Crisis on Infinite Earths radically changed Mia Smoak's background from Green Arrow and the Canaries pilot nonsensical. While it's fair to say Mia would not have been the same hardened warrior she was in the original Star City 2040, it beggars belief that she was never given any combat training at all in the new timeline, as the penultimate episode of Arrow season 8 claimed.
The daughter of Oliver Queen and Felicity Smoak, Mia faced the most radical changes of all the heroes who fought during Crisis on Infinite Earths. Originally brought back in time by the cosmic being known as The Monitor to reward her father by allowing him to meet his daughter as an adult, Mia found her entire life redefined by the Crisis. She was an experienced pit fighter trained by one of the world's greatest warriors, but after Crisis, she transformed into a spoiled trust-fund kid who had grown up among the rich elites of Star City. She also began using her Oliver's surname rather than her mother's in the new timeline.
Mia Queen's memories of the original pre-Crisis timeline were later restored in the pilot episode of Green Arrow and the Canaries. This led to her once again taking up her father's mantle as Green Arrow, with the final episode of Arrow establishing that she was still searching for her kidnapped brother, William, and working to avert some disaster that was sure to destroy the Star City of the future. While the pilot did a fair job of establishing a thrilling hook for the spin-off series, it made little sense given some of the changes to the timeline revealed by Arrow's series finale.
Mia Smoak's Background Pre-Crisis
Arrow season 7 defied tradition, presenting a flash-forward storyline set in the year 2040 instead of a flashback-fueled subplot detailing how Oliver Queen became the Green Arrow. Mia was first introduced as a street fighter in the Star City underground, who fought under the name Blackstar in Arrow season 7, episode 8, "Unmasked." Her real first name was revealed as Mia in the 150th episode of Arrow, "Emerald Archer." One episode later, in"Star City Slayers," Mia's full name was revealed to be Mia Smoak and she itted to her new allies that her parents were master hacker Felicity Smoak and legendary vigilante Oliver Queen.
Mia Smoak's full background was ultimately revealed in Arrow season 7, episode 16, "Star City 2040." Raised in secrecy in a small town far from Star City, the only people who knew about Mia's existence apart from her parents were John "Spartan" Diggle, the Laurel Lance of Earth-2, and Nyssa Al Ghul. This was necessary because Green Arrow had angered a sinister cabal known as the Ninth Circle and the only way to guarantee the safety of his family was for them to disappear completely. With Felicity's blessing, Nyssa acted as Mia's combat tutor, presenting her with a hunting bow similar to the one used by her father once her training was judged to be complete.
A master of archery and martial arts, Mia was a natural for the life of a vigilante. She was reluctant to take up her father's mantle at first, having bought into the propaganda pushed by Star City's elite that all of the city's problems were caused by vigilantes. In the end, however, Mia ed with her mother and her father's old allies, along with the new heroes of her generation, to save Star City from a terrorist group known as the Eden Corps as the new Green Arrow. Later, she and her half-brother William Clayton as well as her lover Connor Hawke went back in time and met the original Team Arrow, before the Crisis on Infinite Earths began in earnest.
Mia Queen's Background Post-Crisis
The Arrow series finale revealed that Oliver Queen had rewritten reality during Crisis on Infinite Earths so that most of his loved ones who died during his career as Green Arrow were somehow spared. This included his best friend, Tommy Merlyn, his mother Moira Queen, and his half sister Emiko Queen, who had formerly been the head of the Ninth Circle. While the details were kept vague, it seemed that there was no need for Mia and Felicity to ever go into hiding in the new timeline. As such, Mia was brought up in the lap of luxury, growing up in Queen Manor and never getting the combat training she received from Nyssa Al Ghul in the original timeline.
Confusingly, this point was addressed one episode earlier in the backdoor pilot for the Green Arrow and the Canaries spinoff. It was here that a new Mia, now called Mia Queen rather than Mia Smoak, was presented as a celebrity who had grown up in the limelight because of her famous father. Shortly after her graduation from college and her engagement to John Diggle Jr., Mia was confronted by the Earth-2 Laurel Lance from 2019 (whom Mia claimed to have never met before) and had her previous knowledge and training restored by a telepathic device made by Cisco Ramon, which replicated the effect of Martian Manhunter's telepathic powers. This was necessary, according to Laurel, because of a coming disaster that required a new Green Arrow rise up to save the city.
Why Mia Growing Up Untrained Makes No Sense
While it seems likely Oliver Queen would have wanted to spare his daughter of the need to become a vigilante like him, it seems just as likely that his former allies would want to see Mia trained to handle herself in a fight. As such, it's unbelievable Mia Queen would grow up without receiving some basic self-defense classes and archery training, even if she didn't get the full-fledged League of Assassins training she received in the original timeline. Even if there was no Ninth Circle to worry about, Green Arrow still had many enemies and Felicity Smoak was notoriously paranoid. It seems horribly out of character for Felicity not to plan for the worst and seek to have her daughter taught now how to fight, as she did in the original timeline.
Mia's growing up without any combat training also seems odd considering how many ready and willing teachers she would have had in the post-Crisis Earth-Prime; most of them strong-willed women, who believe in the value of a woman knowing the art of war, who would insist upon making sure that the daughter of Oliver Queen be taught how to take care of herself. In addition to Nyssa Al Ghul (who regarded Felicity as a sister), Mia could have gotten League of Assassins training from her aunt Thea Queen or family friend, Sara Lance. Her other aunt, Emiko Queen, would also probably have taken a hand in her training, ing on her knowledge from her time with the Ninth Circle. This gap in her education seems even stranger considering the Green Arrow and the Canaries pilot and the Arrow series finale made it clear that Sara Lance had been keeping an eye on Oliver 's children in the future and was responsible for bringing her sister's doppelganger forward in time to restore Mia's memories.