Red Sonja: The Black Tower #4 - A Review

And so it was that Red Sonja was killed by Thraxis - God of The Black Tower!  And lo were the people of Hyboria enslaved. Even the random superheroine who was there for some reason.

Okay - maybe that's just futuristic clothing that Thraxis was kind enough to give the enslaved. We're honestly not that sure about the time scale between chapters here.


But there were those who would resist inspired by the legends of Red Sonja - The Spawn of The She-Devil! But they all got killed almost instantly and inspired Thraxis to become even more cruel. So screw them. And forget we mentioned them, because they aren't at all important to this story.

What is important is that Thraxis was awesome. And he had a harem of totally hot smoking babes who would do anything to make him not kill them or send them to the mines.

Is Hyboria doomed?  How will this story end when our heroine got killed in the last chapter? Does anybody actually care at this point?


How does the story of Red Sonja: The Black Tower - a tale that has thus far involved dragon-riding, robots, lightsabers, ray guns and flying saucers -  become even more convoluted in its final chapter?

By introducing time travel.

I'm not even kidding. It turns out that the attractive couple we saw get killed WAY back in the first chapter were time-travelers.


Mom hung on just long enough to deliver her son, who was raised by the robots in the tower and he was able to use the advanced technology to watch the outside world, developed a crush on Red Sonja and then became this monstrous warlord to get revenge on the people who killed his parents.  Oh, and he killed Sonja after realizing there was no way she'd ever surrender to him.

He explains all this to an attractive redhead who wishes to serve the living god more directly. And I don't need to say anything more because you already know how this is going to end.

Just one question remains - how is this possible?


You have to love it when the writer can't be buggered to choose just which hackneyed plot twist he should use and just decides to say A Wizard Did It. The irony being that this is one of the few genres where that would be a legitimate explanation...

Is a comic truly bad if you find yourself amused by it?  I'll leave such questions to other scholars. For me, it is enough to say that Red Sonja: The Black Tower seems incredibly conflicted as to just what kind of story it is trying to tell.

The worst part is not the introduction of science-fiction elements into the Hyborian world or the vague plot. It is the fact that the base plot is virtually identical to the much reviled Avengers #200, with the only difference being that our villain beheads the woman of his dreams rather than raping her and that she (or her clone/daughter/spirit/whatever) gets revenge by going back in time to kill an innocent woman ala The Terminator.

It's a distasteful comic. And I feel sorry that the genuinely skilled Cezar Razek will have this book on his resume. Hopefully he'll be able to draw a much better Red Sonja story in the future.  Better yet, let's get Amanda Conner (who did the cover for this issue) to write and draw a Red Sonja comic!

Off Target: Green Arrow (Vol. 2) #90

I decided to start this year off with some unfinished business.

It's been nearly a year since I last looked at Cross Roads - a mini-series that is, for my money, the worst series of books to star Green Arrow ever created.  Written by a number of authors between the time when Mike Grell ended his legendary run on the series and Chuck Dixon officially took over as writer, Cross Roads depicted an emotionally distraught Oliver Queen leaving Seattle to wander America seeking new purpose.  

In previous installments, we saw Oliver Queen team up with Huntress to bring down an evil diet company, recover Incan artifacts with Catwoman in Dallas and blow up a gun factory with Anarky for no adequately explained reason.  But I've saved the best for last, kids.  And for once I make that statement without sarcasm.


Cheer up, Ollie. This issue isn't really that bad!
The issue opens with a fairly standard scene - Green Arrow saving a woman and her child from an apparent mugging/attempted rape.  The criminal is subdued and Ollie checks on the victims to make sure they're okay.  Unfortunately, it turns out the crook is down but not out and he makes a break for it. 


Astute readers will notice one thing immediately about this issue - there is no dialogue!  No caption boxes.  No thought balloons.  Not even so much as a BAM or POW to denote the action!  Well, at least there isn't any dialogue until the very end but we'll get to that.  And for those of you thinking that my reason for saying this issue is "not bad" is because we're not treated to more of Kevin Dooley's dialogue... well, that's a fair cop.  But credit being given where credit is due, the idea to do this issue without any sound cues is an effective one as you'll shortly see.

It's at this point that the narrative splits into two tracks.  One on the top of the page and the other on the bottom.  One showing Ollie catching the crook by the ankle and slowing him down as he runs off, with the other showing Ollie being one step behind in his pursuit as the crook breaks for the roof.  Most of the comic continues in this way, showing the differing action sequences as Ollie tracks the crook on the ground or chases him across the rooftops.


You film geeks are probably thinking the same thing I did - isn't this is a total rip off of Run Lola Run - the 1998 German film that won a boat-load of awards?  It would seem so, as both the movie and this comic deal with depicting how events might have played out differently because of one small change.  Yet this comic came out in 1994, several years before Run Lola Run!

Naturally one of the paths does not end well for Ollie and there is a striking image where Green Arrow stares down at his own dead body.  I'd share it with you but my image host insists it is too graphic to post.  So much for DC Comics' efforts to make this book lighten up, eh?

So what's going on that Ollie can be seeing rather direct visions of his own death?  Well, this comic - in addition to being the final part of Cross Roads - was also a tie-in to a company-wide event called Zero Hour.  I'll spare you the details, but basically Zero Hour dealt with the tiime-ine of the DC Comics Universe becoming unstable and people from various alternate realities appearing at random.

And so it is that Ollie is interrupted in his being freaked out by the arrival an old friend...



The Men's Room at the Hall of Justice is flooded and I know you have a Plunger Arrow.

Actually, we don't find out why Batman came to seek Green Arrow's help in this issue.  Naturally, it does get covered in Zero Hour but I shan't spoil that here.  Suffice it to say Oliver Queen winds up having an important part in the whole thing and it is actually pretty awesome.  And if you don't believe me, just consider this - a big crisis that is shaking the whole universe apart and it's freaking BATMAN who goes out in person to ask Green Arrow for help.

Something to think about the next time someone tells you how useless Green Arrow is. :)

Honestly, this comic isn't bad.  It's not great but it's pretty good at accomplishing what it set out to do.  The action is well paced and Eduardo Barreto did a great job illustrating it. Really, as far as tie-in comics go, it is one of the better ones I've seen. 

Off Target: Arrow #20 (Web Comic)

It's no secret to anyone who has been reading my Arrow Episode Guide that I dislike the character of Felicity Smoak.  It's all due to the way the character (or lack thereof) is written.  Felicity is a variant on the one-note, delightfully-quirky stock character that film critic Nathan Rabin dubbed the Manic Pixie Dream Girl.  There's several variants of this - like the Manic Pixie Prostitute (see Pretty Woman) and Felicity's particular variant, The Manic Pixie Geek Girl. 

Whatever the variant, their purpose in any story is roughly the same - to act in delightfully unconventional ways while helping the male protagonists in whatever they're doing.  Never mind what their own dreams and aspirations are or what personality traits they might have besides "charmingly awkward" or "cute if she'd take those glasses off".  They have no reason for existing beyond inspiring the hero to change his life (if they're a love interest) or helping the hero in their goals.


I'm here to appeal to the geeks who are still pissed we haven't seen a boxing glove arrow yet!
That's what annoys me about Felicity in a nutshell.  She's supposed to be this brilliant character but she's nothing more than a walking plot device, who is only as smart as the script requires her to be this week.  Felicity has no background or personal drive - she's just there to answer whatever questions the plot requires this week.  Noted science-fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke once said "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."  That's quickly becoming the case on Arrow, where that cute blonde with the glasses in the IT department of Queen Consolidated has become a scientific super-genius capable of not only rebuilding a bullet-riddled hard drive but also analyzing a drug and determining what part of town it was made in due to the water content.  Because....she has glasses and is good with computers?

Arrow #20 is a good example of everything I dislike about Felicity and what her presence does to the show.  But the hackery in this story goes far beyond even Felicity's existence as a one-note plot device.  Indeed, this comic transcends hackery to become something sublimely amusing.


We open a Starling City street, where Oliver Queen is taking Felicity Smoak out to "see the city you're helping".  Why?  Well, Ollie figures she's the type that doesn't get out much.  Because she's a girl who wears glasses and is good with computers!  Yeah... I love Ollie as a character but there are times when he can be kind of a privileged dick in spite of his good intentions.  This is one of them. 

So, at this point fans of the show are probably wondering three things...

1. Didn't Felicity say last week that she had no interest in helping Ollie with the vigilante stuff?

2. Wouldn't a famous playboy and local celebrity like Oliver Queen going out with some lowly IT girl attract a lot of the attention that Ollie's been trying to avoid?

3. Where the heck is Diggle, who is supposed to be Ollie's shadow whenever he's out in public?  Especially when he's out in public?

Well, there's all perfectly logical reasons for all of that.  You see - LOOK AT THE KITTIES!



So before this can turn into She's All That and Ollie can spirit Felicity away for a full makeover, dress shopping and a trip to get her contact lenses, the two of them notice that it is raining money.  Literally.  Greenbacks are raining from the sky and the good people of Starling City are going crazy.  Thankfully, all it takes is one trip back to the Arrow Cave for Felicity to get on-line and figure out what's going on.  How?  Well, she's good with computers!  And she has glasses!


Somehow, she figures out that the man responsible for this is named Randal Hode and that he's...

A) hacked the ultra-secure bank accounts of the wealthiest people in Starling City.
B) converted their collective savings into $100 bills and loaded them into a plane
C) taken the plane in the air and begun making like Robin Hood.

Now, I'm sure that another three questions have come to your minds...

1) Don't banks have all sorts of physical and electronic safeguards that prevent large quantities of cash from being withdrawn all at once?

2) Wouldn't it have taken a lot longer for one guy to load billions of dollars in cash onto a plane than the timeline of this story allows?

3) Randall Hode?  Seriously?  That's the name we're going with for this Robin Hood wannabe? 

 Well, there's a very good reason why this isn't stupid or impossible.  You see - LOOK AT THE KITTIES!


Now, normally Ollie could get behind the rich jerks who are apparently running Starling City into the ground getting their just deserts.  But  Hode's plan is causing mass hysteria, with old ladies attacking defenseless, fit young men roaming the streets.  I'm not even joking or making a gratuitous Monty Python reference - THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENS!


Sadly, this is not Madame Fatal.

Thankfully, getting onto a moving plane flying at 10,000 feet is a simple matter when you're a master archer with a Zip-Line Arrow.  Soon, Ollie is on-board Hode's plane.  Naturally, Hode is less than thrilled and opens up the bay doors of the plane completely, in an effort to flush Ollie out.  


Thankfully, Ollie has a mini-crossbow tucked into his sleeve and enough cable tied to the bolt to create a last-minute lifeline to stop him from plummeting to certain doom.  It's at this point that Felicity, who is back out in the street amongst the rioting civilians, calls to ramble at him in her uniquely endearing way about the local architecture.  Specifically, Hanover Tower. 


Can you guess why Felicity felt the need to call Ollie with this information right now?

1) She's leading into a tearful confession about how she loves Ollie, she has always loved Ollie and she doesn't care how impractical it is - she WILL wear the fishnets for him.

2) She just got a side-job with the Starling City Tourism Bureau and is being paid to call people and tell them about the finer points of the city skyline.

3) He's about to run into said building.

...

I don't know what's dumber.  The fact that Felicity felt she had to call Ollie about this when he's hanging on for dear life or the fact that Ollie actually DID fail to notice the rather large skyscraper bearing down on him.

Thankfully, Ollie's not so far down that he can't double-time climb up his cable, just barely missing the building.  He's further able to climb onto the plane and - somehow - moves around to the front to jump down on the front of the plane.  Now, I don't know planes but I do know from the view that we got of the front of it earlier that this particular plane has a rounded nose.  So I'll be darned if I can figure out how Ollie has enough space to kneel there,  even ignoring the fact that he's 10,000 feet up and traveling at a great enough speed for the plane to remain airborn!

Does the phrase "bug meet windshield" mean anything to you?


But that's okay!  I can go with this!  We'll just assume that the plane does have enough space for Ollie to kneel down and that he's got some kind of magnetic grips on his adventuring boots.  That still doesn't explain how Ollie is able to drive an arrow into the side of a plane with one hand and use that as a pivot to kick his way through an airplane window.
  

Screw you, physics!
Do I even need to begin to explain what's wrong with all of that?

Ollie pins Hode down, as Hode says he was directly inspired by Ollie and how he wanted to do something about the greedy people who are ruining the city.  But Ollie apparently has given up on the recruiting drive (given his track record with intentionally recruiting help in his war on corruption, who can blame him?) and despite the advantages a man who can hack every bank in Starling City has to offer, Hode isn't nearly as easy on the eyes as Helena Bertinelli was.  So Ollie skips past the "You can reform" speech he gave Huntress and Firefly and moves right on to threats of violence and death.



Ollie renders Hode unconscious which Felicity - newly relocated to a rooftop somewhere - points out is kind of stupid since Ollie has no idea how to fly a plane.  Well, Ollie says he used to watch his dad fly a plane all the time and has picked up enough to know how to glide it.  Felicity and her Windows 8 tablet come to the rescue as she's instantly able to hack in and take a look at the plane's controls. 

No.  Really.



This is why the FAA makes you turn your electronic devices off on the plane.
 They're afraid you'll find out ANYONE can do this.
In what marks the one realistic, logical thing in this comic, Felicity quickly figures out that flying a plane in real life is much more complicated than running a flight simulator on the Wii and that all of the SCIENCE! in the world won't allow her to pilot the plane with what little she knows.  Thankfully, she is able to play navigator for Ollie and finds an abandoned Queen Industries warehouse for him to glide the plane into safely.  And so our comic ends with our heroes back at the Arrow Cave and Felicity justifying her own cash-grab in the streets.


Seconds later, Ollie said "You have failed this city," and shot her.  She was not missed.  The End.
This comic stinks!  The artwork isn't bad, save that Ollie only seems to have a mustache in some panels instead of his beard but the story is full of continuity problems and just plain stupidity.  Normally Arrow is worth the download but this week it's not even worth downloading to laugh at.

Off Target: Green Arrow (Vol. 2) #88

There's a problem - let's call it The Archer's Complaint, since it comes up just as much with Hawkeye as it does with Green Arrow. 

THE ARCHER'S COMPLAINT: What good is a guy who is really good at using a bow in a world where magic is real, aliens exist and super-powered beings are an established fact of reality?

There's two ways a writer can cope with The Archer's Complaint.  The first method limits the character's activities to dealing with low-level street crime and real-world problems.  This tactic was used by Mike Grell on Green Arrow and is currently used by Matt Fraction on Hawkeye.  The second method showcases the character's mental skills and gives them technology that allows them to level the playing field.  This method was used by Joss Whedon in the Avengers movie and pretty much everyone who wrote Batman in the last two decades.

I mention this because writer Kevin Dooley did not choose either of these paths when he was writing Green Arrow.  Whether it was because he was honestly unable to think of stories where Oliver Queen could be an effective hero or he actively hated the character I have no idea.  Either way, I can't help but notice that the stories Dooley wrote for Cross Roads were the ones where Ollie proved completely ineffective until he changed his methods and standards, whether it was by destroying private property, abandoning finesse for raw power or outright killing an unarmed man that the law wouldn't touch.

With that in mind, let's play some Comic Book Limbo and see how low we can go with Green Arrow #88.



Hey, Wally?  Could you run down to Academy and get me a bow that isn't broken?

This cover is a complete lie.  There's no armored soldiers anywhere in the book.  Ollie isn't in costume once in the whole issue.  His bow never gets broken.  The Flash never shows up.  And - SPOILER ALERT - Ollie never fights alongside his former colleagues in the Justice League.

We open on a typical New York City street.  In typical New York City fashion, a missile is about to rain down fiery doom on the populace.  Luckily, The Martian Manhunter is on the scene.  So is Oliver Queen, but nobody notices or cares about him.

For one thing, you can't get theater tickets without taking out a loan these days...
As Ollie watches J'onn effortlessly catch the missile, deflecting it towards a second missile, he thinks back on his days in the Justice League and wonders if they might still have a place for the World's Finest archer.  He dismisses the thought just as quickly, thinking there's nothing a man with a bow can do against a madman in a jet armed with heat-seeking missiles and starts wondering if the other heroes just humored him. 

Get used to this self-loathing, folks.  We're going to be seeing a lot more of it.

Ollie leaps into action after J'onn punches his way through one of the jet's engines and the plane starts to fall downward.  This leads Ollie to try and shoot the cockpit glass with an arrow.  Wait... Why?  What was he hoping to accomplish?  Kill the pilot in case he was trying to steer the plane to where he could hit someone when he crashed? 


... that you'd be so stupid? Neither can I, Ollie.
No, Ollie's arrow didn't do anything.  It's Martian Manhunter again, righting the plane and bringing it down safely.  The police come up to take the pilot into custody as Ollie looks on.  This would be an ideal time for Ollie to step in, say hi to his buddy J'onn and offer to go commiserate over some cookies and milk at one of Manhattan's many fine diners.  Ollie doesn't do that.  Even though the whole reason he came to NYC was to get in touch with his old friends.

Hey, don't insult crap!  It makes for a very effective fertilizer!
No, Ollie isn't trash-talking himself, for once.  In the minute or so while his back was turned, Ollie's car was stolen.  A surprisingly clean-cut and well-dressed homeless man tells Ollie about how the whole neighborhood has been going to hell in a hand-basket and how the cops are more interested in harassing the homeless then catching criminals.  I'll give Kevin Dooley credit for this much - that is totally accurate in regards to how Mayor Rudolph Giuliani ordered the police to handle the homeless in New York City at that time.


Okay.  Let's pause to consider something.  We're only six pages into this book and we've already had an apparent terrorist attack with a stolen jet, a car theft and now a bank robbery.  All of this has happened within walking distance of the Justice League Embassy.  All of this happening on the same street with the span of about five minutes.  Unlikely?  To put it mildly.

I'll grant you the jet attack since it may have been aimed at the Justice League Embassy itself.  I'll even grant you the car-theft may have been a crime of opportunity, since everyone was distracted by the sudden jet landing.  But I don't think it likely that the neighborhood around a public superhero base would be the kind of place a car thief would routinely hang around waiting to get lucky OR that someone would try to rob a bank near one.  There's a reason the crime rate tends to be lower around police stations and the same principle should apply here.

Anyway, Ollie runs toward the sounds of gunfire and finds several police officers pinned down by heavy fire.  As Ollie tries to figure out how he can stand up to a bunch of robbers with high-powered guns, Wonder Woman shows up.  Ollie thinks she has things well in hand and he doesn't have to get involved... until he sees two men with guns sneaking up on Wonder Woman, ready to shoot her in the back at point-blank range.  Ollie is about to shoot at the men, but Diana has matters well in hand again.  This time, Ollie does try to say hello, but the uniform cops are having none of it.


More depressed than ever, Ollie wanders off into an alley and starts playing a variant of kick-the-can that involves shooting it with an arrow rather than kicking it.  After his "can-arrow" passes through an open window and nearly hits a civilian, who sticks his head out the window to yell at Ollie, Ollie hears a ruckus in the next alley over.  By sheer coincidence, it's the homeless man Ollie spoke with earlier getting harassed by some random thugs who seem to be under the mistaken impression that the homeless man has something worth stealing.  Ollie thinks this is just the kind of thing he can handle... right up until someone sneaks up behind him and knocks him unconscious.  


Everybody playing the drinking game at home, do a shot for Ollie getting knocked out.
Ollie comes to in the hospital sometime later.  Curiously, despite the fairly strict rules hospitals have about visitors - particularly the victims of violent crimes - the homeless man is waiting with Ollie in his room.  It is he, rather than a nurse, who explains that Ollie got hit from behind by the muggers' look-out. To add insult to injury, he reveals that the only reason Ollie is still alive is because he managed to pull a gun away from one of the muggers and scared them off with it.  So not only is Ollie completely ineffective at fighting alongside other superheroes - he can't even stop a simple mugging!  Our hero, ladies and gentlemen!

Shockingly, there is someone who may be having an even worse day than Ollie and he just woke up in the next room....


Yes, it's Guy Gardner - ex Green Lantern.  Referring to the events of Emerald Twilight (which was going on at the same time as this story), Guy explains how Hal Jordan - greatest of the Green Lanterns and Oliver Queen's best friend - has killed The Guardians of the Universe, absorbed their energy and gone mad with power.  Ollie offers to help as Guy leaves the hospital but Guy is quick to dismiss his help.  "Bow 'N' Arrows Don't Just Hack It," Guy says.

I'm not upset about this part because Guy Gardner honestly is thick-headed enough to not realize that - on the odd chance that 'more force' isn't the solution - maybe having the best friend of the guy you're trying to stop on hand might be a good idea.  Particularly when said best friend has a proven track record of being able to talk to the power-mad lunatic and get him to think about things he never considered before.  I AM upset because Ollie is honestly hurt by Gardner's words about bows and arrows not cutting it and doesn't dismiss them as... well, Guy Gardner being Guy Gardner.

Lacking anything better to do at the moment, Ollie follows the homeless man to the cardboard shantytown where he's currently staying.  He introduces himself as Bernie Feinstein and explains that he's a computer programmer who is down on his luck.  He then introduces Ollie to the rest of his friends, including the guy who runs the place.


In the middle of this, Ollie is distracted by a newspaper on the ground which talks about Lamoreaux Industries (i.e. the company run by the incestuous rapist Ollie killed last issue) being taken over.  The paper indicates that the CEO died of a heart-attack.  Technically true as Ollie attacked his heart with a cloth-yard shaft.  Ollie muses as to whether or not that would have happened without him doing what he did only to be surprised as Ned asks if he's ever killed someone and is then told that heroes don't kill when he says that he has.  Before Ollie can respond, shadowy figures come out of nowhere, guns a-blazzing.


I'm sure I can find some way to make this bad situation even worse!
Given Ollie's track record so far in this comic and what we've seen of Kevin Dooley's story-telling style so far, what do you think happens next?

A) Martian Manhunter and Wonder Woman, who were finally tipped off that Ollie was in town after Guy Gardner signed in at the JLE and told them Ollie was in the hospital when he left, show up just in time to help Ollie fight the corrupt police.  The issue ends with them going back to the Justice League Embassy for chili, Oreos and milk

B)Ollie single-handedly repels the corrupt police officers, who run away like the cowards they are having not expected anyone to fight back, thus proving the power of one man standing up for what is right.

C) Ollie rallies the homeless men into an army, striking back at their oppressors, thus justifying his status as a modern-day Robin Hood.
 
D) Ollie nearly gets shot in the back and is saved only after Bernie throws himself between Ollie and the corrupt cop.  Bernie dies in his arms and Ollie is chewed out for trying to be a hero as the shanty town is completely destroyed and the homeless people are left with nothing.

...

...

...

Pencils down.  Everyone have an answer ready?  Good.
...

...

...


Anyone who didn't say D, smack the back of your hand for not paying attention!


o/` No one knows what it's like... to be the bad man... to be the sad man... o/`
And so our comic ends with Ollie handing an envelope full of money to Ned (apparently, Ollie's Vegas winnings are still in it) and Ollie saying that he lied earlier when he said he wasn't living a life discarded.  Ollie then decides to go to the one place on Earth depressing enough to match his current mood - New Jersey! 

No, really!  He decides to go to Gotham City.  It's in New Jersey!  Look it up in the DC Atlas!   

This may well be the most depressing comic I've ever had the misfortune to read.  This comic holds the idea of heroism down and uses it for a toilet.  Our hero doesn't accomplish one heroic thing in the whole book.  Hell, he doesn't even manage to accomplish his stated basic goal of meeting up with his old friends!

If anyone needs me, I'm going to be doing something more cheerful than reading this comic.  Maybe listen to The Smiths while looking at pictures of abused animals.   

Off Target: Green Arrow (Vol. 2) #87

Daron Kappauff, who was one of my editors at Comics Nexus, recently asked me if I ever reviewed comics I didn't like anymore.  This comment came on the heels of a run of relatively positive reviews I had just published.  Personally, I think he misses being able to force me to read bad X-Men books and laughing at my torment in having to describe just how bloody awful everything is. :)

Well, let it never be said I don't give the people what they want.  Because this episode of Off-Target focuses on a comic that is so vile you'll be surprised it wasn't a collaboration between Garth Ennis and Mark Millar.  This comic is so morally disgusting, it makes Evil Ernie look like Tiny Toons. In fact, I'd suggest cleaning your bathtub and shower now because by the time we're done with this book you're going to need a lengthy cleansing period.

Hyperbole?  I wish.  Because this issue of Cross Roads was written at a point when the letters of complaint had begun to pour in from the fans.  The readers were upset that Ollie Queen - a hero who had always been defined by his strict morality - had largely been reduced to being The Punisher with a bow, making only token attempts at avoiding killing .  They were also upset that the depth of the character and focus on real-world issues had been reduced from the days when Dennis O'Neil and Mike Grell were writing the character.

How did writer Kevin Dooley respond to these complaints?  Apparently by trying to create a melodramatic villain so unsympathetic that only the most devout pacifist could complain about his being killed by our hero.  He also apparently attempted to ape the styles of both Grell and O'Neil, telling a story that read more like a Men's Adventure pulp magazine than a traditional superhero story.  While there's nothing wrong with that (indeed, one might argue Ollie's roots as a character lay in those same pulps) , it didn't play to Dooley's strengths as a creator and the final product is ham-fisted to say the least.

But I'm getting a little ahead of myself.  So let's take a look at the cover of Green Arrow #87 and - OH MY GOD!
 

THIS MONTH: Green Arrow - Vampire Lord!
I have no explanation for this.  So let's just press on.

Last time, Ollie was fresh off becoming an accessory to one of Catwoman's thefts and - oh yes - petting the pussy.  Deciding he was bored with Dallas, Ollie decided to head to New Orleans.  Not surprisingly, this issue opens with Ollie on the deck of a New Orleans riverboat casino ship.  Also not surprisingly, Ollie's vacation has been interrupted.  Again.


That's because Mark Twain wrote GOOD stories, Ollie.
So how did Ollie wind up in this mess, being strangled by Mr. Clean?  To the surprise of no one, a woman was involved.  Specifically, a gorgeous blonde who was being harassed by a couple of thugs.  Coincidentally, she's the spitting image of Black Canary, save for her mismatched eyes.

Never one to tolerate a lady being bothered - especially one who looks like his lost love - Ollie decided to take action.  Apparently he didn't feel the need to rush taking action, as we see that he took the time to change into his costume.  Luckily, the thugs hadn't dragged the girl away somewhere during that time.  Or was Ollie actually gambling in costume?  I know he stopped giving a damn about his secret identity long before this point but... gah, so many questions over something so stupid!


Coincidentally, "jerk after jerk after jerk" is also Ollie's coping mechanism since leaving Dinah.
As the fight continues, we see just how horribly out of character Ollie is under Dooley's pen.  Bad enough that Ollie's kick sends Mr. Clean crashing against a rail and onto the water-wheel of the ship.  Worse that Ollie decides to pin the guy to the wheel with arrows, so he has no chance of swimming to safety now that he's out of the fight.  And Ollie justifies it to himself in his monologue, saying that his recent troubles were all "inevitable".


It's not MY fault I keep running into idiot criminals who deserve to die!
Apparently the boat was just coming into dock (it couldn't have been docked, because why would the water wheel be turning if the boat weren't moving?)  and Ollie is quick to chase after the woman for... reasons.  Naturally, Ollie doesn't think that being a masked man and known vigilante fleeing the scene of a crime while chasing after a woman might look bad.  Luckily, the cops don't notice the running woman, the guy dressed like Robin Hood chasing after her or the suicidal behavior of both as they jump in front of trains and knock over a street vendor's cart.


Much as I loathe this comic, I do like the insult "Satan-bearded mounteback".
Ollie finally manages to close the distance on the woman and - being in primal caveman mode - grabs at her hair.  It is then we find out that this woman has one more thing in common with Dinah - she's really a short-haired brunette!  This, coupled with a sudden passing jazz band parade (It's New Orleans - there's ALWAYS a jazz band parading in the streets!), distracts Ollie just long enough to be clubbed across the back of the head by the irate street vendor.  Those of you playing the Green Arrow drinking game at home, do one shot for Ollie sustaining a head injury. 


Into da pot with 'im!  He make a mighty fine gumbo.
Surprisingly, Ollie does not wind up becoming long pork gumbo for the tourists.  When he comes to, he is in a strange cabin being watched over by a strange old woman.  Curiously, he's also been changed out of his costume and into his street clothes, yet is tied up.  The old woman turns out to be the mother of the Black Canary look alike.  Rather than thanking him for saving her daughter, she lays into Ollie about trying to help others with violence, even going so far as to compare him to Mussolini.  I think she's meant to be a proxy for the readers complaining about Ollie's unrestrained blood-lust.  But like Kevin Dooley, Ollie has no good explanation or defense for his behavior.


You'd be angry too if you were starring in this piece of crap book!
The woman's name turns out to be Ceci and she explains that she was able to get Ollie's gear off the boat.  What her relation is to the street chef who brained Ollie is never clearly explained, nor why they felt the need to change Ollie's clothes.  She further explains that she works as a whore for local factory owner/gangster Simon "Daddy" Lamoreaux and that the thugs Ollie took care of work for him.  And - prepare to be sickened - she's 15 years old and apparently one of Daddy Lamoreaux's more experienced girls.


Uh-oh.  This must be really bad for a hardened crime-fighter like Oliver Queen to be tearing up so quickly.  What is it that has so touched the heart of this cynical hero?  Toothless old men crawling in the gutters, begging for change?  Children playing in an open sewer?  The new Taylor Swift single?   


No, it's chilli.  Five alarm Cajun chilli. 

This scene highlights the biggest problem with Dooley's script - the tone changes on the turn of a dime.  You cannot drop a gag involving spicy food just a few panels after a seriously revelation regarding child prostitution.  It just doesn't work!  It also doesn't help matters when we spin back around to total seriousness a few panels later as we get to the part of the story where Dooley decides to emulate Dennis O'Neil. 

For those of you who don't know, Dennis O'Neil was the writer who was largely responsible for transmuting Green Arrow from just another Batman knock-off into the real-world issue tackling, modern-day Robin Hood we all know and love.  O'Neil used his Green Lantern/Green Arrow book to examine serious issues such as urban poverty, overpopulation and drug-use among other things.  Though many of his scripts seem heavy-handed and over-dramatic by today's standards,  they were still groundbreaking for the time and are rightly acknowledged as such today.

I mention this because Dooley's work here is equally heavy-handed but lacks the excuse of being forced to make it abundantly clear how cruel and unusual "Daddy" Lamoreaux is by the CCA guidelines which required any authority figure to be shown as being irredeemably corrupt before the heroes could go after them.  It was not enough for Dennis O'Neil to show the owners of a factory exploiting their workers - the owners also had to be Nazis raising gold for the Fourth Reich!  Writing this in the 1990s, Dooley had no such excuse.


They don't even have a Starbucks, the poor bastards!
The two head back to Ceci's place and Ollie - ever the White Knight - offers to give Ceci and her mother and brother the money they need to escape the swamp.  Ceci corrects Ollie, saying the boy she was holding earlier wasn't her brother - he was her son!  This further enrages Ollie, who swears to put an arrow through "Daddy" for this.  Ceci says she doesn't want anyone risking themselves over her but does offer to "thank" Ollie for his saving her earlier.  Ollie refuses, because contrary to popular belief, Ollie does have standards about who he'll sleep with.  I'll credit Kevin Dooley with at least getting that much right.

This leaves Ollie on the living room couch when Daddy Lamoreaux his goons show up.  Holding Ceci's mom at bay with a threat about arranging a reunion with her husband, Daddy takes Ollie for an up close and personal tour of the local swamp.  And by up-close and personal, I mean they tie him to a tree in waist-deep water out where the gators roam.  And then we get another shocking revelation - "Daddy" Lamoreaux is Ceci's father and shares her unique eyes!   


And now we get into Men's Adventure magazine territory.  As I mentioned earlier, Mike Grell wrote a lot of stories in this vein, with Ollie living off the land in a hostile terrain and pitting himself against wild animals.  The problem is that Grell kept his stories firmly in reality and... oh, just watch.


Okay.  I'll grant that Ollie MIGHT be strong enough to break a rope.  Maybe Daddy and his henchmen used old rope or half-assed the knots, figuring the snakes or gators would get there before Ollie had a chance to escape.  I'm willing to grant this story that much leeway.  However, I'm not willing to believe that Ollie is straight-up capable of killing an alligator with his bare-hands, without sustaining any injuries!


Ruining my shirt, forcing me to kill a rare animal... 
No, Ollie actually has a lot better reasons than that.  He runs through all of them as he wanders through the swamp, biting a snake in half for no reason as he gathers what he needs to make a bow and arrows.  Maybe he needed the snake skin for his bow grip?  Ollie also runs through the reasons why he can't go to the authorities - Daddy has the judges, sheriff and police in his pocket.



At this point, it may have occurred to you all that all of this internal monologuing exists just to silence the critics of the direction this book has taken.  You may believe Ollie is running through a list of all of Daddy Lamoreaux's crimes so we can see that he is irredeemably evil.  You might be thinking that Ollie is running through the list of all the authority figures Daddy Lamoreaux has bought off so we can see there is no solution other than for Ollie to kill Daddy Lamoreaux.

You'd be right.

But lest we had any doubts that Ollie is completely justified in lethal force this time around, after killing one security guard gaining entrance to Daddy's factory, Ollie walks in on Daddy in the midst of raping Ceci.  So not only is he a sleazy, double-dealing factory owner/pimp who lies, cheats and swindles for the sheer love of doing so while condemning his workers to virtual slavery.  He's an incestuous, sleazy, double-dealing factory owner/pimp who lies, cheats and swindles for the sheer love of doing so while condemning his workers to virtual slavery!

But wait - there's more!



Ollie hates incestuous, sleazy, double-dealing factory owner/pimp who lie, cheat and swindle for the sheer love of doing so while condemning his workers to virtual slavery.  But he REALLY hates incestuous, sleazy, double-dealing factory owner/pimp who lie, cheat and swindle for the sheer love of doing so while condemning his workers to virtual slavery who also killed their own brother-in-law, had sex with their widowed sister and have double-incestuous relationships with their own daughter/niece.  And so our comic ends with Ollie putting an arrow through Daddy's big fat gut and walking out of the factory without a word.  That's it.  End comic.

This comic is stupid and ugly.  The only way to justify Ollie's actions in this story are to set up a totally implausible melodramatic situation where there is no solution other than the one the writer has set up to prove his point - i.e. killing the bad guys is awesome because bad guys deserve to die.  What's really confusing to me is that this story was written at a time when they were trying to get Ollie out of the Vertigoesque place his book had been for the better part of a decade and were trying to bring him in-line with the happier, more hopeful mainstream DC Universe.  How does this story do that?

Thankfully, the next issue of Cross Roads will do a far better job of bringing Ollie back into the DC Universe.  Unfortunately, it will be just about as depressing as this issue, though far less icky.  Now if you'll excuse me, I need a shower....

Off Target: Green Arrow (Vol. 2) #89

I've skipped ahead in Cross Roads again to cover a story that is as topical today as it is stupid.  The comic we're about to go through is an anti-gun story.  Please note that this is an entirely different thing than being a pro-gun control story.

Without going too deeply into my own personal beliefs on the subject, I do believe the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution does grant citizens the right of gun ownership.  However, I also believe that a tremendous amount of personal responsibility should go along with gun ownership and that the state should take steps to see that gun owners are routinely tested and regulated on a level similar to what is required of people who drive a car.  Licensing.  Testing.  Regular independent inspection.  All that.   

This comic lacks such distinction or subtlety.  In this story, guns are bad and that's it. End of conversation.  There is no argument or discussion of the many cases in which private citizen gun ownership has proved beneficial to society.  And as offensive as this all might be to gun hawks, this comic is just as offensive to those who favor sensible gun control as it suggests that anyone who wants gun control must want the complete destruction of every gun everywhere and that there is no middle ground.

All that being said, let's get into Green Arrow #89 and get ready to be annoyed! 



The Unseen Shooter returns and still can't aim worth crap.
We open in the middle of the action as Green Arrow - newly arrived in Gotham City - has stumbled across a group of five men running out of a gun shop after closing time.  Sorely annoyed about his lot in life of late, Ollie decides to vent his frustration on the would-be robbers.  As usual, Ollie is so lost in his own thoughts that he doesn't notice someone sneaking up behind him. But hold off on your drinks for a moment, Green Arrow Drinking Game players - Ollie is not knocked unconscious with a blow to the head!  This time, he is tasered. 
 


New Rule: Ollie is tasered or otherwise electrocuted - Take 2 Sips.
When Ollie wakes up, he's in the back of the robber's van.  The robbers are tending to their wounds and explain that they brought Green Arrow with them on their boss's orders.  And who is their boss, you might ask?  Why it's none other than obscure Batman villain, occasional anti-hero and star of his own ill-advised solo series back in the 1990s...Anarky!

Quick Explanation.  Anarky was a character created by Batman writer Alan Grant and artist Norm Breyfogle, based on Grant's own philosophical beliefs.  After learning of the evils of the world through a pen-pal, privileged preteen prodigy Lonnie Machin became inspired to rebuild society from the ground up as the superhero Anarky.  Lonnie is a master hacker, a brilliant engineer and the very model of a modern Marty Stu.  Anarky was meant to explore the ideals of anarchism through superheroics but came off instead as the annoying younger brother of V from V for Vendetta.


And while I'm asking questions, why the hell do you have a giraffe's neck?
For those who have to know, the reason his costume has that ridiculous giraffe's neck is to disguise his height and make him look like adult.  No.  Really.  That is what that child prodigy engineer decided would fool people into thinking he wasn't just some kid in a costume.  See why Anarky didn't get much exposure after 1999? 

Anarky quickly introduces his crew to Green Arrow explaining that these men are far from merry and that all of them had their lives changed by gun violence.  In no particular order, their ranks include...

* a paramedic whose invalid mother was shot by a burglar after he failed to find anything worth stealing in her apartment.

* a teenager whose younger sister was paralyzed after getting caught in the crossfire of a gang shoot-out.

* a soldier whose wife died after a drunk man with a gun broke into their home and thought he'd walked in on his wife cheating on him.

* a young man who played with his dad's gun, after he took it out of where it was locked up, took the bullets from where they were separately locked up and accidentally killed his brother.

* the son of a gun shop owner, whose father was killed by a man with a semi-automatic rifle, despite being armed himself.


The thieving, ill-defined, poorly drawn good guys.

Even if you're pro-gun control, Anarky's argument is complete bullshit.  All of these stories are tragic but despite the common link of a gun being involved, all of these stories are also born out of human stupidity, corruption and the contrivance of the author. 

* Most burglars don't carry guns because doing so risks a heavier sentence.

* Gangs are involved in crimes other than attempted murder and are just as dangerous to a community for those reasons but Anarky isn't doing anything to bring those criminals to justice.  Indeed, he's formed his own gang to pursue his own goals!    

* A man's inability to control his drinking was just as much the reason for the soldier's wife dying as the drunk man's owning a gun but Anarky doesn't suggest robbing liquor stores and destroying the product. 

* The young man playing with the gun, retrieving it from where his dad hid it and the bullets from the OTHER place his dad hid the bullets, is just an idiot.  An idiot who is still able to overcome his father's sensible precautions for keeping his gun away from his children... but still an idiot. 

* The gun shop owner who was killed despite being armed himself is purely a contrivance to neutralize the old joke about how the easiest way to commit suicide is to rob a gun shop.  In real life, most of the incidents where this happens do not end well for the robber.

Green Arrow agrees that their motives are noble but points out that robbing gun shops and stealing guns from gang members doesn't do anything to address the root of the problem.  Anarky agrees and their vehicle conveniently stops as they arrive at... "the root of the problem".
    
Surely no one will question a teenager being a night-shift employee at a gun factory!
Ollie then proceeds to outline precisely why Anarky is a short-sighted, impatient idiot and points out that the company will just rebuild the factory.  Ollie fails to point out all the problems that will be caused by people being put out of work by the factory closing.  He also doesn't ask why Anarky bothers robbing the gun shops when he knows it's ultimately pointless, much less while in route to "the big plan".  

Still, I have to give Kevin Dooley credit for portraying Ollie as having a brain in this moment yet being sympathetic to Anarky's cause while still recognizing that he is wrong for all the right reasons.  Ollie may be a rebel at heart but he's a good man first and foremost.  He puts the Good in Chaotic Good.  He's also, unlike Anarky, not a complete idiot.


This is too stupid even for me.  And I fought a super-model murdering Jenny Craig wannabe!
Ollie walks off, leaving Anarky and his gang to their work  The gang begins to spread plastic explosives (we're told later they're Semtex but they're drawn like bundles of dynamite) around the plant.  At the same time, Anarky - apparently thinking that phone calls are an impersonal way of conducting terrorist activities - confronts the factory foreman in person to demand that he evacuate the building immediately.  He also quotes more statistics.



Listen, brother.  Nearly 40% of all accidents represent nearly half of all accidents!
I'm not going to bother refuting every single point on this page.  Suffice it to say, there have been arguments over whether or not the Second Amendment suggests an inherent right to own a gun for years and - to the best of my research ability - at the time this comic was written no court decisions had ever been made at the federal level one way or the other.  And yes, guns are responsible for accidental deaths and injuries second only to cars... so why not regulate them as intensely as cars rather than getting rid of them outright? 

The factory is evacuated and Anarky and his followers retreat to a safe distance.  Anarky notes that they have to be quick about triggering the explosion because they don't want to set their explosives off after the police arrive on the scene, noting that they are victims of society too and that there must be no innocent deaths.  Well, apart from all the families that will starve to death because you're about to put thousands of people out of work.  But hey - at least they won't suffer a quick death at the hands of a gun!

There's just one little hitch in the plan.  Somehow - the trigger on the explosives isn't working.  For all his genius, Anarky apparently can't build a simple bomb properly.  An anarchist who stinks at blowing things up - oh the irony!  But lo - help is on the horizon! 

Rereading my contract.  Looks like I'm stuck here for 11 more issues.
Yes, Ollie returned.  Why?  Oh, you're not going to believe this...


It's time to make my bow stand for something again. Even if it's something I disagree with!  ...

So... you're about to commit multiple felonies to make your heroic identity mean something again, even though you don't agree with what you're doing in the first place?  Ollie, did you get hit in the head again while you were off-panel?

The sequence which follows is even more ridiculous.  After breaking through the police barricade in Anarky's van, Ollie starts shooting out the factory windows with ordinary arrows.  That is not the ridiculous part.  He then gets on top of the speeding van, while being fired on by the police officers.  This also is not the ridiculous part.

Are you ready for the ridiculous part?  Because this next sequence is so unbelievable it requires special theme music.  Click the link and read on.



I have not altered these images in any way.  Oliver Queen just triggered a factory explosion by shooting a fire arrow through a broken window.  Just think about that.  Somehow, he was able to hit a small target without any way of seeing it or knowing where it was, save possibly through the description of Anarky's gang. 

That would be awesome if it weren't so stupid! 

Ignoring that the police were almost certainly caught in the explosion and probably killed by the shrapnel of the factory blowing up, plastic explosives do not work that way!  Indeed, the main benefit to plastic explosives is that they are more resistant to accidentally going off.  Heck, Mythbusters devoted a segment to showing how C4 could be used as a cooking fuel without triggering an explosion.

The issue ends with Ollie in a local diner, responding to one man discussing his Second Amendment rights with all the reasoned discussion you might expect from this story so far.  That is to say, none at all.



Remember kids: guns are evil. That's why I kill people with a bow!
This comic sucks!  Not just in terms of its' politics but also in terms of its' artistry or lack thereof.  The pencils by artist Michael Netzer are sloppy.  The inking by Rob Leigh soaks too many details in shadow.  And the actions of the characters are driven by the story.  There's not once bit of subtlety in this comic.  It demonizes gun owners directly and gun-control advocates indirectly by suggesting that getting rid of all guns everywhere is the ultimate goal - a suggestion which is as untrue and prejudicial as suggesting that all gun advocates want to arm preschoolers.

Next time  - something equally offensive but far less political.