There’s a page halfway through the issue, when Komodo falls and pulls Ollie with him. It’s basically everything that is right and wrong with superhero storytelling in one sequence. It’s a brilliantly crafted page, I kept going back to it, and stared at it for 10 minutes when I first viewed it. It’s grand, fantastic, elegant…filled with expository narrative boxes that add nothing and talks down to the reader by explaining everything that is happening right now, like that friend who fancies himself a cinephile because he sat through the Seven Samurai once and decided to talk over Die Hard on movie night because the rest aren’t as knowledgable in the medium to get it. It’s obnoxious, distracting and downright ugly. It is the case throughout the issue. The narrative boxes throws off pacing and really brings down with the brilliant stuff Sorrentino is doing.

I like Lemire, and I like this story, but the execution is so amateurish that it leaves the reader wanting. This is something you would expect from some novelist writing his first comic, not a seasoned writer and cartoonist like Lemire. But compare this to Joe Hill’s Locke & Key Omega, and it is eye opening. Now Green Arrow is not the worst offender here, that would be this week’s Swamp Thing, but the difference between what Sorrentino is doing and what Lemire is doing is so jarring that it really becomes an eyesore.

I am well aware that it might be Editorial mandate to insert pointless exposition, but that’s speculation, I can only judge the issue on its on merits. As it stands, this issue contains some of the best examples of storytelling in the genre and some of its worst. Again, this is not a slight on the story itself and what Lemire is doing with Oliver Queen, a character that was stale long before the reboot. I am still loving this direction. It just needs better execution.