ARROW Casts Liam Hall as Jericho

Looks like Deathstroke is a dad again.

Entertainment Weekly has revealed that the CW series Arrow has cast Liam Hall as Joe Wilson, better known to DC Comics fans as the superhero (and occasional villain) Jericho. The character will appear in a two-part Deathstroke story teased at San Diego Comic Con 2017.

According to the article, Joe Wilson is described as "the son of one of the Green Arrow’s (Stephen Amell) greatest foes, Joe Wilson has followed in his father’s footsteps by joining the secret Australian military agency, A.S.I.S.  After years of brutal combat, Joe now finds himself in a remote Kasnian prison under the alias, Kane Wolfman, fighting for his life."

Hall has appeared on the ABC series Once Upon a Time and on the Fox series Lucifer.  His other television work includes episodes of Camp, Let the Right One In, and the TV movie From Straight A's to XXX.

Joe was previously mentioned on Arrow in Season 1's "The Odyssey", when Slade Wilson mentions that Billy Wintergreen is the godfather of his son Joe.  In Season 2's "Tremors", Oliver Queen tries to calm Slade's Mirakuru-induced madness by focusing Slade on his son, which ultimately works.  In "The Promise" when Slade is talking with Oliver and Moira Queen, she asks if he has any children to which Slade replies no, earning a disgusted look from Oliver.  In the Season 5 finale "Lian Yu", Oliver did research on Joe's whereabouts and gives a flash drive of the information to Slade to convince to help him rescue his friends and family.  Deathstroke's other son Grant Wilson (Jamie Andrew Cutler), was featured on Legends of Tomorrow as Slade’s potential future son who took up the mantle of Deathstroke in 2046.

Created in 1984 by Marv Wolfman and George Pérez, Jericho first appeared in Tales of the Teen Titans #43 as Joseph Wilson, the youngest son of Slade Wilson (Deathstroke the Terminator) and Adeline Kane Wilson.  Joseph was a musical prodigy, as well being an talented artist.  When he was a child, he was held hostage by the terrorist Jackal, sent by the Quarac president for killing an important colonel, in an effort to obtain information from his father of whom hired him, who was secretly leading a double life as a mercenary.  Deathstroke refused to cooperate with Jackal, citing a violation of his professional code of ethics, then attempted to rescue Joseph by betting on his speed.  Deathstroke managed to save his son, but not before one of Jackal's men cut Joseph's throat. As a result, Joseph was rendered mute.

Following the incident, Joseph's mother Adeline divorced Slade (She had previously tried to kill him, but only succeeded in blinding him in one eye) and took Joseph and his older brother Grant with her.  At some point, Joseph learned to communicate through American Sign Language.  While still a child, Joseph discovered that he possessed the metahuman power to take possession of any humanoid being by making eye contact with it, a result of biological experimentation done on his father years before.  He first manifested his powers when his was saving a friend in danger, but Joseph was left traumatized by the event and his powers would lay dormant until his late teens.  In his late teens, Joseph worked with his mother in her espionage organization, Searchers Inc., and received training in combat and stealth.  During a mission, Joseph's powers awakened once again as he saved his mother from an assassin.  He embraced his abilities to further aid his mother in their work.  Later, in a storyline called "The Judas Contract", Adeline and Joseph discovered that Deathstroke had accepted a contract on the Teen Titans.  They approached Dick Grayson to help him rescue the Titans, with Joseph adopting the identity of Jericho. The rescue mission was a success, and Jericho subsequently joined the team, but the Titans were initially wary of him because of his relationship to Deathstroke, and the betrayal of Terra.

In the current DC Rebirth continuity, Jericho has an edgier personality and is now bisexual. He works as an executive vice-president for a tech firm that his mother owns in Los Angeles, and was engaged to his interpreter, Etienne.  Although mute and still using ASL, Jericho uses a special technology called a "subvocal mic", which lets a person's phone Bluetooth sync with the mic so he can vocalize his thoughts through the phone in a computerized voice.  On the morning of the wedding day, Jericho found Etienne dead in their apartment and believed his father killed her.  Enraged, Jericho went to the church in his Ikon Suit and try to kill Deathstroke, shocking his family.  Despite his father proclaiming his innocence and explaining that Etienne was a spy, Jericho figured out that all of Etienne's activities happened because the government wanted to keep an eye on Deathstroke and he learned that Etienne indeed loved him.  

This will be the first time the character has appeared in live action, although he did appear on the Teen Titans animated series and the direct-to-video animated movie Teen Titans: The Judas Contract.

Arrow will return Thursday, October 12th at 9 p.m. EST on The CW.