John Barrowman is creating his own Arrow comic book
The Torchwood star is joining forces with his sister Carole to tell the back story of DC villain the Dark Archer
He's already written a spin-off for Captain Jack, and now John Barrowman is creating a comic series based on another of his favourite characters.
The Torchwood star is teaming up with his author sister Carole to write a new digital comic for DC series Arrow, revealing the back story of his character Malcolm Meryln – aka the Dark Archer.
It's not the first time John and Carole have worked together: the pair wrote their own Captain Jack Harkness comic expanding on the story of the Doctor Who and Torchwood character.
Now, they've got DC Comics in their sights.
Barrowman says that the digital prequel comic has been planned to tie in with the Arrow TV series, shown on Sky1 in the UK. "It’s Malcolm’s backstory," he told TV Insider. "It opens between Seasons 3 and 4 of the TV show and then we flashback. Readers will learn about a younger Malcolm and how his past is… well, killing him."
"Let’s just say that Malcolm has had at least one other identity and his slightly vague and sinister past gave us lots of creative room to play around in," Carole adds.
John Barrowman has built up an impressive history of taking his TV characters in new directions, having been closely involved with the recent Torchwood audio dramas.
Oh, and then there was that Tardis dress he wore to Dragon Con last year... See? Nothing if not a trendsetter.
Even so, it's safe to say teaming up with DC ranks pretty highly in his list of achievements.
"Seriously, I think this project carried more responsibility for us because of the canon we were building on, but it also has to be one of the coolest things we’ve done together," John said. "After we got the go ahead Carole was in Milwaukee, where she teaches at Alverno College, and I was filming the show in Vancouver and every few hours we’d text each other: 'DC! DC!'"
