Green Arrow #31 – Review

By: Jeff Lemire (story), Andrea Sorrentino (art), Marcelo Maiolo (colors)

The Story: Ollie attends the least heartwarming family reunion ever.

The Review: So Lemire was serious about killing off Robert Queen after all. A pity, though not much of one, in all honesty. Having revealed he was still alive only four issues ago and showing little character to be admired since then, it’s not as if you’re particularly attached to his existence. Even Ollie, after giving himself a moment to mourn for all that was wasted between them, refuses to get maudlin about it, and allows the Outsiders to bury Robert on the island, away from the rest of his family, significantly enough.

There’s a poetic, even karmic, justice to all this. Robert, whose pointless obsession with the Totem Arrow led him to abandon his wife and nearly kill his son, dies for the sake of his family, even if it’s not the one he left behind in Star City. Komodo gets his comeuppance, too. After raising his child to be an Outsider on a foundation of lies, his child lives up to her upbringing by taking out the man who betrayed her all her life. A deserving end for Komodo, but at a monstrous cost to Emiko.

Green Arrow #30 – Review

By: Jeff Lemire (story), Andrea Sorrentino (art), Marcelo Maiolo (colors)

The Story: Komodo learns that dads should never get in between a mother-daughter relationship.

The Review: As cool a concept as the Outsiders may have seemed at first, they also seemed slightly antiquated and a little at odds with the criminal demands of the modern world, especially one populated with superpowers. I mean, characters like Green Arrow, Katana, or Hawkman* are in the same boat, or would be if they didn’t modify their martial artistry with trick arrows, magic swords, and Nth metal. The Outsiders haven’t kept up with the times quite as well.

Ollie made that pretty clear last month when he took out nearly an entire clan by himself with a single umbrella arrow. Even fighting amongst themselves, without the pressure of defending against gunfire—can you imagine the slaughter if there was such a thing as a Gun Clan?—we haven’t seen much to recommend them as truly formidable threats. If there’s a title that can stand to skew its balance towards action, it’s this one. The inter-clan battle in this issue is far too brief for its size, making it hard to appreciate the power and skill of the warriors involved.

Green Arrow #29 – Review

By: Jeff Lemire (story), Andrea Sorrentino (art), Marcelo Maiolo (colors)

The Story: I sense great custody battles ahead for Komodo and Shado.

The Review: Speaking as one who has told a lot of lies in his time—never to you, of course (wink!)—I can tell you that lying itself can be a very powerful form of truth-telling.  The lies we tell invariably reveal something about ourselves because even as they deflect attention away from things we want to conceal, they also expose things we wish were true, whether you’re saying you’re younger than you really are or recounting college exploits that never happened.

With that in mind, Komodo has been telling his daughter some rather interesting tall tales, inadvertently letting his motivations peek through their chinks.  In flashback, we see him telling a younger, less bloodthirsty Emiko, “Your mother’s name was Shado.  She was beautiful.  She was the love of my life.  We were meant to be together forever.  Then a very bad man killed her…a bad man named Queen.”  I tend to weary of villains driven by love gone wrong, but it comforts me to know that Komodo will be getting his comeuppance soon.

Green Arrow #27 – Review

By: Jeff Lemire (story), Andrea Sorrentino (art), Marcelo Maiolo (colors)

The Story: Fathers—you can (barely) live with them, and you can live without them.

The Review: I was a bit wary when last issue revealed that Ollie’s time on the island involved more than him playing out his own version of Cast Away.  Given the timing, it was hard not to be a little cynical and see the move as an attempt to capitalize on the popularity of Arrow.  But upon reflection, giving Ollie a more humanly oppressive environment on the island does make sense, if only by giving him a reason to become a crusader for the oppressed once he returned.

So just as I started to approve of Lemire’s new developments, he threw in another, one that I find a lot harder to take.  It’s impossible to get through this review without discussing it in full, so spoiler alert: Ollie’s dad not only planned his son’s stranding on the island and most of the torments he suffered there, he’s alive to see the current fruit of his work.  Make no mistake, it’s a twist you weren’t totally expecting,* but one that saps the grandeur of Ollie’s origin story.

Green Arrow #26 – Review

By: Jeff Lemire (story), Andrea Sorrentino (art), Marcelo Maiolo (colors)

The Story: Even on a deserted island, there are local treasures.

The Review: I never did read the early run of this series, so I don’t have a precise idea of what the general direction or tone of it was, but my understanding is that pre-Lemire, Green Arrow was a more high-tech, street-driven version of your typical Batman comic.  Had the series remained on this track, it probably would have been doomed to failure.  It invited too many unflattering comparisons, and prevented its star from truly developing his own identity.

So while Lemire’s efforts on the title have produced mixed results in terms of individual issues, the whole scheme of Green Arrow has definitely changed for the better.  The introduction of the Outsiders and the various weapon clans that compose them drew the title away from the urban crime it used to wallow in before, and with this issue, Lemire firmly leads Green Arrow into a newer, more mystical era.  Within that framework, Ollie is less a vigilante in the sub-Batman mold, but an adventurer and survivalist a la Indiana Jones or Nathan Drake.*

Arrow S02E07 – Review

By: Marc Guggenheim & Drew Z. Greenberg (story)

The Story: Vertigo’s out of order, Moira’s out of order, this whole city’s out of order!

The Review: Moira Queen is an interesting figure within the Arrow universe.  Central as she is to some of the show’s most important storylines, she’s never been much of an active player in any of them.  This is partially the fault of her character makeup; as an upper-class socialite with few discernible skills, she has little choice but to fall back on classic feminine wiles to exert her power.  She deceives, schemes, bargains, but rarely do you see her actually do anything.

Yet even in this limited capacity, Moira does far more than other characters in her position, which is mother to our hero.  Usually, these women are relegated to little more than sounding boards for their children’s exploits and had Moira been trapped in this role, she’d have a much smaller presence in the show.  As she is now, her sole purpose seems to be generating drama for the other principals to grapple with, a function which she serves very well.

Arrow S02E06 – Review

By: Ben Sokolowski & Beth Schwartz (story)

The Story: To Russia with love.

The Review: Almost every TV series, even the best ones, goes through the same pattern of growth, particularly during the early seasons.  The first season is all about setting tone: the characters’ core personalities, the general dynamics among them, the style, pace, and purpose of the show.  It’s usually the second season where things get exciting; with the basics out of the way, the writers can focus on having fun and expanding the bounds of the world they’ve created.

Arrow’s second season easily falls into this model as it steadily incorporates more and more elements from the comic book mythos which inspired the show.  In addition to passing references to particle accelerators and WWII-era genetic experiments, the show has officially opened the revolving door of DC character appearances, this time allowing Amanda Waller to step through and be her usual coercive self.*

Arrow S02E02 – Review

By: Ben Sokolowski & Beth Schwartz (story)

The Story: For once, you can’t blame incompetence for FEMA’s problems.

The Review: Turning over a new leaf is never an easy process.  Aside from the difficulty of changing old habits, you’ve now got to learn how to apply your new ones to your life.  When Ollie indicated last week that he’s ready to take a different tack to his vigilantism, that murder is no longer his first option, you have to wonder if he took into account the changes in Starling City since his Return from the Island, Part II.

With the Glades in total disarray, the city now seems legitimately in desperate need of a hero.  The villains have only stepped up their game since season one, carrying out more dastardly crimes than ever.  As she preys upon the medication lifeline from FEMA that the Glades’ hospitals depend on to survive, China White proves that she’s only grown fiercer and less scrupulous since she was hired to take down Malcolm Merlyn—and now she’s bringing friends.  Taking on a no-kill rule under those circumstances seems to signal a lot of future uphill battles.

Green Arrow #24 – Review

By: Jeff Lemire (story), Andrea Sorrentino (art), Marcelo Maiolo (colors)

The Story: Green Arrow wonders how many more shirtless villains he’ll have to deal with.

The Review: And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.  Lemire was one of the few writers who managed to use his Villains Month offering as simply another chapter of his ongoing series, which is all well and good.  It’s just kind of unfortunate that the story had to center on Count Vertigo, who has turned out to be a less than impressive figure, even just within the Green Arrow canon.  Even Komodo, a newcomer on the scene, has had more impact.

So I’m not sure we really needed to have another encounter with Vertigo so soon after the last one, in which the villain all but whimpered and curled into a fetal position once his disorienting powers were removed.  For his second act, Vertigo basically uses the exact same strategy as before, only on a wider—specifically, a “half-mile”—scale.  A blunt sort of strategy, but as a blanket response to archers, an effective one.

Green Arrow #23 – Review

By: Jeff Lemire (story), Andrea Sorrentino (art), Marcelo Maiolo (colors)

The Story: Count Vertigo will be thinking of Evander Holyfield a lot tonight.

The Review: Some years ago, I had aspirations to get into the acting biz.  Of course, this was before I realized my face wasn’t suitable for popular entertainment, but I digress.  During that blithely optimistic period, I realized all the classes and workshops were real big on the concept of “motivation.”  They were always asking what motivated such and such character to do this or that, often repeatedly, with increasing insistence, until you felt motivated to just leave the room.

Obviously, I now realize the question of motivation is not only essential for the art of acting, but for fiction—and real life—as well.  The question reminds you that it’s easy enough to see when someone wants something, but it’s much harder to dissect what makes them want it, and it’s this latter point which makes a character (or person) interesting and unique.  The more a writer leaves the motivation question to generalities, the less dimensional a story becomes.  If you want a textbook example of that problem, look no further than this issue.