Bad Penny, Devil and Pinball: Three disgruntled unemployed workers who lost their jobs when the copper-working factory they were working at made them redundant due to increased automation within the factory. They become petty criminals and decide to engineer themselves some basic weaponry using their fabrication know-how, including a pair of primitive shock gloves, a staff-mounted blowtorch reminiscent of a trident and a compressed air body-mounted weapon system, which could shoot high-velocity ball bearings similar to an air rifle or a BB Gun. They wear industrial masks such as welding gear or the like, or safety goggles, and have an overall very industrial vibe about them. The gang raid factories and other businesses that have laid off employees due to greater reliance on technology instead of manpower, but are not especially violent for the most part. Bad Penny is the smartest and the leader, and she escapes to show up again occasionally, per her name, with a punk rock attitude similar to Killer Frost, as she can fill a similar niche. May possibly get a role as a shock jock who has a campaign against the Arrow on her radio show later on, and Oliver has to figure out why she seems to hate the Arrow and who she really is.

Blood Rose: A cybernetic hitman, she was a SpecOps asset for a foreign military some years back. Has a vendetta against Oliver Queen, because during his time as a dead man he assisted ARGUS in working a counter-mission against her SpecOps team, and a resulting explosion left her critically injured and forced her to have all of her limbs amputated. The foreign military invested in experimental military-grade prosthetic limbs for her and she is now a ghost, someone who does not exist so she can perform black ops for her nation. However, she has also systematically been hunting down the ARGUS team that injured her during the previous mission, and Oliver is the last person she needs to kill. With her artificial limbs she has somewhat enhanced strength and speed, and as a SpecOps agent is trained in all sorts of weaponry, making her extremely dangerous.

Big Game: An expert hunter of big game animals, Blake is an African poacher involved in illegal trade in China. Arrow gets tied up with him when Oliver is questioned by Chinese officials about the man, as his base of operations for his poaching ring is located within the same archipelago of islands that Oliver was originally stranded on ad managed to escape from. Oliver returns to the island chain and hunts down Big Game’s operation, but after he loses his equipment and is captured Big Game decides to hunt him instead, releasing him to flee into one of the islands and track him down.

Brick: Daniel Brickwell is a crime lord who has risen to fill in the power gap left in the wake of Frank Bertinelli’s death. A large, imposing man, he has climbed the ranks rapidly, being both brutal and smart, and willing to capitalise on the chaos left in the wake of the Glades Earthquake and the chaos of Slade’s attack on the city. He’s a dangerous combination of physical strength, crafty intelligence, and well connected. Has corrupt links to the new mayor and friends in the DA’s office so nothing will stick to him. As a ruthless powermonger, Brick starts a gang war within Starling City by killing off members of the Triads and the Bratva.

Camorouge: A talented thief, she was able to steal a military-grade optic camouflage suit that renders her basically invisible to sight and thermal imaging. She comes to Starling City to steal some valuable prototype technology, as she acts as an on-commission corporate espionage thief alongside her own personal projects. Possibly breaking into ARGUS facility on  Prometheus’ payroll.

Champion: A new hero who shows up in Starling City, he has a gleaming suit of high-tech gadgets and disables criminals without killing, and quickly becomes popular with the public. His mission is to have Team Arrow accept him so that he can find out who their real identities are, as he is actually planning on killing them and taking over their operations so that he can be the only lauded hero in Starling City. Something of a psychotic attention-seeker.

Cheapjack: A bikie gang leader who wields a pair of electrified whips that utilise a high output power source. Rough and tough, he could become a member of the Suicide Squad with his gimmick. Sort of like Whiplash from Ironman 2, in that he should have a highly industrial or grimy feel about him.

Crumbler: Alexander Tuttle is a down-on-his-luck construction worker, having previously worked at the disgraced labs of Unidac, the thinktank who created the earthquake machine that ravaged the Glades. As a scientist, he ends up developing miniaturised versions of the device that he intends for use in construction, for breaking up tough material and the like. However, because of the undesirable association of the device with death his new design is denied by pretty much all major corporations. In retribution Tuttle begins to use the localised devices to bring down individual buildings, and has even managed to incorporate one device into a chest-mounted unit that works in conjunction with a palm-mounted sonic device, allowing him to create miniature shockwaves in material that he touches.

Cupid: Carrie Cutter is an ARGUS military operative, a battlefield marksman who utilises oxycontadine, a military-grade drug that “suppresses fear” and reduces shaking in the user’s system for more accurate shooting. It is a controlled substance that is recommended only in small and infrequent doses, but Carrie has uses it so often, against the recommendation and knowledge of her superiors, that it has permanently killed her fear reaction and has messed up some of her other brain functions, primarily those that control affection and attraction. She is involved in an operation with the Arrow that Prometheus ruins, attacking the team and killing many of the ARGUS operatives before Arrow finally forces him to retreat. After Arrow’s rescue of her Carrie becomes infatuated with him and decides to go rogue during her leisure time. Utilising ARGUS files she decides to get the attention of Arrow by executing several of the criminals he’s locked up, using the flawed reasoning that she’s helping him keep his hands clean while accomplishing what he really wants to do. She’s a skilled military operative who uses all sorts of methods to achieve her kills, and she has begun practising with a bow but is none too effective with it. After her first appearance as Carrie Cutter, several episodes will involve mentions of one previous criminal being executed with a love note left at the scene of the murder addressed to the Arrow, leading to an episode where Arrow hunts down the killer and she is reintroduced as Cupid. Once revealed, she will target Laurel or Felicity as “the other woman” through jealousy as well.

Death Dealer: A criminal who has a taste for card tricks, he’s a card sharp who engages in high-risk games at an underground casino, and also robs banks with a new Royal Flush Gang. He leaves an Ace of Spades at each crime scene, and so initially Oliver believes it is Kyle or Teddy Reston, the original Royal Flush Gang, but upon interrogating Teddy and confirming that Kyle is still in prison he is forced to conclude that it is not them. In the end, the Death Dealer turns out to be in the employ of Mrs Reston, the mother of the Reston brothers. She is a card dealer at the casino and is aware of the cheating, but uses it as blackmail to get him to perform crimes for her, as the underground casino operators would kill him if they found out.

Discord: Sean Sonus is a man who fights using sonic weaponry, more offensive versions of the sonic devices used by Sara Lance during her time as Canary. Sara tracks him down and he ends up coming to Starling City to settle a grudge with her, which Oliver must help her with.

Doctor Light: Arthur Light was a STAR Labs employee who was fired for mental psychosis. At the time that he was fired he was working on a variety of optical devices, and after the chaos of the particle accelerator accident he was able to steal his devices from STAR Labs. He has toned down versions of his powers from the comics, using his gadgets to create holograms, fire cohesive scalpel-like lasers and blend into his surroundings, to a degree. The suit itself is solar-powered. Arthur is an awful person, and starts using his suit for his own ends. His psychosis causes him to start seeing hallucinations of his co-worker Jacob Findlay, who he killed in a jealous rage, but covered up the incident as a work accident. His devices require high-quality lenses and crystals as focusing components and so he engages in a series of jewel heists initially.

Dregz: A street hood by the name of Peter Lomax, a member of the gang called the Dregz, a joke on them being called the dregs of society. Peter is a wannabe villain, he thinks that the fear of the Arrow and his fellow heroes is ridiculous, and that you don’t need to be anyone special to hurt them. He uses a machete to slash his foes and after his boasting to his gang buddies about how it doesn’t take a supervillain to kill a hero, he becomes moderately proficient with a bow as well. He commits some street violence to lure his prey and when Black Canary shows up he manages to injure the inexperienced vigilante with an arrow to the shoulder. However, he can’t bring himself to actually kill her, and she manages to incapacitate him and arrest him.

Electrocutioner: Lester Buchinsky is a well-intentioned vigilante who utilises a specialised insulated suit to generate electrical shocks that can incapacitate or kill opponents. After his methods of subduing foes becomes more violent and lethal the Arrow steps in to shut him down, and they become enemies. The Electrocutioner becomes convinced that the city does not appreciate his efforts and in retaliation lashes out by becoming a criminal instead, but he still holds a desire to be a hero and a good person, being mainly misguided and spiteful. A glimmer of the possibility of redemption is given when he uses his ability to save Arrow from a cardiac arrest rather than let him die and escape, knowing he will be apprehended as a result. His high-voltage capabilities allow him to short out electronics or use custom-built EMP grenades to generate an electromagnetic pulse that will temporarily disable communications and other lower-level electrical systems like security cameras.

Everyman: A master of disguise, real name Hannibal Bates, Everyman uses a Waxface Mask to take on the appearance of other people. By acquiring some of their DNA he is able to encode the bio-matrix of the Waxface mask, so that it takes on the appearance of the DNA’s owner. His own face is horrifically scarred as he has shaved down his cheekbones and removed his ears and nose so that the mask can emulate the correct shape of the target’s face. The mask itself is stolen technology originally intended to be used by body doubles to important politicians and the like, but he utilises it to infiltrate all sorts of places for corporate espionage or theft. He has no fingerprints, and uses Waxface technology to emulate fingerprints and retinal patterns as well. He is actually on Oliver’s List, as he is also a corrupt businessman in his ordinary life, and he uses his own DNA to reproduce his normal face’s appearance on his mask.

Executrix: A bodyguard and hitman for Daniel Brickwell, she is a mistress at a local BDSM brothel. Emotionally damaged, she acts as Brick’s personal assassin, killing those who dare to cross him, and is important in triggering the gang war that Brick manufactures. She likens her own BDSM outfit to the sorts of costumes that the vigilantes wear, and justifies that they’re not much better than herself. Has a brief affair with Roy.

G.A.M.A.: Short for Guided Autonomous Mobile Arsenal, GAMA is a military drone device that operates as a mobile weapons platform and can be programmed for autonomous action against specific targets. A hacker is able to liberate several of them from a military research compound by remotely accessing them, and begins to use them to commit crimes in wartorn areas. John Diggle is pulled in to help when it turns out one of the researchers who was working on the project and was killed during the theft was his friend. Among the weapons possessed by the GAMA drones is an electromagnetically-propelled “arrow” launcher that can fire kinetic metal bolts at high speeds.

Ghost: Timothy Pebble is a ghostwriter for a famous author of crime novels. When he tries to renegotiate with the author after his novels made the write famous and is shot down, Timothy turns his creative and intelligent mind for fabricating crimes to a more lucrative business, and becomes the criminal consultant known as the Ghost. He assists other criminals in planning their more difficult crimes, for a cut of the profits, and is highly intelligent. Conceptually he’d act as a sort of hybrid of the Calculator and the Riddler, with literary references and riddles involved during the times he does play games with the heroes. More than likely he’d be involved with several of the more impossible-seeming crimes that Arrow has to stop before he finally realises the same person is planning all these crimes.

Great Rhinehart: Samson Citadel is a stage magician who turns to a life of crime after an accident with one of his tricks leads to the death of his assistant and his blacklisting from performances nationwide. His assistant was his wife and so he is somewhat mad with grief, twisted to his crimes. Some of the crimes would seem impossible to do with stage magic, but the audience and Team Arrow would be left in the dark about whether he was using real magic or not.

Hi-Tek: A skilled code cracker is breaking into all sorts of corporate and government systems and stealing information, then selling it on the blackmarket. After he hacks Queen Consolidated, Felicity becomes determined to catch him and a game of cat-and-mouse occurs, where he uses his hacking skills to cause all sorts of troubles with traffic lights and power grids and the like. In the end he is caught and it turns out to be an anarchist high school kid, and he is whisked away by the government to be used by them for their own digital intelligence needs. Perfect foe for a Felicity-centric episode.

Hijack King: Whitey Dunn is an ex-military criminal who is particularly talented at hijacking high-security convoys and the like, intercepting transport of military weapons, vital medicine or sensitive technology, with his little gang of thieves.

Juarez: A terrorist who utilises a mind-suppressing drug that is supposed to “remove undesirable emotions” such as fear, greed, hatred and the like. He claims to want to used this to enforce a peaceful utopia, but the drug really just renders people unresponsive, mindless shells of their former selves. Attempts to distribute the drug via a gas throughout the major centres of Starling City. Arrow only becomes aware of Juarez because another vigilante, the Question, has followed his trail to Starling City, and they team up to catch him.

Komodo: Simon Lacroix was one of the top executives working under Robert Queen, and was pegged to become CEO of the company when Robert retired, due to Oliver’s own immaturity. However, he was the man who Merlyn contacted to take out Robert, and was glad to do so. Using his own familiarity with Robert’s security and his known friendship with Robert, he was the one who sabotaged the Pacific Queen and caused it to sink. Afterwards, he left Queen Industries when Moira married Walter and he was passed over for the role of CEO, and instead becomes the CEO of Stellmoor International. He greatly respected Robert and in turn Robert saw him as a determined, capable and respectable young man, in many ways a foil to how his own actual son behaved. He was involved with the takeover of Queen Industries on a personal level, his own interests in a vendetta lining up with the secret machinations of Slade Wilson and Isabel Rochev. He has become corrupt in the six years since the sinking of the Pacific Queen, using the moniker of Komodo the Lizard King, in his shady dealings, but wrestles with some guilt over what he did to his mentor.

Limelight Duo: Two sisters who, after failing to succeed in their musical careers beyond washing out of a reality music show, decide to gain their time in the limelight a different way, by becoming an infamous criminal duo, like Butch and Cassidy or Bonney and Clyde. They are public about their identities during their robberies and live a wild life in the underworld, but are basically petty criminals of no great threat.The only gimmicky aspect to their crimes is the use of portable laserlight projectors on their bodies and smoke grenades to create a “concert atmosphere” when they perform their crimes.

Marcel Moreau, Man-Bear and Wulf: Marcel Moreau is a war profiteer and arms dealer who operates internationally. After the incident with Slade’s army Moreau is able to use his connections to get a dose of Mirakuru reverse synthesised from Slade’s lair. After he finds that the synthesised version has no great use on humans he instead begins clinical testing on animals, greatly enhancing their strength and ferocity. This “miracle evolution” is something that he plans to sell as a weapon to warlords in Africa or the like, using his animals as bioweapons. He has two assistants, the Man-Bear and Wulf, who were exposed to the animal-testing variants of Mirakuru and developed more bestial features, such as enhanced senses, pronounced canines and excess body hair, as well as enhanced power.

Miklos: A deranged freak who has built a complex labyrinth in an abandoned complex in the middle of the Glades, he kidnaps young women and then hunts them through the labyrinth. It’s a devious maze that one might imagine from Saw, lots of razor wire, blades and horrible choices to be made. He even has vicious trained guard animals roaming the labyrinth along with him.

Mole Men: A gang of men who have set up an underworld in the disused subway system and the sewers below Starling City, they utilise construction equipment to break into banks and other targets of high value from beneath, at the point where protection is weakest.

The Octopus and the Octo-Gang: A high-tech military “octo-harness” is stolen and used by a criminal known as the Octopus. It utilises a basic optical camouflage suit that can alter its pigmentation and can release heavy black smokescreens, as well as a neural-linked harness that has four articulated tentacle-like arms on it. The arms can each support a human’s weight and are very flexible, and utilise sensors studded all over the harness to react to threats even when the wearer is not aware of them, allowing the Octopus to catch arrows out of mid air even if he’s not paying attention. His Octo-Gang all bear the camouflage octo-suits but do not have the limb harness to augment them. An ex-military group, who liberated the equipment from a foreign group while on assignment in Europe.

Onomatopoeia: A strange hunter of vigilante heroes, Onomatopoeia is a madman who compulsively imitates noises around him while in costume. Played as more of a horror character than anything silly, since his compulsive ticks can potentially make him quite creepy. He never speaks aside from making the sound effects, and wields dual silenced pistols so his “blam” noises can be heard properly. He’s extremely skilled at hand to hand combat, good with blades and handguns and is a competent killer, hunting costumed vigilantes as trophies. To ramp up his danger level there’d be at least one known hero who’s been on the show before killed by him, and when defeated by Team Arrow his last action would be to say “Snap!” before breaking his own neck, leaving the team without an explanation for his actions. An end of episode followup would reveal he was a middle-class salaryman with no discernable reason for becoming a killer, and visiting his widow would reveal he was completely normal and loving.

Ozone: Albrecht Raines is a street hood and a grafitti artist well known for the rainbow of colours he uses in his artwork, and he goes by the tag name Ozone when painting. He is a friend of Roy’s and gets involved in a counterfeiting operation due to his lack of income as a struggling artist within the Glades due to his artistic talent and eye for details. Once the ring is busted he becomes more of a side character, helping Roy out and keeping an ear to the ground on street crime within the Glades.

Professor Ojo: Blind scientist, a genius who is strongly anti-nuclear and plans to have humanity abandon the use of nuclear power by sabotaging a nuclear power plant so that it kills thousands, hopefully scaring the world into abandoning the power source. He is a known public figure, as he developed bionic eye technology that could restore sight to blind people, and is thought of as something of a hero, but the depths of his anti-nuclear fervor are hidden from public sight.

Prometheus: Scientist Chad Graham developed a battlefield intelligence HUD helmet for ARGUS, which utilised neural impulse reinforcement to speed up the wearer’s thought processing and reflexes, as well as encode new information directly into the brain through a cerebral integration tap, which allowed for muscle memory enhancement and allow for instinctual reaction to electronic data fed from the battlefield sensors to the mind. However, the Prometheus Project was shut down when it was found that the neural impulse reinforcement had the negative side effect of mental deficiencies such as depression, irritability and dementia. Chad goes AWOL with the Prometheus helmet and some other ARGUS tech, as well as complete files on ARGUS and all of its agents, then begins to wage a systematic war against ARGUS, which would involve releasing those shackled or imprisoned by ARGUS. As a result, Waller recruits Team Arrow to defeat him, as Prometheus does not have comprehensive files on Team Arrow due to them not being ARGUS agents.

Red Devil Gang: A gang of highly acrobatic robbers, they perform bold robberies in broad daylight wearing devil masks, and then make their escapes by utilising free-running and parkour through the crowded urban centre of Starling City, vanishing into the city’s dark and crumbling areas.

Reverend Marcus Hale: Cult leader of a religious order that has sprung up in the Glades, the cult is known as Harmony and preaches peace and unity and togetherness. Throughout the season bits of Harmony propaganda and promotional material will be seen, some soundbites heard from TVs and Marcus Hale will gradually be built up as a good person, with his religious movement having positive morals and beliefs. However, it will turn out that his idea of “unity” is actually restriction of free thought and he advocates for a more restrictive and watchful government, as well as taking his most dedicated followers through religious brainwashing programs to convert them to aggressively focused zealots. Originally a good man, he still believes that what he is doing is right and glorious in the eyes of God, but has become corrupt with power and faith. Harmony eventually begins to preach that vigilante heroes are dangerous individuals who disrupt the order of the collective masses, and Hale whips up a mob mentality of hatred against the heroes.

Roper: Steve Bogardus is a skilled circus performer who has great talent as an escape artist, who developed his skills when he became stranded in Asia after having his identity stolen. He came to stay with charitable monks who taught him the art of rope mastery. He knows all sorts of knots and rope tricks, and is basically a badass with a lasso. If you imagine the sort of tricks you see martial artists use with meteor hammers or the like, that’s the things he can do. He’s most likely just a cameo as a backup villain, but I think you could make him reasonably cool regardless. Alongside his rope arts he knows formidable unarmed martial arts also.

Sea Scourge and the Shark Gang: The Sea Scourge is a modern-day pirate who operates a highly efficient and deadly drug smuggling ring internationally with his Shark Gang. He owns his own submarine, and it is actually the old Japanese submarine that Oliver and co used to destroy the Amazo while on the island. It was sold to the Sea Scourge by Anatoli Knyazev once he had escaped the island and returned to the Bratva. A vicious Russian mobster who has his own ties to the Bratva, he puts Oliver in a difficult position when he’s forced to deal with this particular Bratva operation and risk his good standing with Anatoli. The submarine has been refitted with stolen military tech and has its own complement of one-man underwater vehicles that the Sea Scourge’s Shark Gang use to get close to other ships to sabotage or board them, or to make underwater escapes from crime scenes. All of the Shark Gang are ex-navy special operatives, corrupt and deadly underwater, forcing Oliver into an environment he is not familiar with.

Sister Joshua: A member of the Harmony cult, she utilises Eastern hypnotic techniques in conjunction with military brain reprogramming methods to brainwash people and make them more susceptible to the cult and obeying orders. Uses a series of erratically flashing lights on her shoulders to disorient and confuse attackers.

Slingshot: David Drayson is a known cop-killer, a criminal who is locked up at Iron Heights Prison, but he manages to escape after various parts are smuggled into the prison and he is able to build a powerful slingshot, since he cannot have any metal components smuggled in. After he escapes he becomes of great concern to Detective Lance since he often purposely targets police officers due to his hatred of them. Though he doesn’t utilise slingshots exclusively, or even as a primary weapon beyond his escape from prison, he does keep his slingshot as a good luck charm, and decides to take on the name once he escapes as his new hitman identity.

Sniper One: Palmer Cokes is an ex-military sniper turned bodyguard, just like John Diggle. He is the primary bodyguard to another high-level business exec of Starling City, and is on the List as someone who has failed Starling City. This is because he acts as a hitman for his boss, assassinating those who get in the way of business deals or otherwise trouble his boss. He has a “rivalry” with Deadshot that he believes is mutual respect, but Deadshot thinks of him as nothing special and has no real concerns about him either way. Eventually a confrontation will occur between Sniper One and Deadshot, and Palmer will be killed.

Steelclaw: Thomas Bolt is elected as the new mayor of Starling City after the death of Sebastian Blood, and he takes a strong stance against drugs. At this time, a new druglord called Steelclaw begins getting involved with the smuggling of drugs into the city by cartels, demanding a hefty slice of the profits for himself. As it turns out, Mayor Thomas Bolt is the criminal Steelclaw, utilising the alternate identity as a way to control the flow of drugs and keep it at a manageable level as he does not believe the war on drugs can truly be won, while donating his slice of the profits to charities. He has been building up a case against Daniel Brickwell through his criminal links as well, and is a grey case for Oliver and co to deal with, where what should be done with him is not entirely clear. In his criminal guise he has a bladed metallic glove and knockout pellets so that he can threaten other criminals.

Starling City Slayer: Stanley Dover is an elderly man who abducts children and then sacrifices them in demonic rituals, as he is a maddened occultist. The gruesome murder scenes, arranged as they are in public places as rituals, garners the attention of the media and it becomes a high profile case that Oliver works with Detective Lance to solve.

Yasmin Soze: A gunrunner and arms dealer, she is something of a criminal networker, getting other people what they need for a price or putting them in contact with the people they need to talk to. She acts as something of an informant for Team Arrow and has a strained relationship with them, as many of her arms deals are ruined because of them. She’s vaguely tolerated mainly because obtaining evidence on her is extremely difficult. As a cover for her activities she ends up becoming the new owner of Verdant, and Team Arrow have to ensure she does not discover their base beneath the club. Her line of work is dangerous, and she was the target of a hit by Deadshot several years back, being left in a critical condition by him as a warning from a rival arms dealer.