Have We Seen the Last of Slade?

You guys, we are finally in the home stretch — Arrow season 3 premieres next week! It feels like I've been waiting my whole life for this, but really it's only been about three months. Same difference. At least we've spent this summer sleeping soundly at night, because Deathstroke is locked up on Oliver's Island, Lian Yu. Hopefully the residents of Starling City have been sleeping well, too. As if he knew we were talking about him, Manu Bennett attended The Wizard World Comic Con in Nashville this past weekend, and as reported by Comicbook.com, happened to mention to the crowd that the door was open for Slade, aka Deathstroke, to return to Arrow. This is both exciting and terrifying at the same time.

As Bennett explained to the crowd, the producers told him, "we want you back," they just never gave a specific time of when. Slade isn't dead. Oliver just simply locked him up in the most secure and remote location he could think of, his old stomping grounds on the Island. It's certainly a good place to keep him for the time being, but just how secure is it? Last we saw Slade, he was yelling at Oliver that he "keeps his promises!" in the most terrifyingly booming voice ever. If you've forgotten what that "promise" is, Slade basically wants to destroy everything for Oliver, and take away everyone he loves because of Shado's death — a death Slade still blames on Oliver.

Slade's return to Arrow is still solely speculation, but one that has new flames in its fire thanks to Bennett's comments. Considering he seems very gung-ho about returning to the show, and considering we probably wouldn't mind another awesome choreographed scene between Slade and Ollie, is this really something that should even be up for debate? Would the re-introduction of Slade into Starling City just bring more chaos for everyone? Eh, probably. But it'll be something we can all weather together.

However, it seems unlikely that Slade will return this year, considering that as reported by The Hollywood Reporter, Matt Nable has been cast to play Ra's al Ghul, and we'll first see him pop up in Arrow's 50th (!) episode. If you know nothing about Ghul, just know he is going to take up a lot of everyone's time and is slated to be the big bad of Season 3. This, still, shouldn't rule out any future return of Slade, even for any seasons yet to come.

This year we're going to visit Oliver during his in time Hong Kong and away from the Island. In these flashbacks, Slade will still be on the island, no? What's there to stop him from making a surprise appearance in one of Oliver's flashbacks? I'm willing to bet money that we see Shado appear in one of these flashbacks and it wouldn't be so farfetched to think that Slade might pop up too. Deathstroke has a very long history of tormenting just about everyone in the DC Universe, so if he's willing to come back, I'm sure Arrow fans would love to have him.

Images: Cate Cameron/The CW; thecwarrow/tumblr