Post by Zoom on Feb 1, 2011 13:43:06 GMT -5
Green Arrow reviews here.
Writer: JT Krul
Penciler: Diogenes Neves
Let’s do a little background on this book shall we? Green Arrow was relaunched in the early 2000s with the resurrection of Oliver Queen. It went through a couple authors, and each did arguably his best work on the book until Judd Winick was put in charge. Winick is an underrated author. His Exiles run was groundbreaking and I’ve heard only good things about Barry Ween. This said, Judd is notorious for not doing his research on characters and even (according to Black Lightning creator Tony Isabella) going so far as to ignore people who do the research for him. Since Green Arrow is one of those characters with decades of history, giving Winick the title ensured it would go to hell. It did. (Admitedly, it enjoyed the brief goodness of Constantine Drakon and Brick, further enforcing the idea that Winick does good work when not required to keep continuity straight.) Green Arrow cheated on Dinah (something that he hadn’t actually done in the past, despite what the storyline implied) and trained with Deathstroke’s sensei so that he could become a ninja which reduced his draw as an everyman. His son Connor lost his memory and archery abilities. The art tried to mimic Smallville, causing the 40 something year old Queen to look about 22. Then Green Arrow and Black Canary were married off even though all of the reasons Dinah gave Ollie for not wanting to marry him during Mike Grell’s infinitely better Green Arrow run still applied.
But wait! It got worse. In Cry for Justice, the JLA villain Prometheus cut the arm off Green Arrow’s former sidekick and detonated a bomb in Star City, killing off killed his (the former sidekick’s) adorable daughter and leaving a star shaped hole in the middle of the city. Green Arrow retaliated by shooting Prometheus in the head with an arrow. Green Arrow’s current sidekick, Speedy, managed to track down the other guy responsible (because an unpowered 15 year old is totally better at finding people than the entire Justice League) and Arrow had to battle the former sidekick (now an insane, drug using cyborg) to save the mass murderer, like Green Arrow hadn’t just executed the villain’s partner. This whole storyline is exactly as bad as it sounds and because she didn’t want to share a book with Green Arrow anymore if all his storylines were going to suck, Black Canary divorced Ollie. Then a white ring made the star shaped hole into a star shaped forest which Green Arrow fights crime in and the series was rebooted so that DC could get a new #1 and sell some extra issues which brings us to this comic where we will try to forget all the negativity that brought us here and judge the issue based on its own merits.
Our story opens with Green Arrow saving a girl from a bunch of generic thugs. He’s a lot more violent than he needs to be, putting three arrows in one of the guys and then leaving him there. I can’t help but notice that the would be victim is very well adjusted to almost being raped. I consider myself to be a pretty brave guy but if a half dozen dudes tried to jump me before chasing me through a forest with guns and a superhero shot one of the dudes by putting two arrows about an inch away from each side of my head, my reaction wouldn’t be to curse at and punch my now mortally wounded attacker. It would be to piss my pants or hyperventilate. This woman is distractingly tough. In fact, she even has the guts to tell off GA for being emo.
Next, we’re treated to our second splash page which, unlike the first, isn’t at all worthy of a splash page. It’s just the new owner of Queen Industries, who has the least subtle evil person outfit since Darth Vader, walking. This could have been a quarter page panel but I guess we needed some filler. I’m going to feel really stupid if (since issue 8 is out at the time of this writing) it is revealed that this Ms Rochev isn’t a bad guy after all but I mean come on. Just look at her.
I'm surprised all the corperate guys don't run for their lives. She looks like she's gonna zap them with force lightning or take off her mask and kill them with her ugliness.
The next part of the story involves Queen stealing a bunch of food from some unlikeable rich characters’ party and giving it to the poor. Now that’s the Ollie we know, giving fat cats the finger and helping out the little guy. More things happen until we get a splash page of the white lantern symbol on a tree in the forest which wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t the third unnecessary splash page. This all said, the page was pretty, as was the rest of the comic. The art was of high quality over all and actually added to the mood of the scenes. Plus, Green Arrow’s costume looks great and he no longer looks to be in his early twenties.
The Pros: Excellent art, Green Arrow is robbing from the rich, giving to the poor and hanging out in a forest just like Robin Hood.
The Cons: Obvious villain is obvious, Green Arrow freaking killed a bunch of dudes, too many unnecessary splash pages, the forest in Star City is shaped like a star.
Overall 3/5
Writer: JT Krul
Penciler: Diogenes Neves
Let’s do a little background on this book shall we? Green Arrow was relaunched in the early 2000s with the resurrection of Oliver Queen. It went through a couple authors, and each did arguably his best work on the book until Judd Winick was put in charge. Winick is an underrated author. His Exiles run was groundbreaking and I’ve heard only good things about Barry Ween. This said, Judd is notorious for not doing his research on characters and even (according to Black Lightning creator Tony Isabella) going so far as to ignore people who do the research for him. Since Green Arrow is one of those characters with decades of history, giving Winick the title ensured it would go to hell. It did. (Admitedly, it enjoyed the brief goodness of Constantine Drakon and Brick, further enforcing the idea that Winick does good work when not required to keep continuity straight.) Green Arrow cheated on Dinah (something that he hadn’t actually done in the past, despite what the storyline implied) and trained with Deathstroke’s sensei so that he could become a ninja which reduced his draw as an everyman. His son Connor lost his memory and archery abilities. The art tried to mimic Smallville, causing the 40 something year old Queen to look about 22. Then Green Arrow and Black Canary were married off even though all of the reasons Dinah gave Ollie for not wanting to marry him during Mike Grell’s infinitely better Green Arrow run still applied.
But wait! It got worse. In Cry for Justice, the JLA villain Prometheus cut the arm off Green Arrow’s former sidekick and detonated a bomb in Star City, killing off killed his (the former sidekick’s) adorable daughter and leaving a star shaped hole in the middle of the city. Green Arrow retaliated by shooting Prometheus in the head with an arrow. Green Arrow’s current sidekick, Speedy, managed to track down the other guy responsible (because an unpowered 15 year old is totally better at finding people than the entire Justice League) and Arrow had to battle the former sidekick (now an insane, drug using cyborg) to save the mass murderer, like Green Arrow hadn’t just executed the villain’s partner. This whole storyline is exactly as bad as it sounds and because she didn’t want to share a book with Green Arrow anymore if all his storylines were going to suck, Black Canary divorced Ollie. Then a white ring made the star shaped hole into a star shaped forest which Green Arrow fights crime in and the series was rebooted so that DC could get a new #1 and sell some extra issues which brings us to this comic where we will try to forget all the negativity that brought us here and judge the issue based on its own merits.
Our story opens with Green Arrow saving a girl from a bunch of generic thugs. He’s a lot more violent than he needs to be, putting three arrows in one of the guys and then leaving him there. I can’t help but notice that the would be victim is very well adjusted to almost being raped. I consider myself to be a pretty brave guy but if a half dozen dudes tried to jump me before chasing me through a forest with guns and a superhero shot one of the dudes by putting two arrows about an inch away from each side of my head, my reaction wouldn’t be to curse at and punch my now mortally wounded attacker. It would be to piss my pants or hyperventilate. This woman is distractingly tough. In fact, she even has the guts to tell off GA for being emo.
Next, we’re treated to our second splash page which, unlike the first, isn’t at all worthy of a splash page. It’s just the new owner of Queen Industries, who has the least subtle evil person outfit since Darth Vader, walking. This could have been a quarter page panel but I guess we needed some filler. I’m going to feel really stupid if (since issue 8 is out at the time of this writing) it is revealed that this Ms Rochev isn’t a bad guy after all but I mean come on. Just look at her.
I'm surprised all the corperate guys don't run for their lives. She looks like she's gonna zap them with force lightning or take off her mask and kill them with her ugliness.
The next part of the story involves Queen stealing a bunch of food from some unlikeable rich characters’ party and giving it to the poor. Now that’s the Ollie we know, giving fat cats the finger and helping out the little guy. More things happen until we get a splash page of the white lantern symbol on a tree in the forest which wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t the third unnecessary splash page. This all said, the page was pretty, as was the rest of the comic. The art was of high quality over all and actually added to the mood of the scenes. Plus, Green Arrow’s costume looks great and he no longer looks to be in his early twenties.
The Pros: Excellent art, Green Arrow is robbing from the rich, giving to the poor and hanging out in a forest just like Robin Hood.
The Cons: Obvious villain is obvious, Green Arrow freaking killed a bunch of dudes, too many unnecessary splash pages, the forest in Star City is shaped like a star.
Overall 3/5