O programa de TV, na verdade, usa uma história de origem similar aos primeiros quadrinhos do Green Arrow da DC "Golden Age".
A única grande diferença é que, nos quadrinhos, Oliver Queen era na verdade o pai do menino, sendo o próprio Arqueiro Verde Roy Harper.
Aqui está um breve resumo da história original em quadrinhos do banco de dados do DC :
Roy Harper was a young boy whose parents had been killed in a plane crash that stranded him on the isolated Lost Mesa; he had learned to hunt to survive. (His father) Oliver Queen's museum was burned down by criminals he had been fighting during an attempted robbery, and he ventured to the Mesa as a means of finding a new lease on life. Criminals followed him in search of rumored treasure and shot Harper's only friend Quoag, forcing the man and boy to work together. They took their code-names Green Arrow and Speedy from off-handed remarks the thugs had made, and defeated them using bows and arrows. Discovery of the treasure made them very wealthy, and they used that money to fund their crime-fighting careers.