Green Arrow #30 - A Review

Writing reviews of Green Arrow is becoming increasingly difficult for me.  I am running out of unique ways to say "This is a great book and you should be reading it!" every month.  There is so much to praise and yet I feel as if I am repeating myself, when I point out little touches like how Jeff Lemire recaps the story so far at the start of each issue, on the off-chance there might be some new reader jumping into the series with this particular story.


This is a nice touch yet an odd one for what is the penultimate chapter of the current storyline.  There's a lot of things going on in this issue and most of them are dependent on some knowledge about things that aren't covered in the summary, like how Green Arrow's fellow JLA member Katana is also a part of one of the new clans of Outsiders (The Sword Clan, obviously) and who the cavalry who show up to aid Ollie in his battle are.  Lemire's secondary subplot - involving the on-going gang war in Seattle while Ollie is occupied - feels like an unwelcome distraction from the action of the issue.


The action is heavy in this issue and Andrea Sorrentino captures it all perfectly.  For what my money is worth, Sorrentino is a highly underrated artist and his kinetic style is a good fit for Lemire's scripts.  Colorist Marcelo Maiolo further enhances the artwork with muted palettes contrasted by single panels rendered in monochrome, save for a single dominant color.