Oliver Queen was born to wealthy philanthropists Robert and Moira Queen on December 9, 1988 in Star City, California. Achieving a multi-billionaire status through their company, Queen Industries, Mr. and Mrs. Queen were able to provide a life of luxury for their son with immense ease. An estimate of no less than $2,000,000 was spent on him during his sixth year, a sum that would only increase as the years went by. Evidently, money was not an issue, but responsible parenting was, and the Queen scion was quick to run into trouble with best friend Thomas Merlyn, son of Merlyn Global Group CEO Malcolm Merlyn. From what our records show, Queen and Merlyn attended St. Walker’s Academy, a prestigious private school said to accommodate only the best and brightest youths of Star City, something which the duo most certainly weren’t. If not for their parents’ bribes, they would have been expelled long before they reached their highschool years.

In 1998 Oliver was given a sobering gift in the form of his sister, Thea Dearden Queen. Aged ten, the now brother showed a distinct improvement in his grades and behaviour, making a visible effort to provide a good role model for his sister. However, as he transitioned into highschool, he seemed to begin a downward spiral, failing nearly every subject and expressing an increasingly rebellious attitude. It was during this time that his father was continually absent from home in ever longer intervals; doing what, we don’t know. Despite our best efforts, Robert Queen’s activities remain a mystery.

Upon reaching his teenage years, Oliver dropped out of a total of six highschools, Thomas following in his footsteps. It was at the sixth school that Queen met his highschool sweetheart: Dinah Laurel Lance. They began a relationship soon after meeting, Oliver attracted by her looks, Laurel by his bad-boy attitude. It would later prove to be an incredibly unhealthy romance.

The remainder of his time as a student saw Queen attend and host a numerous amount of parties, his best friend and girlfriend at his side. With each one he would grow more and more reckless, getting drunker, partying harder and starting more fights in a single night than ever thought possible. Police records show that they were called in for the majority of these raves, three in which they arrested Queen for urinating on an officer. During this time he also began to be unfaithful to Lance, almost ending the relationship when he was caught with another woman.

One day before New Year’s Eve, 2007, Queen’s father returned from what we estimate to be a two month-long absence. At the New Year's party the Queens were hosting, Robert asked for a private word with his son. It was then that he asked Oliver to accompany him on his yacht, the Queen’s Gambit, as they sailed to Beijing. From the information [REDACTED] has provided us, the elder Queen had told his son that there was something he wanted to show him. We have yet to find out what this is.

The Queen’s Gambit left American shores on January 2, 2008, Robert and Oliver Queen onboard, along with another passenger, Laurel Lance; it seems that after their most recent falling out, they felt that spending the voyage together might help remedy their relationship. From what [REDACTED] has managed to get out of Queen, his father was adamant against bringing Lance along. However, his son would not take no for an answer. Minutes before the Gambit left Star City Harbour, Queen snuck his girlfriend aboard.

We have little information regarding how the Queen’s Gambit sunk. What we do know is this: as the yacht neared the North China Sea, it went under, torn in half by the ocean’s waves. While the most likely cause of its sinking is a storm, the evidence we’ve gathered from what remains we’ve salvaged suggest sabotage. But we are certain of one thing. Queen and his father managed to reach a lifeboat as their vessel was claimed by the sea, believing Lance to have shared the same fate. From [REDACTED]’s understanding, Queen still believes Lance is dead.

The lifeboat drifted for several days, a distraught Queen mourning over his girlfriend’s apparent death. After a week afloat, the boat approached a coastline, belonging to the island that would very soon become Queen’s purgatory: Lian Yu. Reaching the beach, an angered and suddenly re-energised Queen rounded on his father, blaming him for the loss of Lance’s life. As Robert began defending himself, telling Queen that it was in fact his fault, an arrow ran through the former’s heart. Shocked, Queen saw a hooded figure darting into the trees, bow in hand, some three hundred yards away from the beach. Overwhelmed by shock and grief, Queen chased after his father’s killer into the jungle. As he entered the shade of the trees, an arrow embedded itself in his left shoulder. Slowly fading from consciousness, he could hear what he thought was a scuffle. He fainted shortly thereafter.

Of this part, Queen told much to [REDACTED]. He awoke in a makeshift wooden house, located high in the jungle canopies. His shoulder was bandaged, the arrow removed, and over him stood his saviours: Natas, a once dangerous international assassin, now dead (more later), and his apprentice, a Japanese woman by the name of Shado (status unknown). When Queen was healed and sufficiently fed, Natas explained their situation to him. They were stranded on the island of Lian Yu, and as far as they knew, there was no way off. Once Queen calmed himself, Natas got straight to business; the boy needed training. Over the ensuing months, the assassin and his pupil trained Queen in the arts of survival. Martial arts, tracking, and the bow were among the skills he learned, but not without difficulty. Having spent all of his life sheltered by his parents’ money, his first months on the island were a rude awakening. Life was no longer a game.

Despite the initial difficulties, Queen proved to be a natural with the bow. Once he was strong enough to pull back the string, nearly every arrow met its mark. Just like Shado, his tutor, Queen was a natural.

His first year on Lian Yu was a relatively easy affair when compared with the two that followed. Aside from an occasional run-in with the native cannibal tribes, Queen, Natas and Shado found little opposition in their little section of the island’s jungle. That is, of course, until they were discovered by the scientist Anthony Ivo at the dawn of Queen’s second year. Queen and Shado were out hunting when mercenaries attacked. They fought hard, killing a few, before the men gained an upper hand, capturing Queen and injuring Shado. They took Queen to a cove located at the centre of the island, within which a freighter was anchored-- the AMAZO, named after Ivo’s pet project, but exactly what that was, Queen hasn’t said.

Queen was made cellmates with Slade Wilson, prior to his Deathstroke days, in a cell within the AMAZO’s cargo hold. They became quick friends, training and exchanging stories in the confines of their cell, hatching an escape plan, one which they acted upon after a month in captivity. In the chaos, amid the gunfire and cries of dying men, Wilson was apprehended as Queen dived off the side of the freighter and swam ashore. Unwilling to leave his new friend behind, Queen found Natas and Shado and urged them to help him free Wilson.

They returned to the AMAZO one week later, taking out its engines and killing every crew member but one: Anthony Ivo. This wasn’t Queen’s first time in the man’s presence; during his imprisonment, Ivo would often torture Queen in his quarters, all while talking of the Mira Kuru, a serum developed in World War Two by the Japanese military that would, in theory, enhance a person’s attributes tenfold. It was Ivo’s belief that this serum was the key to his completion of the AMAZO Project, what we can only assume was a super soldier program of some sort.

Queen questioned Ivo, demanding to know where Wilson was being kept. His answer was given in the form of a punch that sent him flying into the cargo hold’s wall, delivered by none other than Wilson, recently injected with Mira Kuru. It had somehow twisted his mind, convincing him that Queen had abandoned him not for a week, but for a whole year.

As Natas, Shado and Queen busied themselves with evading the serum-enhanced Wilson, Ivo managed to escape the AMAZO in a speedboat, vanishing from the island, and as far as one can tell, the world. His whereabouts remain unknown.

Wilson pursued Queen and his colleagues for much of the remaining year. He was strong in his hunt, never resting, never giving up, his Mira Kuru-fueled hate driving him beyond human limits. This proved too much for the trio. After months of running and fighting, Natas, exhausted and injured, turned on Queen, his anger palpable. Queen was, after all, the reason why Wilson was chasing after them. Unable to restrain him, Shado watched as Natas attacked Queen, intent on killing the cause of their predicament.

Their struggle was long. Queen had learnt much in the past year and a half, the need to survive pushing him to match, if not surpass Natas and Shado in their abilities. But he had also developed a connection to his teacher, and so he held back for much of the fight, unwilling to let the assassin die by his own hands. However, instinct won out, and Queen saw himself driving an arrow through Natas’ neck as the older man pinned him against the ground. Neither he nor Shado had time to process what had just happened, as the time they had spent fighting had allowed Wilson to catch up to them, and he was ever adamant in his pursuit of blood.

The chase lasted for another week. Queen and Shado experienced many close shaves with Wilson, but had remained unscathed, for the most part. He caught up to them on the edge of a cliff. Knowing that there was no way to beat him in hand-to-hand, Queen tried a different tactic: he taunted Wilson with every bit of information he had learned during his month in the AMAZO. Wilson’s wife, his children, his career in the Australian Secret Intelligence Service; all were included in Queen’s insults, spurring Wilson into a rage that sent him charging at the younger man-- and off the cliff’s edge.

Believing him to be dead, Queen and Shado returned to their encampment in the jungle, where there bloomed a romance between them. For the next six months they lived as comfortably as they could, trying their hardest to start their lives anew. But it seems Lian Yu had other plans. At the turn of the new year, what happiness Queen and Shado shared was torn away from them.

Chien Na Wei, aka China White, was a prominent figurehead of the Chinese Triad who had arrived on the island in the hopes of establishing a hub for her heroin business. Queen had happened upon her encampment while out on a hunt, choosing to investigate it. This was the biggest mistake he’d made during his time on the island.

He was discovered while staking out the camp, taken prisoner after being apprehended. White's men interrogated him, asking him who he was, if he had anyone with him, and where they were. When it became apparent that he would not talk, White made the decision of enslaving Queen, making him her personal bodyguard. With what information she did manage to gather, she uncovered his identity, tracking down his two remaining family members: his mother and sister, Moira and Thea. It was with this information that she blackmailed him, threatening to kill his family if he were to go out of line. It was with this information that she got him to kill Shado.

Shado had grown restless awaiting the return of Queen. When two nights passed, she decided to go looking for him; this was when she saw him tortured, when she started forming a rescue plan.

She waited weeks for an opportunity, for any signs of a guard let down. Four weeks after Queen's disappearance, she struck. Much of China's men died that day. Her recently planted plantation was burned to the ground. All of her hard work was undone by one woman desperate to see her loved one once more. And Shado died for it.

John Diggle, Felicity Smoak, and who else but Brick?

Fights Deathstroke and Merlyn.

Injustice League.

Roy Harper. Oh, and Deathstroke. Again.

Richard Dragon.

The corridor was dark, its only source of light a yellow bulb hanging by a wiry tangle of cords. My feet thudded on the floor as I ran, echoing through the shadowy hall, bow in hand with an arrow notched. I clenched my jaw in fervent rage, allowing a low growl to escape my lips when I saw an armed man step out from the shadows, rifle primed and aimed at my chest. Three arrows flew from my bow, the first piercing his trigger hand, the last two his thighs. I was in no mood for a brawl. I had other things to worry about.

SAVE HER!

Another man ran at me, answering the call of his comrade’s agonised cries. His haymaker went wide, and I ducked under his arm, sending a single hook to his ribs. I felt them break, the crack loud and sickening, but I didn’t stop there. A jab from my bow hand, followed by a front kick, sending him sprawling on the floor, landing at the feet of another henchman. The newcomer let out a howl of pain as my arrow met his shin, its bloody head sticking out the other side. As he fell to the floor, I took a short run-up, jumping to strike his face with my knee, putting all of my anger into the blow. Blood burst from his nose and he collapsed, writhing in pain, somehow still conscious. I bent down and ripped the arrow out of his leg, relishing in his shriek as I nocked and loosed it into his friend’s shoulder. There was no stopping me. I was a wolf, and these men were my prey.

SAVE HER!

They fought hard, but they fought poorly. Before long I was at the end of the corridor, gore dripping from my gloves, my breath heavy from the all too familiar bloodlust I had felt on the Island. The unconscious forms of my attackers were piled up on the floor behind me, the occasional arrow visible where I hadn’t had the mind to remove it. In front of me was the door. The door to my sister. I kicked it open, bow aimed and arrow drawn. An incomprehensible fury gripped me when I saw what awaited me inside. Daniel Brickwell, criminal ruler of the Glades, was holding a gun to my sister’s head.

”Daniel Brickwell… YOU HAVE FAILED THIS CITY!”

And the arrow was loosed.