- NOTE: This article is about the incarnation of Prometheus from the Arrowverse. The mainstream version can be found here: Prometheus (DC).
| “ | I'm not going to kill him... I'm gonna make him wish he was dead. | „ |
| ~ Prometheus telling Evelyn Sharp that he's going to torture Oliver Queen. |
| “ | I studied you, Oliver Queen. I know everything. Who you love, who you trust, who you've hurt. Do you know how easy it was to turn Evelyn against you? How easy it will be to turn them all? You're not a hero. You're a killer. And I'm going to show them that. I'm going to show them how everything you touch dies. Four years I've waited to make you answer for your sins. I told you, Oliver. Everything you touch dies. | „ |
| ~ Prometheus to the Green Arrow, while tricking him into killing Billy Malone. |
| “ | I'm always ten steps ahead of you. | „ |
| ~ Prometheus' most famous quote. |
Simon Morrison, better known as Prometheus and by his alias Adrian Chase, is the main antagonist of Season 5 and the overarching antagonist of Season 6 in the TV series Arrow.
He is the district attorney of Star City and close friend/collaborator of Oliver Queen as mayor, until he was revealed to be a serial killer driven by revenge, having harbored a deep hatred of Oliver for killing his father Justin Claybourne. Although he makes it clear he doesn't plan on killing Oliver, he intends on killing his loved ones and mentally destroying him and make him live the rest of his life as a broken man, thus becoming one of his most dangerous and hated foes.
He is portrayed by Josh Segarra, who also voiced Abraham Reyes in Red Dead Redemption. When disguised, he is voiced by Michael Dorn, who also voiced Prometheus from Earth-X in the 2017 Crisis on Earth-X crossover and portrayed Worf's evil counterpart in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
Overview[]
In around 1986, a woman, with the last name Morrison, conceived a son with her master, Justin Claybourne, and gave birth to him, naming him Simon. She eventually changed her name to "Amanda Westfield". Justin was eventually divorced from his wife, who made mention of their son. The boy was named Simon Morrison and growing up, Simon still knew who his father was and loved him very much.
After his father was murdered by the vigilante "The Hood", Simon Morrison swore vengeance after attending his father's funeral. Dropping off the grid completely by erasing all traces of his existence, and began to do research on "The Hood", eventually discovering that he is Oliver Queen. Simon then began to obsessively study Oliver and his life. He also wasn't fooled when Roy Harper was misinterpreted to be his father's murderer. During his studies, Simon learned about his father's ties to Malcolm Merlyn in a book called "The List" and began to believe that Oliver was a killer in his own right and that his heroism is just an excuse to bring misery to everything and everyone. After adopting the name Adrian Chase, he sought out Talia al Ghul to learn about the ways of the League of Assassins. Impressed with Simon at his brilliance, Talia agreed to his request and also because she hated Oliver for killing Ra's al Ghul, who was actually her father and whom Talia loved dearly. Through Talia, Adrian learned about the time traveling Legends led by Sara Lance and everything else Talia knew about Oliver. He even learned that Barry Allen was the Flash and about the team.
After obtaining all the skills and facts that he needed, Adrian returned to Star City and eventually became the new district attorney, succeeding Susanna. At some point, he met a woman and Doris and married her. Adrian began to operate as an assistant to Oliver, who was now the mayor of the city. Adrian decided to become a sinister serial killer known as Prometheus, who was a dark counterpart to Oliver's Green Arrow. However, Adrian's plan was not to kill Oliver, he wanted to take everything from him and to break him completely. The only reason Adrian selected the name Prometheus was that Prometheus was someone who challenged the power of the gods and took power away from the judges, jury, and executioners.
In order to do so, Chase let Oliver gradually find out about both Prometheus' past as well as about the past of Oliver and his family. Even when Oliver found out that Adrian was Prometheus, he could not act against him without compromising himself and was thus forced to tolerate Adrian and his mocking provocations on a daily basis at City Hall. Adrian's pursuit of revenge eventually even drove him to murder his wife in order to frame the Green Arrow. He also captured Oliver and tortured him for weeks, eventually breaking Oliver and causing him to "realize" that he did not kill villains in order to save the city, he did so because he was disturbed and liked killing. This epiphany caused Oliver to temporarily disband the Team Arrow until his friends managed to convince him that he was a good man and that Chase was only trying to manipulate him.
Eventually, Oliver and his team managed to gather evidence against Chase and he was publicly denounced as the serial killer Prometheus. No longer able to work openly, Chase was forced to operate from the shadows but nonetheless continued to plot against Oliver. While trying to dispense a deadly virus over Star City, Chase was taken down by Oliver and imprisoned at an A.R.G.U.S. facility but even this was part of his plans.
While Chase was imprisoned, his team of allies - consisting of Evelyn Sharp, Talia al Ghul, and Black Siren - kidnapped Oliver's team members and thus forced him to release Chase. After having been humiliated by being forced to release Adrian, Oliver was forced to pursue Chase with allies himself, as Chase still held his friends captive. Meanwhile, Chase has reached his destination - Lian Yu - where he, his team and his hostages waited for Oliver to arrive.
Chase had the island of Lian Yu booby trapped with several explosives that would be activated by Chase's death due to a dead man's trigger. To goad Oliver into killing him, he feigned having killed Oliver's son, William but Felicity informed Oliver about the dead man's trigger, exposing his intentions. Oliver pursued Chase as he escaped onto a boat into the waters of Lian Yu with William captured also. Chase gave Oliver an ultimatum: Either allow William to be killed or save William at the expense of killing his entire team, who were trapped on the island as Chase had removed the hydraulics from the only plane. Oliver shot Chase in the foot, allowing William to escape. Chase then spitefully informed him that Oliver's life will be lonely without his team and shot himself in the head, causing Lian Yu to explode as Oliver watched in horror, leaving the fate of everyone on the island unknown.
Legacy[]
Despite Chase's death, all members of Oliver's team managed to escape to the destruction of Lian Yu, despite receiving many injuries. Thea ends up in a coma and William's mother, Samantha Clayton is killed before the destruction of the island, leaving William to be raised by his father. Chase's former teammate, Black Siren continues to commit crime in Star City and becomes employed to Ricardo Diaz until she reforms by forming a bond with Quentin Lance.
In the Season 8 premiere, Chase's Earth-2 counterpart appeared during Oliver's trip to the world under the Monitor's instructions. Unlike Earth-1 Chase, this one is a vigilante operating as "the Hood" alongside a redeemed Black Siren, with a goal to protect Starling City. He is presumably killed after Earth-2 was wiped out by a surge of anti-matter, with Laurel, Oliver and John escaping in time.
Personality[]
Under his civilian identity, Adrian was a kind, caring, compassionate individual. He takes his job as District Attorney very seriously, enforcing the law to whatever extent, even personally-interrogating suspects in crimes linked to Prometheus, Tobias Church and Vigilante. He also seems to have a tendency to lose his temper, but is usually very-controlled. He was loyal to Oliver as a friend, willing to throw himself under the bus (figuratively) to defend Oliver's administration as Mayor of Star City; however, Oliver didn't consider this to be worth it, viewing Adrian as his friend.
His alter-ego Prometheus, however, has a grudge on the Green Arrow for deeds he'd performed in his early vigilante days in 2012. His fixation runs deep enough that only he wants to harm Green Arrow, so much that if anyone else tries to kill him, he'll take their lives; he murdered over a dozen of SCPD officers just to make sure he'd be able to kill Tobias Church, who wanted to take Green Arrow's life himself, thus prompting Prometheus to throw a blade into his throat, finishing him. In addition, when Vigilante attacked Oliver while Adrian was in character as Oliver's friend, Prometheus tracked-down Vigilante and said that Oliver was his life to take and no-one else's, but Vigilante refused to relent. Prometheus then tried to kill Vigilante, but he manages to escape.
He is bound on torturing Oliver Queen by hurting the ones around him. He put in massive amounts of effort by leaving clues behind for Oliver and even killing people just to recreate entire crime scenes to remind Oliver Queen of what he has done. Prometheus likes to inflict terror on his victims, injuring Curtis just to leave a clue breaking Laurel Lance of Earth-2 from S.T.A.R. Labs and making her pose as her Earth-1 doppelganger, all to make Oliver question his true nature. He was able to intimidate Laurel despite her being a powerful meta-human, and thus she had no other choice but to obey him, and after disagreeing with his plan and getting her cover blown before Team Arrow, Prometheus lashed-out on her, threatening to bring her to a horrible, slow, painful death if she didn't find a way to fix this. When killing Officer Conahan, he drew out the kill and inflicted multiple injuries before performing the killing blow. His fixture on Green Arrow was primarily part of a quest to make him "wish he was dead" before he could be able to oblige, similarly to another foe Oliver had faced, named Slade Wilson, in 2013, but unlike Slade, Prometheus' ambition had nothing to do with damaging Star City itself.
Also, the hatred that Adrian had for Oliver outweighed the love he had for his wife. When Doris discovered that her husband was the Throwing Star Killer, she was willing to tell the police what she knew since Doris was devastated at Adrian killing all those people. However, Adrian killed her none the less and framed the Green Arrow for her murder. There are still indications that Adrian loved his wife dearly because of him kidnapping William and holding him hostage, due to considering this to be fair since Oliver involved his wife into this. Adrian was also willing to commit suicide just to trigger the explosion on Lian Yu, killing Felicity Smoak, Samantha Clayton, and Oliver's team out of hatred for him.
It was unclear of how Adrian grew up, however, he was considered to be a disturbed individual whom his father viewed as a sociopath. Adrian was unaware that Claybourne planned to disown him and when he found out, he was hurt by this very much. Nevertheless, Adrian still continued on with his plan believing that he could obtain his father's approval even though his father was dead. His mother, Amanda Westfield, was sensitive to Adrian's feelings, believing that his vendetta was due to the fact he was hurt and scared by everything Oliver has done by killing his father.
Appearances[]
| Appearances for Prometheus |
|---|
Arrow[]Season 5[]
Season 6[]
Season 7[]
Season 8[]
|
Killed Victims[]
- Lt. Sam Conahan
- Tobias Church
- Gay Eked
- Peter Meld
- Detective Billy Malone (tricked or manipulated Oliver into killing him)
- Doris Chase
- Two bodyguards
- Two F.B.I. agents
- Three A.R.G.U.S. agents
- Numerous SCPD officers
- Himself
- Samantha Clayton
Unconfirmed[]
- Evelyn Sharp / Artemis
- Several members of Talia al Ghul's cult
Quotes[]
| “ | Adrian: You won. Your son has his father back, and he learned exactly who his father was, just like you learned who your father was right here... on these very same waters. Oliver: What? Adrian: William's younger than you were, so he's gonna be fine, you know? And you have each other. Oliver: What are you saying? Adrian: Which is good. Oliver, that's good, because it's gonna be lonely... without Mom and Felicity. |
„ |
| ~ Prometheus' last words before shooting himself, causing the Island of Lian Yu to explode. |
Trivia[]
- Although he shares his name with a DC villain of a similar name, it has been explained that the two villains are not the same and that this version of Prometheus is an original villain. It is also implied that Oliver Queen's actions in the first season are responsible for Prometheus' creation.
- In the original DC Comics, Adrian Chase is the name of Vigilante.
- It is unknown how exactly Prometheus is aware of the location of Team Flash's base of operations or how he knows about the Legends team; it is presumed that he was able to find Oliver's connection to them both and spied on them. Whereas Team Flash operates in Central City, the Legends travel across time, which would make it harder to unearth their connection to him.
- He seems to share some traits with Jason Todd/Arkham Knight, as both are vigilantes who wore suits identical to the hero they loathed, but with a full mask and use a voice filter. Unlike Arkham Knight, however, who wanted to finish Batman immediately but was stopped by Scarecrow every time, Prometheus was in charge of his own scheme.
- His death is similar to how Jim Moriarty died; they killed themselves so the protagonist of their respective stories would lose their loved ones. They both had a murderous obsession with their enemies (Oliver Queen and Sherlock Holmes respectively) and were willing to end their own lives to make sure their enemies would fall from grace.
- It is also, ironically, similar to what happened to Robert Queen; they shot themselves in the head on a boat near Lian Yu despite Oliver's attempt to stop them respectively.
- Adrian is so far the only antagonist in the Arrow-verse to kill himself, and the third main antagonist on Arrow to die, after Ra's al Ghul and Damien Darhk. Though Malcolm Merlyn was one of Oliver's more dangerous opponents, he didn't die in the season he was the main antagonist of.
- Adrian's true identity as Prometheus is foreshadowed in the episode "Vigilante", where he coldly-describes having been to Hell in order to intimidate a bank robber. In addition, the name "Adrian" actually means "the dark one".
- Adrian is the third antagonist on Arrow to be credited as a main character, after Slade Wilson and Malcolm Merlyn. Black Siren is the fourth, appearing as a main character in Season 6.
- Adrian is similar in a way to certain villain characters from Marvel Studios' Marvel Cinematic Universe:
- He is most-similar to Grant Ward from Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. on ABC; they both posed as friends to the protagonists while secretly being a villain that has little-to-no regard for anyone's safety but their own. His full name "Grant Douglas Ward" means "Great Dark Protector", just as "Adrian" means "the dark one".
- Similarly to Helmut Zemo in Captain America: Civil War, who manages to split the Avengers apart and pit them against each other as revenge for the deaths of his family, Adrian manages to temporarily break-up Team Arrow by turning Evelyn Sharp against them.
- Adrian's goals and motives also mirror Ivan Vanko in the second Iron Man movie, they both target the main heroes to get "justice" for their father's deaths. Also like Ivan, Adrian ends his own life as a last resort once his revenge is denied.
- Adrian's quest for revenge on Oliver was, interestingly, based from the plans of villains who previously appeared on Arrow and its spin-offs The Flash and DC's Legends of Tomorrow:
- His Prometheus costume somewhat resembles Malcolm Merlyn's League of Assassins' attire. Malcolm was taught by the League of Assassins how to fight, just as Adrian was taught by Talia al Ghul.
- Slade Wilson/Deathstroke had massacred Starling City with a large army of Mirakuru-enhanced soldiers, all to cripple Oliver's sense of self-worth. Prometheus is also merciless in his scheme, wanting revenge on Oliver for the same reason that Slade did (the death of a loved one), but despite throwing much of the city into chaos, he has not caused near as much damage as Slade did.
- To an extent, Adrian resembles Brother Blood's civilian identity, Sebastian Blood.
- Similarly to Eobard Thawne/Reverse-Flash, Adrian used his civilian identity to mask his true motives just as Thawne posed as Harrison Wells to gain Barry Allen's and Team Flash's trust. Indeed, Eobard and Adrian had matching opinions on the pinnacle of their hatred; they both seemed to care for them in a twisted manner, but would still kill them once they have what they want.
- Similarly to Hunter Zolomon/Zoom, Adrian's villain costume was a black, masked counterpart to the protagonist's costume, which has no mouth-guard. Both also had a strange fixture on their respective foes, with Zolomon desiring Barry's speed to save his own life and Adrian wanting Oliver to kill him. Zolomon posed as Jay Garrick of Earth-2 to blend in with Team Flash, while Adrian uses his civilian identity to blend in at City Hall. They both also sought to manipulate their enemies into becoming just like them and had Black Siren as a trusted enforcer.
- Just as Savitar's goal is to take back everything that Barry takes from him in the future, Adrian wants to make Oliver pay with his life for taking everything from him, and prove that he is not a good person after all. Also, in the Season three Winter finale of The Flash, Barry travels to May 2017 by accident and witnesses Savitar kill Iris West; in the Season five Winter finale of Arrow, Adrian manipulated Oliver into killing Billy Malone. Both Adrian and Savitar sought to make the pinnacle of their obsession become just like them and essentially fall from grace. They were both also slain by a single gunshot, with Iris killing Savitar and Adrian shooting himself in the head.
- An alternate version of Prometheus that appeared in the Arrowverse crossover event "Crisis on Earth-X" turned out to actually be an alternate version of Tommy Merlyn; fans speculated this initially early in Arrow season five.
- While praised as a villain, the resolve to Prometheus' suicide bombing in the sixth season premiere, resulting only in the death of Samantha, Thea Queen being put in a comma, John Diggle getting nerve cancer, and no main characters dying, has been widely panned by fans and critics alike. It also caused a significant decline in viewership and many fans believe the anticlimactic result to his endgame effectively rendered his entire character pointless.
