Arch Enemy / Arrowverse

"We're enemies, rivals, opposites, reverses of one another."

"You will always be my greatest enemy. On any Earth. It's written in the stars."

— Lex Luthor to Clark Kent, Crisis on Infinite Earths (2019)

Arch Enemies in the Arrowverse.

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Arrow

• Oliver Queen, through his many disguises, has earned the mutual ire of many dangerous foes, but the biggest in his Rogues Gallery are:
  • Malcolm Merlyn, Oliver's first personal enemy, and the one who was most similar to him as an Evil Counterpart as a man who lost himself to the darkness; its a small wonder why Merlyn calls himself the "Dark Archer". Being responsible for sinking the Queen's Gambit, and leaving Oliver stranded on Lian Yu for years, Malcolm played a huge role in ruining Oliver's life and setting him on the path of becoming the Hood. In their rivalry, Merlyn has been responsible for the deaths of three important people in Oliver's life, and manipulating Thea against Oliver multiple times. Even after he and Oliver came to an Enemy Mine against Ra's al Ghul, Merlyn ended up betraying Oliver to H.I.V.E. after he gets humiliated from being beaten in a League challenge, resulting in Oliver cutting off Merlyn's hand and stripping him of the title of Ra's al Ghul. Things are so personal that, during said duel, Malcolm makes it clear that the only way their feud will end is when one of them is dead. Merlyn would ultimately perish on Lian Yu performing a Heroic Sacrifice for Thea, but Oliver makes it clear that, inspite of his sacrifice, he will never bring himself to forgive Merlyn.
    • Oliver's adversial relationship with Malcolm was further complicated by the paternal slant added to it. Malcolm was the father of Oliver's best friend Tommy (and, as he later learned, his sister Thea), and, prior to the death of Rebecca, acted like a favorite uncle, or even a second father, to him. Even after Malcolm grew cold, he still had some fatherly affection for Oliver, regarding him as Like a Son to Me, and deeply regretted his "death". Ultimately, part of their animosity is driven by this facet of their relationship. In Malcolm, Oliver sees all the qualities he hates about himself, and it's implied Malcolm is partially resentful of the fact that, out of all three of the Queen/Merlyn progeny, the one most similar to him and also has the most potential is the one that does not share so much as an ounce of his blood.
  • Slade Wilson, a.k.a Deathstroke, who served as a much more personal enemy, with the most crushing blow being when he killed Oliver's mother in front of his eyes. At first friends, Slade was set on a never-ending vendetta to ruin Oliver's life after being injected with the Mirakuru serum, since the serum caused him to blame Oliver for causing Shado's death. However, Oliver more-or-less accepted the fact that what happened with Slade was partially his fault for not telling him the truth about Shado's death when he had the chance, and was happy to leave Slade imprisoned instead of killing him due to their formerly close relationship. This decision leads to Slade working the Mirakuru out of his system, feeling remorse for his actions against Oliver and forming an alliance with him against Adrian Chase that reignites their old comradery.
    • It's also worth noting that Oliver and Slade are also part of a line of "Deathstrokes" and archers that share an animosity. Before them, it was Yao Fei and Billy Wintergreen, and, after them, it could be Connor Hawke and Grant Wilson in a possible future.
  • To avenge his father's death at Oliver's hand, Adrian Chase, a.k.a Prometheus, terrorized Star City and killed several innocent people, recruited people into turning against Oliver (such as having Black Siren impersonate her Earth-1 counterpart, Oliver's First Love), manipulated Oliver into killing Felicity's boyfriend, psychologically tortured him to the breaking point, and eventually forced Oliver to turn the city against his superhero identity, branding Green Arrow a criminal. Meanwhile, under the guise of a False Friend, Chase buttered Oliver up to gain his trust, aiding him as one of his closest confidants within his administration and even helping Diggle get out of military prison. Once the charade is broken, the two don't even try to hide how much they hate each other, making it very clear that their war will only end when one of them is dead. A deed completed with Adrian's attempted Sadistic Choice of either Oliver killing him to set off bombs on Lian Yu where all of Oliver's loved ones are present or letting him kill Oliver's illegitimate son William, so when Oliver saves his son, Adrian shoots himself in the head. In fact, Oliver is even willing to ask for help from Malcolm and Slade, as he's that desperate to beat Chase.
• Malcolm Merlyn is also high on many people's hit list, but is chiefly a menace to:
  • Moira Queen, who he had a brief affair with after the death of Rebecca, resulting in Thea. Years later, he sabotaged the Gambit, resulting in her husband Robert's death, and then coerced her into the Undertaking by threatening to do the same to Thea and her new husband Walter. She eventually betrayed him the night his ambitions were to take fruition at the behest of Oliver, and when he tried to force her into telling Thea that he was her father, she told Ra's al Ghul (who was not happy with Malcolm after the Undertaking) that he was still alive, making her the indirect cause of every misfortune that has befallen him post-Season One.
  • Nyssa, who dedicated her life to bringing Malcolm down after he killed Sara. When Malcolm becomes Ra's al Ghul, Nyssa did everything in her power to overthrow him, even destroying the Lazarus Pit to spite him. Eventually, Malcolm came to hate Nyssa too, willing to betray a truce between them when she had offered a cure for his daughter's life. In the "Doomworld" altered reality, the only thing Malcolm used the Spear of Destiny to do that did not benefit him whatsoever was to banish Nyssa to a miserable, closeted life in Ohio, just to stick it to her.
  • Even his own daughter, Thea, who he brainwashed into killing Sara Lance in his gambit to end his debt to Ra's al Ghul, which also deepened Nyssa's hated for Merlyn, has it out for him. Thanks to his refusal to give up leadership of the League for her and handing Oliver's son William over to Damien Darhk, she rejected him.
• Floyd Lawton, a.k.a Deadshot, was this to John Diggle for killing his brother, Andy. However, his Noble Demon tendencies later endeared him to Diggle and they eventually came to an understanding that lead Lawton to sacrifice his life to get Diggle home to his family. Ironically, Andy would become Diggle's foe after it was revealed he faked his death to join H.I.V.E., until, more ironically, Diggle himself would end up killing Andy.
• Detective Quentin Lance had Barton Mathis, a.k.a the Dollmaker, a particularly brutal criminal he sealed away prior to the start of the series, only to escape from prison during the Undertaking. The feeling was mutual as Mathis captured Lance and attempted to kill his daughter Laurel in front of him, only failing because Sara turned up and killed him.
• Damien Darhk is this to all of the Original Team Arrow for, among over crimes, threatening Laurel to get Lance to join H.I.V.E., ruining Oliver's mayoral campaign, crippling Felicity and leaving her paraplegic, kidnapping Oliver's illegitimate son William, and turning Diggle's brother against him. After he kills Laurel purely out of spite, it doesn't take long for all of Team Arrow to bitterly hate him and want him dead above all else.
  • Darhk was also Ra's al Ghul's nemesis, having been his friend before they became rivals for the title of "The Demon's Head". While they havn't interacted in the proper sense, Ra's entire plan to destroy Star City was not only to ensure Oliver's ascension as his heir, but to kill Darhk as a bonus.
• Next to her father, Thea's biggest enemy is Lonnie Machin, a.k.a Anarky, a criminal with a Villainous Crush on her, who would go out of his way to involve her in his schemes, culminating in him killing her crush, Alex Davis, to remove him as an obstacle to Thea's heart.
• Felicity Smoak dubbed Brie Larvan, a.k.a the Bug-Eyed Bandit, as her nemesis after she gave her a run for her money in hacking, and is also personally targeted by her when she decides to seek out the chip Felicity uses in her spine to regain the use of her legs when Larvan learns she will be crippled by surgery on a tumor in her spine. She also had a rocky relationship with her father, Noah Kuttler, a.k.a the Calculator, before his Heel–Face Turn.
• Dinah Drake had Sean Sonus, for killing her cop partner and lover. She spent three years hunting him on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge, until she killed him, only to quickly gain another nemesis in the form of Laurel Lance's Earth-2 counterpart, the Black Siren, ironically for the same reason as Sonus, until the two were able to bury the hatchet to honor Quentin Lance.
• Due to his machinations to create a criminal empire for himself, Ricardo Diaz quickly became the arch foe for Team Arrow as a whole, especially after he orchestrated events to get Oliver in jail, caused the team to briefly fracture from mistrust and poor communication, murdered Quentin Lance, and forced Oliver into the position of ousting his secret identity and surrendering to the FBI's custody. After he personally attempts to murder her and William to hurt Oliver, Felicity in particular grows to utterly despise Diaz, to the point that she tried to kill him while he was in police custody.

The Flash (2014)

• Barry has almost as many as Oliver. Ironically, despite being the nicer and arguably more compassionate of the two, a strong argument could be made that Barry hates his arch-enemies more than any other lead in the Arrowverse hates theirs.
  • Eobard Thawne, a.k.a the Man in the Yellow Suit, a.k.a the Reverse-Flash. Thawne murdered Barry's mom, framed his dad for it, and then manipulated Barry's life under the guise of "Dr. Harrison Wells". He is Barry's most personal enemy, and their destinies are so intertwined that one cannot exist without the other, thus they will never be fully rid of one another — a fact that only makes them hate each other more. Even when talking about his other hated enemies with his daughter Nora, Barry makes it clear to her that Thawne is the one he hates the most, especially after Thawne manipulated Nora into saving him from his execution at Iron Heights in 2049, resulting in that version of Nora being Ret Goned. Thawne would prove to be such a great enemy to Barry that he also mirrors him in being the avatar of the Negative Speed Force, in contrast to Barry being the champion of the Speed Force.
  • Leonard Snart, a.k.a Captain Cold, was identified as the Flash's "nemesis" by Thawne. He was certainly a persistent and dangerous foe, being the first to utterly defeat Barry, then torturing Cisco to learn the Flash's identity, to finally tricking Barry into an alliance just so he could betray him. However, their animosity declined after Barry saved Snart's sister from their abusive father, and, after Snart ended up pulling a Heroic Sacrifice for the Legends, he and Barry become straight up become Friendly Enemies when Barry time travels to before his death to ally with him.
  • Earth-2's Hunter Zolomon, a.k.a Zoom, who pulled the same trick as Thawne did by impersonating "Jay Garrick" (the Earth-3 counterpart to Barry's father, no less) and presenting himself as an ally all so he could steal Barry's speed to cure himself of Velocity poisoning. As Zoom, he beat the crap out of Barry several times, once breaking his back and humiliating him in front of all of Central City. Then there's what he did to the rest of Team Flash: he kidnapped Jesse Wells to blackmail Harry into helping him and betraying the rest of the team, kidnapped Wally to force Barry to give up his speed, and then kidnapped Caitlin to invoke Stockholm Syndrome on her, traumatizing her and leaving her with PTSD. And, for the final finishing touch, he murdered Henry Allen in the very same spot where Eobard Thawne murdered Nora Allen, right in front of Barry's eyes. After that, Barry wants Zolomon deader than dead and looked very ready to do the deed, inspiring a deep hatred in him that not even Thawne was capable of. While Barry ultimately didn't kill him (though he was very close to doing so), he did engineer the events that led to the Time Wraiths subjecting Zolomon to a Fate Worse than Death by becoming the Black Flash, who would still haunt Barry as an agent of the Speed Force. When he encounters Zolomon again during a time traveling adventure, Barry instantly turns cold and makes it clear time has not healed what Zoom did.
  • After Snart leaves with Rip Hunter, Grodd takes his place as Barry's top non-speedster enemy, being a constant thorn in the Scarlet Speedster's side and his most dangerous non-Arc Villain enemy. By the time "Attack on Gorilla City" happens, Grodd has forgone all former attachments and his sole concern is getting revenge on Barry for exiling him to Earth-2 by any means necessary. Barry even contemplates killing Grodd to end his evolving threat, which Grodd even encourages him to do, seeing it as the only way to "end it" between them. Eventually, the events of Crisis on Infinite Earths (2019) cause Grodd to have a Heel–Face Turn, and he and Barry form a truce that boils down to the two agreeing to leave each other be instead of becoming allies due to their history as adversaries..
  • Clifford DeVoe, a.k.a the Thinker, who was remembered as being among the Flash's biggest enemies by Abra Kadabra and the Reverse-Flash. In his quest to begin the Enlightenment, the Thinker subjected the Flash to defeat after defeat with his superior planning and intelligence, with the biggest blow being when he framed Barry for murdering him, ruining his reputation as a CSI and sending him to Iron Heights Prison. Once it seems that he killed the Elongated Man after successfully killing all the other meta-humans he promised to protect, Barry comes to regard DeVoe with a loathing that rivals that of his with Zoom and Thawne.
• Joe West had the Mardon brothers, later known as the Weather Wizards. Clyde killed Joe's partner, and Joe eventually killed Clyde in defense of Barry. Unfortunately, Mark Mardon did not take the death of his little brother well, and goes gunning for Joe until Barry alters the timeline and Mark's vendetta goes unresolved and eventually forgotten, with the elder Weather Wizard turning his animosity solely towards the Flash.
• Aside from the hatred for Eobard Thawne he shares with Barry, Cisco Ramon originally had Hartley Rathaway, a.k.a the Pied Piper, but after Barry alters the events of The Sound and the Fury, Hartley undergoes a Heel–Face Turn and becomes an ally of Team Flash until the cosmic reboot of the Anti-Monitor Crisis, which leads to another heel face turn.
  • Though Played for Laughs, Cisco also treated Russell Glosson, a.k.a the Turtle, as his biggest enemy, having partaken in a "secret war" against him for months, but Glosson doesn't even know Cisco exists.
• General Wade Eiling was the arch-enemy of Firestorm, but only the Martin Stein/Ronnie Raymond fusion. After the Reverse-Flash hands Eiling over to Grodd, Eiling turns his resources towards stopping Grodd instead of further hunting Firestorm.
• In the "Flashpoint" timeline, Wally West had Edward Clariss, a.k.a the Rival, for an arch foe. However, in the main timeline, Kid Flash has yet to develop a personal animosity with an adversary.
• Savitar is this to Team Flash as a whole, having found a way to irk off every one of them. Case in point, in a possible future, after he murders Iris, Savitar cripples Wally both physically and mentally, corrupts Caitlin beyond recovery, and more-or-less breaks Team Flash until Present!Barry gets them back together. This is taken even further once it's revealed that Savitar is a time remnant of Barry who turned evil.
• Abra Kadabra is this to Gypsy for killing her former lover among many other people. He also implies that he will one day become one for the Flash in the future that is his own past.
• During her time as XS in the present day, the Pre-Crisis Nora West-Allen gained an animosity with Joslyn Jackam, a.k.a Weather With, with Joslyn playing a part in the key developments in Nora's character arc before she was erased from existence by Eobard Thawne.
• Allegra Garcia had her cousin Esperanza Garcia, a.k.a Ultraviolet, until Esperanza was killed taking revenge on the Black Hole syndicate.
• Iris West had Eva McCulloch's Mirrorverse doppelgänger, the Mirror Monarch, who imprisoned her in the Mirrorverse and replaced her with an impostor.
• In the post-Crisis timeline, August Heart, a.k.a Godspeed, is the arch-nemesis to Bart Allen, a.k.a Impulse, Barry and Iris's future son and Nora's little brother. While Bart treats everything like a joke, Godspeed is the only foe capable of causing him to get serious, because of him murdering Bart's mentor and Honorary Uncle, Jay Garrick, in front of him, though Jay is eventually revived by time travel shenanigans.
• Cecile Horton has Rosalind Dillon, a.k.a the Top.

Constantine

• John Constantine has Papa Midnite (a Voo-Doo crime king and John's Evil Counterpart in magic), the demon Nergal (who killed Astra Logue and took her soul to Hell in an exorcism gone wrong after John summoned him), and Neron (who possessed John's lover Desmond. This results in John resorting to sending Desmond to Hell in order to ensure Neron is sent there as well).

Vixen

• Mari McCabe had her sister, Kuasa, and then Benatu Eshu.

Supergirl

• Kara Danvers has many enemies, but by virtue of being an All-Loving Hero, she doesn't have the kind of personal hatred for her worst ones that Oliver and Barry have for theirs. However, she openly calls Leslie Willis, a.k.a Livewire, her nemesis, with Winn commenting that even mentioning Livewire's name causes Kara to get defensive. Ironically, Livewire would end up performing a Heroic Sacrifice to protect Kara from Reign. She eventually gains a true arch-foe once Lex Luthor enters the picture, though Luthor treats his quarrel with Supergirl as merely Revenge by Proxy to his feud with Superman, until she manages to turn his sister against him, among other humiliations, which turns Luthor's attention to destroying Kara for bruising his ego so much.
  • Maxwell Lord, a Corrupt Corporate Executive who created the Bizarro Supergirl, was also a recurring menace to Supergirl in her early career, but hostilities between them decreased as time went by, to the point that Lord stopped showing up because he no longer had a reason to involve himself in Supergirl's affairs.
  • Also, even tough they had only faced each other once, Rick Malverne, an old friend of Kara's, was Supergirl's only enemy to truly get under her skin by kidnapping Alex and threatening her life to make Supergirl his pawn, with her unable to find a way to counter his various contingencies, especially when he revealed that he had deduced her secret identity.
• J'onn J'onzz views the entire White Martian race as this for their part in his kinds extinction, but he begins to lighten up to them after meeting M'gann M'orzz. He later gains a more traditional arch-enemy in the form of Manchester Black, who repeatedly rebuffed and mocked J'onn's outreaches to try and reform him — his secondary goal being to make J'onn angry enough that he'll forget his vow of peace and perhaps even kill him, which he does after Black tries to kill thousands of people by destroying the National City dam to flood the city and makes him relive his family's deaths.
• Though both quarrels are entirely off-screen, Lex Luthor and General Zod are recognized as arch foes of Superman by the public of Earth-38.
• CADMUS as a whole serves as this to the Department of Extra-Normal Operations, with Lillian Luthor being a big target for Alex Danvers due to her forcing Alex's father to work for CADMUS.
• Lena Luthor had Morgan Edge. After Lena outbid him for Cat Co, Edge swore to crush her as a business rival. After multiple attempts to frame her for crimes, and even an attempted murder, the feeling is more than mutual between them.
  • Lena also has her own brother, Lex Luthor. Lex was manipulating Lena's research on the Harun-El from the start and when he needed her to speed the process, he has her boyfriend shot. He also leaves a note explaining it was all personal and he uses the notes he wrote of all of Lena's failures and shortcomings as a kid to taunt her.
• Nyxlygsptlnz serves as one as a whole to the Superfriends, with her tricking her way from the Phantom Zone to Earth-Prime by manipulating Kara and Nia, and then becoming the teams' prime concern, to the point that Kara even resigns from Cat Co. to focus on stopping Nyxly, with one of their battles resulting in Alex's fiancee, Kelly Olsen, becoming the Golden Guardian.

DC's Legends of Tomorrow

• Vandal Savage is this to Hawkman, Hawkgirl, and Rip Hunter. He's been murdering the former two's various incarnations for thousands of years to maintain his immortality, and murdered the latter's wife and young son just for opposing him, and to spite Rip after he lets slip that this is why he is hunting Savage throughout history.
• Damien Darhk becomes this to the Legends once they start identifying themselves as such. After a brief run in with him during their time with Rip Hunter, Darhk gets recruited into Eobard Thawne's Legion of Doom to oppose the Legends until he is returned to his place in time, and is later resurrected from his death in Arrow to serve as a representative for the Cult of Mallus. Of the Legends, Darhk has the biggest animosity with their leader, Sara Lance, due to him murdering her sister in 2016. Ironically, after seeing what Mallus plans for his daughter Nora, Darhk joins forces with the Legends, even getting friendly with a few of them, and ultimately dies protecting his daughter.
  • Darhk's colleagues in the Legion of Doom also serve as this to the Legends, with Vixen having her sights set on the Reverse-Flash for killing Hourman, while Thawne thinks himself a Foil to the Atom, Captain Cold trying to persuade Heat Wave back into a life of crime, and White Canary becoming the Dark Archer's main target after he reveals his part in crashing the Queen's Gambit to her.
• Jonah Hex has Quentin Turnbull.
• Bishop becomes this to the later Legends, with his kidnapping of Sara dividing the team on what to do without her leadership, and the fact that he is technically Ava's father making things more personnel than with their other enemies. After Sara dies and he clones her into a new body, he appears to be Killed Off for Real, only to return with a vengeance by luring Constantine to his side by prying to his power lust, forcing the Legends to recruit his younger self to thwart his invasion plans. After Bishop is Eaten Alive by Mick's alien children, the Legends wipe the young Bishop's memories to preserve the timeline, only for him to later regain them and plot revenge on the Legends, thinking that they had tampered with his brain for nefarious reasons, unleashing "Evil Gideon" on the timeline in his vengeful quest. However, once he realizes his error, and that he had created a worse threat in "Evil Gideon", he joins with the Legends until he performs a Heroic Sacrifice to help them escape "Evil Gideon".

Batwoman

• Kate Kane had her sister, Beth Kane, a.k.a Alice, who held Kate in contempt for failing to save her when they were kids, leading to her disappearance and kidnapping. Kate tried over and over again to bring Beth back from Alice, believing she could save her sister. Instead, after Alice finishes dealing with Catherine Hamilton-Kane, the stepmother who had Beth's death faked to give the Kanes closure, she turns her attention to a plot to trick her father into killing Kate. In fact, her initial reaction to Kate's disappearance was frustration in all her work for her plan being All for Nothing. She then decides to find Kate so she can kill her herself, but her quest causes her to see things on her own disappearance from Kate's perspective, and the two bury the hatchet before Kate is Put on the Bus.
• The second Batwoman, Ryan Wilder, inherited the rivalry with Alice, but for different reasons; Alice's Wonderland Gang killed Ryan's adopted mother, and she projected her rage of the murder onto Alice for being their leader, despite Alice not having been involved in the crime itself. On her part, Alice sees Ryan as an annoyance at best, trying instead to focus finding Kate than fighting Ryan.
• Luke Fox has Russell Tavaroff, the Crow agent who shot him during to a racially influence hold up, leaving Luke fighting for his life in a hospital bed, a fight he was losing until Mary and Ryan got him a miracle remedy. Upon his recovery, Luke's first act is to hunt Tavaroff down and make him pay until John Diggle talks him down. Once he suits up as Batwing, Tavaroff becomes his Starter Villain, though more by happenstance than Luke tracking him again. However, beating Tavaroff doesn't erase Luke's trauma, and his first character arc as Batwing is Luke coming to terms with the anxiety attacks caused by Tavaroff's shooting of him.