From Digital Spy

You can't keep a good villain down and now we have it on good authority that John Barrowman could still return to Arrow and its sister shows as Malcolm Merlyn.

Having appeared across Arrow, The Flash and Legends of Tomorrow since 2012, Merlyn – the Dark Archer – sacrificed himself to save daughter Thea (Willa Holland) in Arrow's recent season five finale.

But Arrow executive producer Marc Guggenheim told Digital Spy at San Diego Comic-Con that our beloved Barrowman is welcome back on the show (or one of its spin-offs) any time he likes.

"Honestly, that's up to John, totally up to John," he said. "We told John when we called him up to tell him about the events of finale: 'Listen, quite frankly, every single person on all the shows can come back in some way shape or form.'

"We've got flashbacks, we've got time travel, we have parallel universes – goodbye is never goodbye and he has an open invitation to return to the show any time he wants."

Then again, Guggenheim also told us that season 6 of Arrow would continue with the "gritty crime stories, [and] the grounded tone" of season 5... which would appear to rule out time travel / parallel universes for now.

Still, we'll make an exception to get Barrowman back on our screen – in Arrow, The Flash, Legends or Supergirl. More Merlyn, please!

Arrow returns Thursday, October 12 at 9pm ET on The CW in the US. Sky 1 airs the show in the UK.

Watch the new trailer for season six that debuted at Comic-Con:

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