered, Darvill played Reverend Paul Coates on the British
crime drama Broadchurch. To be a part of Broadchurch's third and final season, he had to exit Legends
entirely. In 2016, he told Digital Spy,
"They were very kind on Legends, Broadchurch is something that's been going on for a while,
so they had to work around that. I was so pleased to finish off that journey on Broadchurch."
After Rip Hunter's ultimate sacrifice in 2018, Legends showrunner Phil Klemmer spoke fondly
of Darvill while also noting that the show had grown beyond the initial concept that
included Rip. As he told ComicBook.com,
"Our love for Arthur Darvill exceeds our need for his character."
In the middle of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s third season, two of its most popular characters
said goodbye. In the episode "Parting Shot," Agent Phil Coulson is forced to
disavow Agents Bobbi Morse and Lance Hunter after the two are caught spying on a secret
Russian facility.
"Maybe Bora Bora?"
"Ooh."
"Think we'll be followed there?"
"I don't know. I think it'll be a long time before anybody in the intelligence business
trusts us."
Nick Blood, who played Lance, would return briefly for a season 5 episode, but Adrienne
Palicki hasn't returned to play Bobbi again.
At the time, neither Palicki nor Blood expected to be saying goodbye to their characters for
good. Their departure from S.H.I.E.L.D. was meant to act as the introduction to a new
series called Marvel's Most Wanted. Unfortunately, after watching the pilot, ABC executives passed
on the new show. As ABC Entertainment President Channing Dungey put it,
"Most Wanted, ultimately at the end of the day, did not feel as strong as some of the
other pilots that we shot. We talked about it with Marvel and we all came to an agreement
that we want to figure out what the next show is that we do together, is something that
we all feel is as creatively strong as it can be."
That decision left Palicki and Blood entirely without a Marvel home. When Entertainment
Weekly asked S.H.I.E.L.D. producers about the possibility of Palicki and Blood returning,
it sounded as if the show had moved on. As Jed Whedon put it,
"Once an agent, always an agent, so it's always out there in the ether. But right now we're
taking a breather."
Mehcad Brooks was one of the original series regulars on Supergirl. As James Olsen, he
started off as an early love interest for the show's Kryptonian hero. Over the course
of the series he went from his more familiar role as a photojournalist to the vigilante
Guardian, and eventually he became the Editor-in-Chief of CatCo.
In July 2019, news broke that Brooks would be leaving Supergirl in the middle of season
5. Entertainment Weekly noted Brooks' desire to focus on movies, as well his development
of another show and his work on writing a book. It didn't take long before a couple
of the projects Brooks had in mind were revealed. In August of 2019, it was announced that he'd
been cast in the upcoming big screen Mortal Kombat reboot. Then in January 2020, he starred
in the Tyler Perry Netflix original A Fall from Grace.
In Arrow Season 1, Roy Harper is little more than a street thug.
"Don't fall for every sob story a guy like me tells the police."
But by Season 3, Colton Haynes had been promoted to a series regular and Roy had become the
Green Arrow sidekick Arsenal. But he wouldn't be a regular presence for much longer, as
Haynes left the show when the third season ended, with Roy's storyline wrapped up with
him faking his own death. In 2016 Haynes told Entertainment Weekly that despite building
his career since the age of 15, he left Arrow because his health was at risk. As he put it,
"I asked to step away because I cared more about my mental and physical health than my
career at the time. I've had terminal anxiety my entire life. Physically ill, fainting.
I'm 27 years old, and I have an ulcer. I had to step back."
Ultimately Haynes' decision apparently proved to not only be the best thing for him, but
the best thing for Arrow as well. In 2018, Haynes was doing well enough to return to
the show as a series regular for the final two seasons.
On the face of it, there's no mystery to Vondie Curtis-Hall's departure from Netflix's Daredevil.
He played Ben Urich, the newshound who gets killed by Wilson Fisk late in the first season.
But it was a particularly shocking death to fans, as the character is such a mainstay
in the comics.
The death was so surprising, in fact, that it led to an urban legend. As Brian Cronin
wrote in his "Comic Book Legends Revealed" column for CBR, some viewers thought that
he was killed off because of some kind of rights issue. That presumably had something
to do with Fox's ownership of Daredevil's movie rights, which supposedly would've left
Marvel unsure if it would be able to use the character after the first season. Now, it
might sound strange that Marvel would be able to use Daredevil but not Ben Urich, but the
legend persisted nonetheless. The matter was addressed when Daredevil showrunner Steven
DeKnight spoke to The Hollywood Reporter in 2015. He revealed that the decision to kill
Urich was made before he was brought on board and that it had nothing to with any rights
issues. The idea, as he put it, was:
"...to let the audience know that the gloves were off: just because he was a beloved character
in the comics, doesn't mean he's safe."
In Flash Seasons 2 and 3, and part of Season 4, Keiynan Lonsdale played Barry Allen's friend
and eventual sidekick Wally West, also known as Kid Flash. The young hero then jumped on
to the Waverider for Legends of Tomorrow's third season to give his time-hopping friends
a hand. But in June 2018, Lonsdale took to social media to let his fans know that his
time as a series regular in the Arrowverse was over.
"The city was about to blow up. No one realized I wasn't here."
Lonsdale noted that he'd "changed a lot" in the previous year, presumably referring to
his publicly coming out as bisexual in 2017. As he wrote on Instagram,
"For infinite reasons my perspective on life & what I want from it now is just completely
different. Because of that, my heart told me it was the right time to continue my journey
on an unknown path, and I'm so damn grateful to both shows for honouring & respecting that
with me."
But while Lonsdale was no longer a series regular, the Arrowverse wasn't completely
done with him. Most recently, he returned for the Season 6 Flash episode "Death of the
Speed Force."
Check out one of our newest videos right here! Plus, even more Looper videos about your favorite
superhero stars are coming soon. Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell so
you don't miss a single one.