GREEN ARROW #1

Review by: Rbigley

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Avg Rating: 2.5
 
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Written by J.T. KRUL
Art by DAN JURGENS and GEORGE PÈREZ
Cover by BRETT BOOTH and ROB HUNTER

Size: 32 pages
Price: 2.99

Week 2 in, and I bought more books than I had planned. I was not going to buy this book, or Stormwatch, Detective, JLI or Swamp Thing. Considering some nice advanced word on those titles I jumped in.

Now Ollie has always been a favorite of mine. My comic book reading started way back in the late 60’s early 70’s. To me the comic heroes of my youth were Batman, Flash, Plastic Man and Ollie. And in those simpler times Ollie was different. He spoke his mind, and at times that got him into trouble, plus he had that chin hair and that made him stand out from the pack. And he was fun when other heroes were stiff.

So. . .what is he now? After Grell turned him from a liberal hot head into a conservative who thought killing his enemies was A-Okay, to Chuck Dixon taking that further until his death, to his return back to basics with Smith and Meltzer (the best so far)to a decent into mediocrity with Winnick and JT Krul. Krul who previously gave up the amazingly awful Fall of Green Arrow, the laugh inducing Rise of Arsenal and the boring standard hero fare of the Green Arrow launch a year ago.

They done all they could with the character, killing him, making him a killer, giving him a family, then making him a killer again. So what does this version give us? Smallville Oliver mixed with Ultimate Hawkeye.

Nothing original, shockingly this book has the feel of a 1990’s book trying to be hip. Its what I feared when I heard Didio say what he wanted to do and I saw those updated looks. Very trendy stuff going on, and trends seriously become dated fast. Nothing stood out character wise, the action scene took 15 pages including set up, with villains that really seemed light weight, yes that was the point, but to devote over half the issue to that? Seriously. . .Where was the sense of danger, threat, emotion or. . .character. Ollie is gone. This is not the character I know and love, and yes that beard no matter how dated made him stand out. You got the sense of who he was just by looking at him. You knew that he was going to say something to piss people off. That loveable liberal hot head who was his own worst enemy is gone.

What we have now is just another superhero, some one that even now seems to be a pale imitation of Marvel’s Hawkeye. And surrounded by 90’s style Jurgens art.

Sad.

Disappointing.

Run of the mill and unoriginal. At least he didn’t kill hobos with a dead cat in an alley. Why is Krul still writing Green Arrow after all that mocking?

Good bye Ollie I will miss you and this is one less book to next month.

Story: 2 - Average
Art: 2 - Average

Comments

  1. Very, very good review. My thoughts exactly. Ollie Queen is dead, which is a very sad thing. Why has Editorial never bothered to put a writer with a vision on this book? Is Olliie such a disliked character that you had to decide for mediocrity?

    • I know they want to tell fast paced action filled stories, but you got to have characters that we care about. Don’t sacrifice character for action. A shame this is.

      Maybe someone will emerge that can give us back the Ollie we love.

    • Yes, they’ll probably do that one day. But it will need a lot of time. If this new take doesn’t work (and it won’t), they’ll put GA on a hiatus for a while. And that’s probably the best at the moment, because there just doesn’t seem to be anybody at DC who has an idea what stories could be told with Ollie.

  2. Maybe it’s because Krul has been (badly) writing Ollie for the past year or so now, but I really miss Winick’s take on him. Smith and Meltzer’s are my favorite, but I would much rather have Winick writing him now than this. The review perfectly sums up why I’m dropping the book staring one of my favorite superheroes. Sad.

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