Shadowspire

Shadowspire is a fictional military unit featured on the CW Network television series Arrow, which is part of the greater DC Television Universe. They appeared in season four of the show, mostly referenced, but played a key role in episode 4x11, "A.W.O.L.", in which they appeared in the main story and in flashback.

Shadowspire was a Special Forces Unit of the United States Army. They served in Afghanistan in the years following the September 11th terrorist attacks on the United States, and fought against the Taliban. They were distinguished from the regular army by a red and black logo, which they wore as a patch on the shoulders of their uniforms.

The Shadowspire unit was led by a lieutenant named Joyner. They began conducting illegal operations involving drug smuggling and black market operations. Lieutenant Joyner offered soldiers John Diggle and his brother, Andy Diggle, a place within Shadowpire, but they both turned him down. Andy however, later reversed his attitude about the war profiteers and joined up. Andy cut ties with Shadowspire after he was listed missing in action, as Shadowspire only recruited enlisted men. Baron Reiter was an associate of Shadowspire, and headed up the opium market on a South Pacific island called Lian Yu, which he referred to as "Purgatory".

The U.S. task force agency known as A.R.G.U.S., under the leadership of Amanda Waller, took action against Shadowspire after they became a criminal outfit. As a result, Shadowspire sought to avenge themselves against A.R.G.U.S.'s actions. Using their classic strategy of misdirection, they put word out on the street that they were going to hijack a shipment of rail guns from the port harbor. The members of Team Arrow reconnoitered the area, but turned up nothing.

In truth, Shadowspire was striking at the heart of A.R.G.U.S., first by capturing, torturing, and ultimately murdering an agent named Alan Chang. They removed his eye and used it to bypass the retinal scan at A.R.G.U.S. headquarters. They stormed the command center and took Amanda Waller and Lyla Michaels hostage. Lieutenant Joyner wanted access to Rubicon, which was a ballistic launch override protocol that only Waller had the access codes to. Waller refused to give him the codes, so Joyner began executing one A.R.G.U.S. operative every twenty minutes. Realizing that Waller would never surrender the codes, Joyner shot her in the head. He then forced Lyla Michaels to download the codes, but her efforts were curtailed by Felicity Smoak, who was using her computer hacking mastery to block Lyla's attempts.

During this incident, John Diggle and Andy Diggle, pretending to be a reformed operative, managed to get to the command center and stop Joyner. While Lyla and John fought against the Shadowspire mercs, Andy subdued Lieutenant Joyner, who was subsequently taken into custody. With Joyner's arrest, Shadowspire ceased to exist.