Five Reasons Oliver Queen Is Awesome

Despite the popularity of the show Arrow, fans of Oliver Queen still get a lot of guff about our favorite hero being a half-hearted Batman rip-off.  While it may be true that Green Arrow spent a goodly portion of The Silver Age following in Bruce Wayne's footsteps, later comics turned Oliver Queen into his own man.

So what is it that separates Oliver Queen from all of the other billionaire playboy superheroes and all of the other archery-based superheroes?  Besides epic facial hair, of course.  Well, the man said it best himself in JLA #123.

"...I can't leap tall buildings in a single bound and I don't wear any fancy power rings. Hell, I'm not even the world's second greatest detective, whatever THAT means. But I am a guy with a hell of a lot of chatzpah. And that's got to count for something in a crisis, right?"

More than anything, Oliver Queen is defined by that word - chatzpah.  Call it guts, nerve, boldness, balls or just plain audacity if you want to use a ten-dollar word.  Oliver Queen is a man who will say the unthinkable, attempt the impossible and just plain refuse to back down no matter how badly the deck is stacked against him.

To that end, I've put together a list of five deeds that I think exemplify Green Arrow's awesomeness.  And to make it fair, I've eliminated all of the stories where he dies a heroic death in the name of his principals.  Because that is its own Top Five list.


5. Oliver Queen - The One Man Justice League. 



As Seen In: The Dark Knight Returns & The Dark Knight Strikes Back

I'll admit this one is implied more than it is stated.  But the facts are there on the page.  For those who haven't read The Dark Knight Returns, it's a classic Batman story set in an alternate future where superheroes were made illegal in the United States and a middle-aged Bruce Wayne comes out of retirement to become Batman one last time.  The sequel, The Dark Knight Strikes Back, is not as well regarded but it continues the story of DKR and shows what happened to all of the other Justice League members.

Apart from Superman, Green Arrow is the only Justice League member who appears in The Dark Knight Returns.  We don't get the full details of his story but we do get enough to paint a vivid picture.  Oliver Queen was in prison for a while, escaping five years previously.  He spent that time on the run, striking against the corrupt American government as best he could from overseas.  And at some point before Ollie was imprisoned, Superman was responsible for him losing an arm.

The Dark Knight Strikes Back reveals the fates of the other JLA members.  Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel joined Superman in working for the American government, which we find out is secretly being run by Lex Luthor and Brainiac.  The rest of the team either went into hiding in remote locations or were captured and imprisoned by Luthor and Brainiac.

Logically, that means that for a time, both before being imprisoned and afterward, Oliver Queen was The Justice League.  He was the one hero who didn't back down or give up or agree to fade into the shadows in a world that was going to Hell.  And he did that while single-handedly facing two of the world's most dangerous villains and three of the most powerful superheroes on the planet.

And when I say single-handedly, I mean that in the literal sense as well.  Yet despite that disadvantage, he could still use a bow with Olympic-level accuracy.  Even though he had to pull the bow-string back with his teeth!


4. Oliver Queen Holds His Own Against The Forces Of Apokolips.



As Seen In: Final Crisis #4

At the time of this story, Black Canary was the leader of The Justice League.  And as Apokolips once-again tried to invade the Earth in the name of Darkseid, The JLA Watchtower was attacked.  Knowing the importance his wife held in planning a retaliation against the invaders, Oliver Queen stayed behind to hold off the pursuit as the rest of the team teleported to safety.  

One man with a quiver full of arrows against a horde of soldiers with the strength and endurance of Superman, riding giant hunting hounds and a few brainwashed superheroes as well?  Doesn't sound like much of a fight.  And it isn't.  Ollie tears them apart.

He brings down the hounds and the soldiers with them.  And if Ollie hadn't stopped to try and talk some sense into a brainwashed Black Lightning, he might well have won.  But he didn't and one good shock to the system was all it took to bring Oliver Queen down long enough for a mind-control helmet to be slapped down on his head.

This battle would rank higher, but this fight was a loss for Oliver Queen.  And yet it was a victory, because Ollie did accomplish his goal of buying enough time to let the love of his life and the rest of his teammates get to safety.  And while the villains may have technically won the fight,  it was a hard-won victory that shouldn't have been nearly as difficult as Oliver Queen made it.


3. Oliver Queen Overcomes The Black Mercy



As Seen In: Green Lantern (Vol. 4) #8

Created by Alan Moore for his Superman story For The Man Who Has Everything, The Black Mercy is a sentient alien plant with telepathic abilities.  Parasitic in nature, the plant latches on to a host, to whom it broadcasts a hallucination of an ideal life.  The host slowly wastes away, blissfully unaware that its body is being sucked dry by The Black Mercy in the real world as their every fantasy is seemingly brought to life.

So how strong is a Black Mercy plant?  Strong enough that even Superman couldn't break free of its control without Batman pulling it off of him by force.  And then when it latched on to Batman, Robin had to pull the plant off of Batman for him to be freed of its influence.  Even Hal Jordan was unable to resist the lure of the perfect world that The Black Mercy created for him.

And yet... Oliver Queen did.  He resisted.  He saw through the illusion and dragged himself and Hal back to reality after a single Black Mercy plant latched on to them both.

After the fact, Hal Jordan guessed that the plant had chosen to focus on him since his will was stronger and that instead of giving Ollie a vision of what really would be his ideal world, it had given him what Hal thought would be Ollie's perfect world within the context of Hal's perfect life.  Fine and dandy.  Except that does nothing to explain why Hal Jordan thought to set-up Oliver with Connor Hawke's mom (a woman Ollie hadn't seen in decades and whom Hal had never met) and why there was no place for Dinah Lance or Roy Harper in Ollie's "perfect life".

I think Hal is kidding himself.  I think the truth is that The Black Mercy may be strong enough to cloud the mind of Superman, subvert the fortitude of Batman and even overcome the willpower of a Green Lantern.  But that's nothing compared to Oliver Queen's ability to question everything around him.


2. Oliver Queen Resists Poison Ivy



As Seen In: Batman/Green Arrow: The Poison Tomorrow

Dennis O'Neil earned his place in comics as a living legend with his work in the 1970s on both Batman and Green Arrow.  It was he who developed Green Arrow into the modern-day Robin Hood we know and love and turned Batman into a Dark Knight Detective once more.  He teamed the heroes together in The Brave and The Bold and a few more times besides!  And yet, I think O'Neil's 1992 graphic novel The Poison Tomorrow may be the best thing he ever did with both of these heroes together.

The Poison Tomorrow sees Batman and Green Arrow joining forces after they discover they are working the same case from different angles, with Oliver Queen racing time to save Black Canary's life.  The trail leads from a diseased scientist to Poison Ivy and a plot to use toxic baby food to make a fortune selling an antidote.  In the exciting climax of the story, Batman moves to stop the first shipment of the tainted food as Green Arrow retrieves the antidote from Poison Ivy, who is currently hiding out in a housing development that was built on a toxic landfill!

To his credit, Ollie does try to go in protected.  But he didn't count on how hard it was to draw a bow while wearing a Hazmat suit.  Or on Ivy having a muscle-bound henchman who shared her immunity to toxic waste.  Deciding he can risk the poisoned environment for long enough to hand out a beating, Ollie slips out of the suit and beats down the henchman only to be confronted by Ivy herself.

Ivy, being Ivy, pours on the charm along with the pheromones.  The full "oh my brave hero, let me take care of you" act.  And for a moment, Ollie is tempted.  He's taken a few good lumps from the henchman and he's starting to feel the effects of the toxins around him.  And a little voice tells him he's as good as dead anyway - what harm could one kiss do?  But Oliver Queen's love for Dinah Lance is too strong to be overcome by such cheap tricks.  And with one open-handed strike to the face, Green Arrow shuts Poison Ivy down.

A few years ago, I achieved a modicum of fame for taking Judd Winick to task for his depiction of Oliver Queen as an unrepentant womanizer who cheated on Dinah Lance continually.  This story was largely responsible for my attitude.  Because while a lot of stories show how passionate Oliver Queen is in his love of Dinah Lance, I don't think any story has ever quite so well depicted just how strong that love truly is and how love is a more powerful force than lust any day of the week.  That's why I have nothing but contempt for anyone who tries to sum up Oliver Queen as "a horndog who chases skirts and can't stay faithful".


1. Oliver Queen Walks Out Of Heaven.


As Seen In: Green Arrow (Vol. 2) #10

Oliver Queen was dead.  Astonishingly, to him at least, he went to Heaven.  Or some kind of paradise where he had found the peace that was denied him in life.  As such, when his best friend Hal Jordan (who, at the time, possessed the power of all but one of the Guardians of the Universe) breached the boundaries between worlds to offer him a second chance at life, Oliver Queen turned it down.  But he did agree to let Hal bring him back after a fashion, creating a soulless clone that would possess all of Oliver Queen's memories up to a certain point.

This "hollow Ollie" would go on to reestablish the name of Green Arrow in Star City in Kevin Smith's Quiver and become a target for all manner of supernatural evil.  When that evil threatened Connor Hawke - Oliver Queen's illegitimate son - the hollow Ollie was somehow able to breach the boundaries of Space and Time to deliver his older, wiser self a much-needed dressing down.  That and the knowledge that his son needed him was enough to stir Oliver Queen into action and demand to be returned to Earth.

Oliver Queen defied his enemies.  He defied his friends.  He defied his government and alien invaders.  He overcame a mind-controlling parasite and the most powerful seductress on Earth.  And all of that is awesome.  But for sheer awesomeness, I don't think anything can top Oliver Queen finding the strength of will to walk out of paradise.


Agree?  Disagree?  I await your comments.

Green Arrow: Year One - A No Flying No Tights Review

 
SOURCE: Green Arrow: Year One

With the possible exception of Tony “Iron Man” Stark, I don’t think any superhero has suffered from mischaracterization in the Modern Age of Comics more frequently than Oliver Queen. The Green Arrow I was a fan of growing up was chivalric to a fault and his most frequent point of argument with long-time girlfriend Dinah Lance (a.k.a. Black Canary) lay in how possessive and over-protective he was. Granting that at one time he was a womanizing billionaire playboy (more Bruce Wayne than Bruce Wayne), his taking on the role of a hero changed that. That was what I always admired most about Oliver Queen as a character – the idea that a man could recognize his faults and honestly change for the better.

Unfortunately, this idea got lost somewhere along the way due to sloppy research. As a result, Oliver Queen was routinely portrayed as a flirtatious buffoon, even after becoming a superhero, for the better part of a decade. This idea of Green Arrow as a womanizer became so prominent that his rape at the hands of the assassin Shado was held up as an example of his “chronic” cheating on Dinah Lance by several writers!

I mention all of this to provide historical context as to what a breath of fresh air Green Arrow: Year One was at the time of its’ release. Here was the Green Arrow I’d loved as a kid, though somewhat rougher as a result of author Andy Diggle’s attempt to modernize Oliver Queen’s origins. Amazingly, Diggle’s modernization of the character only helped to make Oliver Queen’s transformation from idle-rich lay-about into a defender of the weak more plausible.

One way in which Diggle did this was by subtly addressing the main problem with Green Arrow’s backstory in a realistic universe. Namely, how does a billionaire playboy with no experience as an outdoorsman survive being shipwrecked on a deserted island? Diggle neatly explains this away with a scene before the infamous shipwreck occurs in which we learn that Oliver Queen is an extreme sports enthusiast, who base-jumped the Grand Canyon and dived the Titanic wreckage before leading an expedition to the North Pole.

Other scenes showcase Oliver’s hatred of hypocrisy and social injustice, his love of Robin Hood myths as a child, and – in a nice nod to the Mike Grell Green Arrow series – his training in archery as a child with real-world stunt-man and master archer Howard Hill. Given all of that, Oliver’s survival in a hostile environment does not seem at all implausible. Nor does his transformation into a real Robin Hood figure after he learns that a drug cartel has enslaved the local natives and put them to work on a poppy farm seem contrived.

The artwork by Jock perfectly captures the exotic appeal and primal energy of Diggle’s script. Famed for his use of shadows and heavy inks to establish mood, Jock alternates his usual style with more traditional, lighter panels. The effect is not unlike viewing stills of an action movie in sequence, the entire book having a cinematic aura to it.

If you’re a fan of the new Arrow television series and looking for a good place to start in learning about the character of Oliver Queen from the comics or are just a lover of good survival-based suspense, I recommend this book highly. The book is rated 12+ by DC Comics, but I would recommend it to slightly older audiences merely because I don’t think most middle-school students are worldly enough to appreciate this story fully. Content wise, there’s a fair bit of violence and drug use, including one scene where Ollie’s drunkenness is played for laughs and a more intense sequence in which Ollie is forced to take opium as a pain-killer after being severely injured. Both scenes are realistic in their portrayal of drug use, however and do nothing to glamorize it.

Green Arrow: Year One
by Andy Diggle
Art by Jock
ISBN: 9781401217433
DC Comics, 2008
Publisher Age Rating: 12+

Off Target: Green Arrow (Vol. 2) #82

As I noted last time, some of the biggest problems with the Cross Roads stories came about because the writers weren't fully familiar with Ollie Queen as a character, the specific details of his most recent stories or how skilled he is as a combatant.   Granting that we want our hero to be challenged, there has to be some fundamental level of competence for the hero to operate at.  Many of the Cross Roads writers - Kevin Dooley in particular - severely undercut Oliver Queen's skill level for the sake of the story they wanted to tell.  And one of the best examples of this is Green Arrow #82. 

Looks like 90's Hawkeye is pissed about all the positive reviews of 'Arrow'!

I'm kidding of course. Purple costume aside, that is not Hawkeye.  The man with the serious anger issues goes by the unlikely name of Rival.  We'll learn more about him and why that name is particularly stupid later on.  For now, I'd just like to point out that Ollie has been wearing a domino mask on all of the Cross Roads covers so far even though he'd stopped wearing a mask in the comics!   

We open on Ollie in San Fransisco, pinning two young boys to a fence with his arrows.  And yes, I do mean boys.  They're clearly boys in the artwork and all of the dark monologues in the world about how bad they are and how Ollie was not prepared for them won't make me think otherwise.  It will turn out this monologue has no purpose other than to fake out the reader and makes no sense for Ollie to be thinking in any other context at all. 

Dammit, Ollie! I hate Menudo too, but this isn't the answer!

One of the unfortunate lads turns his head a little as Ollie tries to put an arrow right next to his head.  The result is a nicked ear for the boy and a punch in the arm for Ollie as the boy's aunt re-enters the scene.  Meet Andrea Zercher - an old friend of Ollie's from junior high.  Andrea takes the idea that Ollie was using her nephews  to play William Tell far better than any reasonable person should and sends the boys to wash up for dinner while she and Ollie discuss old times... apparently not having done so before this moment.

Fun Fact: Ollie's day job after coming back from the dead?  Running a youth center.  Be afraid. 

Now's the time for a quick bit of backstory because I'm going to have to address this eventually amid all these Cross Roads reviews.  I think it's best I do it now before the "action" begins.  The bit about Dinah catching Ollie with a chippie (i.e. loose woman) is rather unfair to everyone involved. 

The short version is that Ollie was briefly on the run from the law and went into hiding among the homeless of Seattle.  He was befriended by a young homeless woman named Marianne.  In return for her help getting him some supplies he needed, Ollie pointed her toward Dinah, suggesting she'd be willing to give any friend of his a job and a decent home.  Marianne moved in with Dinah and started working in Dinah's flower shop.  She developed a monster-size crush on Ollie and began trying to subtly seduce him upon his homecoming.  It didn't work but that didn't stop Marianne from pressing the issue after confessing her love to Ollie at a costume party and kissing him just as Dinah walked into the room.  That, coupled with several other factors, was enough for Dinah to tell Ollie to get out of her life, even though nothing happened beyond that one kiss.

Yes, that was the short version.  I have charts for the long one.

Anyway, before Ollie can launch into a spirited defense of his troubled love-life, Andrea's sister Honore enters in a frantic state.  Her husband Nathan, who we were told earlier had left her, has apparently come back into her life.


It was at that moment Ollie realized he'd wandered into a Lifetime Movie Of The Week.

Rival?  I'm sorry but...seriously?  He's calling himself Rival?  That's the stupidest superhero name since... I don't know what!  To be a rival, you have to be competing against someone!  WHO IS HE COMPETING AGAINST?!  Besides, being a rival is a naturally antagonistic thing.  Not a good name for a hero.  That would be like having a whole group of heroes and calling them The Ravagers.

...

Oh gods...It really is the 1990s all over again at DC Comics now, isn't it?

*sighs* Anyway, Ollie has little use for wife-beaters or dead-beat dads who abandon their families to go into the superhero business.  So he goes chasing after Rival and manages to get a bow-shot lined up.  There's just one problem.  Rival is fast.  Impossibly fast.  Fast enough to dodge arrows at close-range.


Dude must have at least two levels in Monk!
Not only can Rival dodge the arrows but he can catch them as well.  He throws some Zen stuff at Ollie about how you must aim for the heart to truly defeat an opponent and that trying to pin his clothes to the fence just won't cut it.  Ollie has even less use for wife-beaters who monologue at him, so he moves into melee using his bow as a club.  This works about as well as one might expect and Ollie is quickly disarmed.  The only thing that saves him is Rival spouting more nonsense about not killing a man with a bow that is not his and how Ollie lacks the will of the warrior or some such.


I could not kill a man with a bow that is not his.  And I cannot run away with feet that are not mine!

Ollie goes back to the women and children, reluctantly admitting that he got his butt handed to him.  He asks Honore who the heck her husband is that he's got the skills he has.  Honore knows nothing about his past as Nathan refused to talk about it.  Ollie is about to head out in search of answers and a new bow when Andrea says she can help him with at least one of the two, if not both.

Andrea takes Ollie to meet Don "Coach" Arlott.  But don't call him Coach.  Unless he tells you to call him Coach.  His purpose in this story is essentially the same as every other grizzled old man called Coach in every cheesy sports movie ever made - trash talk the hero into learning new tricks.  In this case, he insults Ollie's preference for the longbow and insists that Ollie will need a modern-day compound to take on Rival.

How super-secret can they be when they have a Wikipedia page?
By a happy coincidence, Coach happens to know a lot about the local crime families and somehow knows Rival's entire background once Ollie gives him a real name to work with.  No, really.  He just knows it!  No explanation how.  Let me emphasize that the page scan that follows has not been altered in any way.


Don't question him. I think he's the guy that taught Matt Murdock how to fight ninjas!  

Okay.  TWO big mistakes on this page I have to address.  First, again I have to give you all a quick bit of backstory.  I have to explain this because Kevin Dooley messed it up.  Again.

The woman trained by the Yakuza in archery that Ollie is asking about is Shado.  First appearing in Mike Grell's The Longbow Hunters and then appearing several times more throughout Grell's Green Arrow run, Shado is primarily - and erroneously - remembered today as "that woman Ollie cheated on Dinah with".

Why erroneously?  Because the so-called cheating occurred while Ollie was doped to the gills after Shado shot him in the chest and then started nursing him back to health.  In short, Ollie never cheated on Dinah during the Grell run - he was raped.  Not that anyone at DC Comics acknowledged this at the time.  Dooley was probably the first writer to make this mistake.  He wouldn't be the last.

Another mistake Dooley made here is easily overlooked if you don't know anything about archery.  Namely that there is no such thing as a 200 pound pull on a compound bow.  A crossbow, yes.  An old-time longbow, yes.  The maximum pull (or draw weight) you'll find on any compound bow is 70-80 pounds.  Hell, 200 pounds pull is a bit much even for a longbow and there's very few archers today who could manage that kind of draw.

But this isn't a realistic portrayal of archery.  This story is, at its' heart, a sports movie.  And there's only one thing that will do in a sports movie when you have a hero trying to teach himself the skills he needs to save the day.  We're gonna need a montage!  A sports training montage!


I don't know how long this took, but Coach grew a mustache at one point!      Pretend the music fades as we begin the next scene...




I may not be Of The Bow but you are an S.O.B.  And tomorrow you'll still be an S.O.B. 

The fight goes somewhat better this time.  Ollie manages to wound Rival with the first shot but Rival proves to be just as good at throwing arrows as he is catching them.  It's at this point I wonder if Rival is tapping into The Speed Force because that's just impossible.

Ollie starts to monologue back at Rival, telling him about how he knows about his past with The Yakuza and how he was trained in The Way of the Bow but how he quit because he didn't want to be a gangster.  But you don't really quit The Yakuza but apparently they threatened his wife and kids if he didn't come back to do another job for them.  This is why he became Rival - because he knew the Yakuza, who favor secrecy above everything, would never use a publicly known vigilante in their operations.  Why they wouldn't just kill him for his defiance is never explained.  Nor does this explain why he started beating his wife in the first place.

Quit using violence to solve your problems or I'll cripple you forever! ... wait a sec.   So it seems we have a happy ending.  Well, except that The Yakuza are still going probably going to come after Rival and his family.  And he's still a wife-beating jerkass.  And there's really nothing to stop him from returning to his old ways except Ollie's threat of inflicting more violence on him, thus perpetuating the cycle of violent conflict and abuse.  So really, nothing has been resolved at all.  Thanks Ollie!  You've been a real big help.

That was a woman slapping you, Ollie. I thought you'd be used to it by now.
But the story isn't really over yet.  Andrea asks Ollie if he needs anything and Ollie misinterprets the signal in the worst possible way (What?  This is a sport movie!  I'm supposed to kiss the snarky woman who whipped me into shape!  It's on the tropes list!) because sarcastic brunettes are SO Ollie's type  Suddenly, there's a loud BLAM from the next room.  The two run in to find Honore standing over her husband's body, holding a smoking gun.


Ollie? Just a thought - point the gun AWAY from her head.
She had a gun this whole time.

She had a GUN this whole time?

SHE HAD A GUN THIS WHOLE TIME?! 

*shakes head*   Just... why?  I can get why she didn't kill him until her children were in danger.  There's numerous cases of that sort of thing happening in real life - a mom tolerating abuse so long as it was limited to her.  But... she just HAPPENED to have the gun then?  And she didn't use it before?  She could have shot her husband when he was stalking her.  They didn't need Ollie in here at all!

That is the most vexing thing about this story.  Never mind that Ollie is presented as a rank amateur in need of a training session with a coach and some Zen malarky about "my bow" to be capable of matching the villain.  Forget that the writer clearly couldn't be arsed to learn the story behind Ollie's most recent adventures and didn't know a damn thing about archery.  The worst thing about this issue is that Ollie is an unnecessary guest star in someone's spec script for a new Merideth Baxter docudrama.  This is not Green Arrow.  This is Trash TV in comic book form.  Which made it all the more ironic that Ollie went to L.A. in the next issue. 

Green Arrow Comic Recieves Yet Another New Creative Team

SOURCE: Lemire & Sorrentino Take Over "Green Arrow"



Just when I think I'm out, they pull me back in...

Animal Man author Jeff Lemire and I, Vampire artist Andrea Sorrentino will be partnering up to depict the monthly adventures of The Emerald Archer, starting with Issue #17 in February.

Jeff Lemire had me at "If you liked Mike Grell's GA run...."  And the preview cover above looks appropriately moody and atmospheric.

New Arrow Trailer - Deathstroke Part Of The Show?

 

The CW has released another trailer for Arrow.  This new one shows off a bit more of the supporting cast and explains some things that weren't clear in the original synopses of the show, such as Ollie and Dinah apparently having been an item but Ollie cheating on Dinah with her sister.  I can't say I'm too thrilled about that.  But I can cope so long as that is the end of it, when it comes to Ollie's cheating heart.        

  

What's really interesting about this trailer is what we briefly see at 3:23. 

 

Could Deathstroke be involved in the accident that nearly killed Oliver Queen?  Could he have taken Slade's eye and mask in revenge?  Either way, it's one more reason to check thiis show out this fall.     

One Good Thing And One Bad Thing About Green Arrow #6

GOOD THING: There's relatively little Brightest Day nonsense in this issue. After a brief page of Galahad musing upon duty and public service, we are treated to a picture-perfect fight scene with Ollie storming the Queen Enterprises building and fighting an army of mooks in close quarters.





BAD THING: Storywise, everything falls apart once Ollie confronts The Queen and we finally get her backstory. While it's not hard to believe that a naive, attractive young woman from a backwater berg might be easily wooed by some sweet nothings from a millionaire playboy out for a quick fling and come to believe he was the handsome prince come to save her from a life of toil and misery, it is rather hard to believe that Ollie would take her at her word about his father's apparent plans to abandon his family to bring home a Russian trophy bride, before his untimely death.





What is worse is that Ollie's justification for believing the story in the first place is that he knows what lying about an affair sounds like. "So does Dinah." There are two problems with this...

1. Lying about having slept with someone is quite different than denying having slept with them. Granted that lying is lying, The Queen wouldn't be "lying about an affair" in the same sense that Ollie means in this sentence.

2. As I've pointed out numerous times in the past, the rumors of Oliver Queen's cheating on Dinah have been greatly exaggerated to put it mildly, briefly and politely.

(On a side note, It's surreal going back and rereading an article I wrote about how Oliver Queen didn't ever cheat on Dinah Lance mere months before Judd Winick wrote the infamous story where Green Arrow slept with Black Lightning's niece.)

And this is ignoring the fact that the dialogue used (and the artwork with Ollie and Dinah in their modern costumes) seems to suggest that Ollie lied about an affair to Dinah recently, when - as we all know if you've been reading my rants - that Ollie has only ever cheated on Dinah once. And the way the lines are written suggest that it was an affair that drove Oliver and Dinah apart recently- not Ollie's attempts to conceal his killing of Prometheus and getting caught before he could tell Dinah everything.

Lying did end the relationship, yes. But not lying about an affair.



The Final Verdict: Good action sequences and artwork are betrayed by a massive plot hole that serves to make the title character look bad over a subject that is already a sore point with most devout Arrowheads. Sadly, I suspect only I and a few others will care at this point given that this is the best treatment Oliver Queen has had in years. Which is really sad, the more I think about it.

Green Arrow #3 - The Good, The Bad and the Huh?

GOOD THINGS:

1. The knight wandering around the Star City woods, Galahad, is formally introduced and he is easily the best part of the issue. The idea of a modern day knight wandering around the DCU is hardly an original concept but the suggestion that he is the Galahad of legend showing up at a time when such heroes are needed is a mighty one.

2. For that matter, the concept of the forest itself healing Oliver is played very well here. What might have been a deus ex machina - with the presence of Galahad - suddenly becomes a bit more plausable, with the idea of myth itself being explored and the suggestion that the White Energy of Life might be connected to The Holy Grail, The Magic of Sherwood, The Lady of The Lake and Avalon.

BAD THINGS:

1. The background of Queen Industries new owner Isabel Rochev is cartoonishly bad for a character that is meant to be the main villain in a comic that prides itself on realism. While there is something to be said for the idea of making a villain who is the polar opposite of Oliver Queen in terms of background (i.e. an ex-slave who grew up amongst the worst excesses of Soviet-style socialism and came to rise to power while romanticizing unfettered American capitalism), the execution here makes her seem like a Captain Planet villain, especially given some of the actions we see depicted elsewhere in the book.

I'm also not that crazy (but neither am I surprised) about the revelation that she had a sexual relationship with Oliver's father ("He was challenging me to prove I was more than anyone's pet. Robert was daring me to break free from my prison - to take what I wanted from this world. And so I dod. Beginning with Robert, I took him body and soul.") or that she was apparently one of his many conquests.

And the less said about the fact that Oliver's dad uses "pretty bird" as a term of endearment (or that the young Isabel Rochev looks like Dinah Lance), the better.


2. Ollie's "do you deserve to live?" flashback while he is recovering in the healing pool.

Granting that you could fill several pages with all of the mistakes Ollie has made and that Krul probably didn't want to bog the book down with a lot of continuity... you'd expect...

a) Ollie to remember that he abandoned more than one son, if you count his kicking Roy Harper out of the house in Snow Birds Don't Fly

b) Ollie to number Lian and Roy as being a bit more than "those I put in harms way".

c) For that matter, Ollie's role in putting the two of them directly in harm's way recently is, at the least, highly debatable. Sure, Ollie set Roy on the path to being a hero which eventually led to Roy losing his arm and if he and Roy had remained estranged, Lian wouldn't have been in Star City when the bombs went off... but while Ollie would likely blame himself for all of that, it can't really be said to be his fault.



THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO HUH?:

1. Some of the dialogue just doesn't flow well. At ALL. Witness how smoothly Galhad brings up the similarities between himself and Oliver just after Oliver has a non-sequiter about exploring the forest.

2. Star City's Police Department proves to be as incompetent as they are corrupt, as yet another mysterious disguised killer (this time a woman with red hair, apparently) manages to kill a prominent corrupt city official - this time in front of a crowd in broad daylight.

This entire sequence is crammed into one page and feels terribly rushed compared to the chase scene in Issue #1 involving the man (?) who killed the Police Commissioner.

What is worse, we see the reporter from Issue #1 but they don't bother to remind us of his name. The social worker from issue #1 also puts in an appearance, but we don't get a name for her this time around either.



The Final Verdict: There's some rather good stuff here involving the mystery behind the forest, the appearance of a young man who claims to be Sir Galahad of myth and the Brightest Day event. Shame most of the issue is devoted toward establishing Ollie's father as a corrupt businessman with loose morals in the boardroom and bedroom, more scenes with unnamed supporting cast we're supposed to care about and Oliver having hallucinations as he fights for his life and maybe, literally, fights the darkness within.

I'm still trying to make up my mind about this book. Apart from a few questionable things in one flashback, Ollie hasn't been this well characterized or well-explored as a character in years. It's only when we try and focus on things apart from Ollie or the Forest that the cracks in the paint start to show.

One Good Thing And One Bad Thing About Green Arrow #30

GOOD THING: It's hard to narrow it down to one thing, but - after eliminating any points involving snide comments about Judd Winick and certain members of the Arrow Family having been restored to their basic levels of competence and ability (Connor Hawke is back! Yay!), I would have to say the best thing about this issue is that J. T. Krul has a good handle on the characters and the history of the Green Arrow family.

BAD THING: That being said, there is still some uncertainty as to just how much of the mythos Krul is or is not declaring null and void and what points he may be confused on. Does he honestly think Ollie had a willing sexual relationship with Shado? Does he really think Ollie ever had lustful intentions for Mia? Does he take the gods-awful reboot of Ollie's relationship with Connor presented in Green Arrow/Black Canary as gospel truth even while rejecting Connor's lost talents, memories and personalities? Or is all of this Black Lantern trickery?

Sadly, at this point a case could be made for Ollie's cries of "No!" at the actions of his zombie counterpart to be either fear that the truth is finally coming out or horror at the depths to which this monster will try to manipulate his family.



The Final Verdict: Cautiously optimistic. True, the artwork is laughable at points (it looks like they started drawing Dinah from the breasts outward in some panels) and I'm still not sure just how much of the Black Lantern "lies" Krul truly intended to be real lies. Still, this is the first Green Arrow book in the last few years that didn't leave me ranting and screaming. Take that for what you will, given how notoriously picky I am. I don't know much about art but I know what i hate. And I don't hate this. Parts of it, in fact, I love.

Something I noticed in the new Birds of Prey trade...

My library just recently got a copy of Birds of Prey: Club Kids - without my prompting, I might add. I'm happy to note that they corrected the mistake, which every other Green Arrow fan on the planet and I ranted about a year and a half ago.

So to recap for those of you coming in late to the party...

1. Shado is not Connor Hawke's mother.

2. Ollie Queen was raped by Shado. He did not willingly cheat on Dinah.

3. Ollie never ever cheated on Dinah until the Judd Winick run on his book. And experts agree with me when I say that there was no evidence Ollie and Dinah were even back together when this "cheating" occurred.

In which I briefly repeat myself, regarding Ollie Queen's "Cheating Heart"

I just made a post that became a column in response to an article up at Seven Hells about why the author of said blog has no respect for Green Arrow as a character. Most of the reasons came down to things that were really more about bad writing than a bad character and I ran down the list and wound up creating, I think, the most simple list of every grievance I have with how Oliver Queen is portrayed ever.


***


*sighs* Where do I begin?


Is it the constant political posturing foisted upon the character?

Surely that's more a problem with the writer than the character? While some of the stories have been heavy-handed (Judd Winick, I'm looking at you!) I've rather enjoyed some of the more political Green Arrow stories. The Mike Grell story about the IRA and their relationship with America comes to mind as an example of a tale that made a point without being preachy.


Is it the constant womanizing?

Define constant. ;)

Seriously, most of Ollie's characterization as a womanizer can be traced back to the last ten years and Chuck Dixon - after Ollie died - writing up several stories where Ollie told Connor, in flashback, about how much he slept around - this outright saying what was sometimes suggested about Ollie as a millionaire playboy before he became a hero being the Bruce Wayne before Bruce Wayne.

Before that, it was generally accepted that after Ollie and Dinah became an item - well, he was still a flirt but seriously cheating on Dinah was the last thing he'd ever do. (Again, Winick, I'm looking at you.)


Is it because when his adopted son, Roy Harper, developed a drug problem, Ollie cast him out and walked out on him when he needed him most?

That was a bad thing, yes. But I've known such things to happen in real life for a lot less. At least Ollie himself has acknowledged his mistake (I know he's called it his biggest mistake in at least one story) and made his peace with Roy. That doesn't make it any less wrong but it does bring up one of the things I admire about Ollie - when he screws up and he knows it, he tries to fix it.


Is it the fact that the he fathers children, left and right, and then abandons them?

Left and right? Ollie has only fathered two children and one of them was the result of him being raped. And his "abandoning" Connor is still a matter of debate.

I know there are rumors about Cissie "Arrowette" Jones but we all know rumors don't count.


Is the fact that he lives a lie everyday, letting the world, his son, Connor Hawke and his soon-to-be (?) bride, Black Canary, believe he had no idea Connor was alive until he presented himself in his early twenties?

Yes. Because it is Ollie's fault that some writer failed to do his research properly and wrote a story that had great character moments but no basis in reality. (Brad Meltzer, I'm looking at you this time!)

The moment in the final chapter of The Archer's Quest in which it is revealed that Ollie abandoned Connor and his mother, is the capstone on a pyramid of bad continuity. The entire story is built off the idea that Ollie has to go on a road trip with Roy to recover items that might reveal his secret identity to the world - in spite of the fact that Ollie...

* hadn't had a secret identity for several years before his death

* actually stood trial for High Treason as Green Arrow and had his identity outed to the world.

* had an obituary on the front page of the Daily Planet naming Green Arrow and Oliver Queen as one and the same - a fact that was used as a plot point in Kevin Smith's Quiver

And this is ignoring the fact that if you go back and read Where Angels Fear to Tread - the story in which Ollie originally found out that Connor was his son... well, Ollie missed his calling as an actor if you believe he is faking his anger and shock, especially to a then basically Ominpotent and Omniescent Hal Jordan...


Black Canary proved day-in and day-out that she's better off without him. He never made the choice to actively become better off without her. He never asked himself whether or not she was better off without him.

Actually, in Kevin Smith's Green Arrow... he did.

In Issue #11, or the first chapter of The Sounds of Violence in the TP, there is a great character scene where Ollie agonizes over picking up the phone to talk to Dinah. He still loves her. He still wants to be with her. And he knows from what he's seen and heard from Connor that a lot has changed and that she is getting along just fine without him.

The man can turn himself into a living target on a nightly basis without blinking and he walked out of Heaven itself into Hell on Earth without blinking but he's scared to death of being rejected.

Typical Ollie. :)

I agree with you that Ollie trying to become better PURELY for the sake of winning Dinah back makes little sense... but very little Judd Winick has written with the character has.

And you know - much as I took Tony Bedard to task over Birds of Prey #109 and the "Shado Is Not Connor Hawke's Mom!" disaster, I still want to hug the man in a heterosexual buddy-buddy kind of way simply because he was the first to acknowledge in-continuity that as much of a flirt as Ollie was...

1. He was actually raped by Shado.

2. His "affair" with Dinah's assistant at her flower shop was limited to one kiss, which she initiated as he was trying to talk her out of being interested in him.

3. He never actively cheated on Dinah until the Judd Winick run of Green Arrow.

(Sidenote: Up until the issue where Ollie and Dinah broke up, there had never been any sign in any book ever that Ollie and Dinah had been doing anything more serious than casual dating. And a good number of fans, myself and the two gents who used to run The Green Arrow Compendium, called shenanigans on the whole book at that point.)

My point? Go read some Mike Grell or Kevin Smith if you want to read the real Oliver Queen.

I would like to recall my previous Shenanigans!

It takes a big man to admit that he made a mistake.

Today, Tony Bedard has proven himself a big man.

From Tony Bedard's personal forum at: Comic Book Resources:

Yeah, folks, this is just a good old fashioned f*ck-up on my part. Sorry.

To be honest, I probably took on too much work over the last year and rushed, uninformed stuff like this crept in. I have no idea where I got the notion that Shado was Connor's mom, but I did think that. I appreciate the mistake being pointed out, and I hope it didn't ruin the rest of the issue.

I recently made another mistake in SUPERGIRL 20, where I said a veteran of the Battle of Mogadishu was a former Marine, when the people who fought that fight were Army Rangers and Delta Force.

These may seem like small errors, but they show a basic ignorance and lack or respect for the facts on my part.


***


Well, let it never be said that I'm not a fair man.

Therefore, let it be known to all those upon this Internet that I take back my taking back every nice thing I ever said about Tony Bedard from yesterday.

I still hold Mike Carlin or whichever assistant editors dropped the ball on this one responsible but I can highly recommend the Black Canary mini-series and Supergirl again, without any reservation whatsoever.

Now let us never speak of this again until the inevitable corrections which are sure to follow the trade-paperback collection of this storyline.

I take back every good thing I ever said about Tony Bedard... (EDITED)

... or, at the very least, every thing I said about DC Comics editorial having a better grasp on their own continuity and history than Marvel Comics.

Why? Birds of Prey #109. Out today. Check the third panel from the top.










For those of you who don't like big images, let me quote the offending text.

Barbara Gordon: "It's my business to know that stuff, Dinah. He fathered Connor with that ninja woman, for starters."

Dinah Lance: "Shado shot him and drugged him. Ever wonder how he felt about being raped?"



*sighs*

I shouldn't have to explain this to anyone at DC Comics besides Judd Winick, but here it goes...

SHADO IS NOT CONNOR HAWKE'S MOTHER!

This isn't hard, people. Even Wikipedia managed to get this one right!

I mean, even ignoring that we saw Connor and Shado's son together during the recent Dragon's Blood mini-series that just came out a scant few months ago...







DUDE! That's your mom! Apparently...

*groans*

And to think... I was going to write a full, in-depth defense of Black Canary #4 before I picked up my comics tonight...

READ BELOW FOR THE EDITED PORTION!

See this entry for the latest news and Tony Bedard's redemption.

Looking To The Stars - An Open Memo, Re: Green Lantern #7 & #8

To Dan Dido, The Powers That Be at DC Comics or any fanboy who can bring this to their attention;

Is this how I'm repaid? After months of declaring that Marvel Comics is creatively bankrupt and how out of the Big Two, you have easily won the 2005 Cross-Over Wars in a horse-race against House of M, you go and do this. It wasn't that big a deal when it was just Judd Winick doing it; I can ignore everything he writes easily enough. But then, this week, you had to drag Geoff Johns into perpetuating the lie.

So I have to ask; are you TRYING to make me stop reading Green Lantern or Green Arrow related titles completely?

Green Lantern #7 & #8 could have been a great two-part story. Building off two historically important stories (Alan Moore's For The Man Who Has Everything and the destruction of Coast City from The Death of Superman) this was set up as an epic scene worthy of the first modern Hal Jordan/Ollie Queen Green Arrow/Green Lantern team-up story. And for the most part aside from some shaky dialogue (I wonder why Ollie and Hal continue to talk about their feelings in a sensitive manly way while Hal's ring is trying to warn them about the danger) I was enjoying this story as of Issue 7.

And then, this week, #8 came out.

Don't get me wrong – I liked most of it. I love how it was Ollie who was the first to realize something was wrong even though he's the less willful of the GA/GL dynamic. I loved the whole concept of Mongul the 2nd trying to recreate his father's greatest triumph (coming closer to defeating Superman than anyone else at that point in time) in order to correct his father's biggest mistake (not conquering Earth). And yes, much as I loved the Silver Age cheese involved in the character name, I'm glad to see Mongal dead. Still, I have to ask one question regarding the reemergence of the idea that Oliver Queen knew about Connor Hawke's existence before their chance meeting at the Ashram Ollie retired to post-Zero Hour.

Geoff Johns? Did they have your loved ones at gunpoint? Incriminating photos? A box of kittens over a wood-chipper? Because I expect a hell of a lot better from you than what you turned out this week. You're the man who managed to puzzle out Hawkman and Power Girl's continuity for crying out loud! Surely you know better than to keep basing work off of the half-assed story that turned Oliver Queen into a dead-beat dad.

I'm not saying that Ollie hasn't made some bad judgment calls in his life. But between being a recovering alcoholic, a former rich bastard and an ex-womanizer (I don't care WHAT Joe Kelly says) he's got enough baggage to fill an SUV already.

Not to mention that Ollie's "confession" to Hal over his abandoning Connor and his mother here makes no sense as it was Hal who broke the news to Ollie that Connor WAS his son in the first place. (Green Arrow #96) And if Ollie honestly has been hiding the fact that he knew he had a son somewhere all these years, then he deserves a damn Oscar for the way he expresses his shock to Hal (who was essentially an all-knowing god at this point) and to Connor and Eddie Fyers later.

I know. I know. I realize I sound like a screaming geek. I'm fully aware of that. My disappointment lies in that Geoff... you are so good about these things, usually. I could understand if it was John Byrne or John Arcudi doing this... but you're one of us! You're the fanboy who knows his stuff and made good.

So please... somebody explain this in a formal story. Even if it's just to say that all Ollie's desire to have a family all these years was related to his guilt over what he left behind. Or chalk it up to reality weakening because of the Crisis and it being a flux between Earth 1 and the Vertigo universe. Just don't ignore the fine work that Chuck Dixon and Mike Grell did on Green Arrow during the 80's and 90's. You've got the rep for being the company that actually respects and uses its history now. Don't throw it away now.

Thank you,
"Starman" Matt Morrison

Looking To The Stars: Is She Really Going Out With Him?

Another week has passed and despite the dire predictions of Mein Editor, I have yet (as of the time of this writing) to receive a deluge of mail challenging me on my contention that Birds of Prey author Gail Simone is the only person at DC Comics truly capable of writing the character of Oliver Queen of right now. This is a matter of great import to me, since Green Arrow is one of my favorite heroes and his portrayal of late has been somewhat inconsistent.

I did, however, get some rather surprised mail from someone wondering how I could then say, last week, that Gail Simone has " made my life as a Green Arrow enthusiast much more difficult". Because me saying anything uncomplimentary about Gail Simone is like seeing any other Nexus writer saying positive things about the new Supergirl book; it just does not happen!

Well despite the above language, my love of Simone's writing continues unabated. So those of you hoping to read a scandal-ridden bit of author-bashing, I'm sorry. You'll just have to wait for the Jesse Baker review of Secret Wars #5. The fact of the matter is that while her writing is still top-notch, the most recent issue of Birds of Prey did completely obliterate a theory I had penned regarding the Green Arrow/Black Canary relationship.

As I wrote way back when in Your Cheating Heart, the common wisdom among some comic readers that Oliver Queen is a hound of a man with the morals of an alley cat is hardly accurate. While Ollie was a ladies man during his college years (the time during which Connor Hawke was conceived) and most of his pre-superhero days, he was nothing but loyal to Dinah Lance when they were going steady. All of his famous incidents of infidelity occurred either while he was on the outs with Dinah (as it was with Catwoman and his former sidekick Marriane) or while he was drugged out of his gourd. While it can be argued that he was spiritually unfaithful to the woman he truly loved, Ollie never cheated on Dinah in a technical sense before his death.

Now as a fan, this is an important point to me. Part of the reason I like Ollie is because he has never been portrayed as being totally perfect. He was a flawed man who knew full well that he had done bad things in the past but had turned himself into a hero in an effort not just to make amends for his past misdeeds but to better himself as a person. He may face temptation but he does not give in. His will and his love make him stronger than that.

Ollie's story is one of redemption. Once a spoiled-rotten, happily hedonistic Enron executive who could listen to the Weird Al song "This Is The Life" and not realize that it was meant to be funny, he had a spiritual awakening that led him to fight against everything wrong in the world especially the evils he once helped to spread as a munitions manufacturer.

His attitude toward women changed as well and the good man he had become was as chivalric as his costume suggested. He was still a flirt but while he could still woo a lady when needed, nobody could seriously pull him away from his Pretty Bird and heaven help any other man who got between him and his lady.

This is why Dinah sticks with him despite his bullheaded stupidity and flirtatious ways. And for that matter, it is why he sticks with her despite her need to constantly show her independence but still wanting a shoulder to lean on at the end of the day. They know that despite the flaws, they are damn lucky to have one another and that they can trust each other with their lives.

Mike Grell understood this and his stories showed two people so in love with one another that they were willing to cross ethical lines that they would never consider crossing before in order to save the other. This point has been ignored in recent years, but both Ollie and Dinah killed in order to save the life of their lover during Grell's run on Green Arrow. And the knowledge that the other was willing to change so greatly only served to strengthen the bond of love and trust between them.

That trust that would eventually give way to suspicion but the love remained as strong as ever despite Dinah's worries about what Ollie may have done during his travels around the world. The greatest tragedy of their relationship is that a lack of communication on both their parts. The two are both passionate, emotional introverts given to voicing their emotions but not their motivations.

And now that the psychology lecture is over, let's talk history.

In Cheating, I discussed the development of the GA/BC relationship before Ollie's death. Until recently, there wasn't much to discuss of their relationship after Ollie's death for the good and simple reason that it had never been stated that the two had ever officially gotten back together as a steady couple.

Don't believe me? Let’s go down the timeline, shall we?

Green Arrow #1 - Dinah's remembers her days living with Ollie in Seattle. Her internal monologue shows that while she remembers the bad times with Ollie, she remembers the good times more and still loves him.

Green Arrow #6 - Upon hearing of the news that Ollie is alive and well, Dinah is on her way from Gotham to Star City within hours. Her first response is to throw herself into his arms in relief. She then grills him upon their past, discovering that he remembers nothing of their time in Seattle. While he claims he still loves her, that it's obvious that she still loves him and that wants to be with her, she says she doesn't think it can be that simple.

Green Arrow #11 - His memories restored, Ollie is struggling to work up the courage to pick up the phone and call Dinah. He muses on the irony that with everything else courageous he does on a daily basis, he is scared silly of getting rejected by her.

Green Arrow #12 - The two go out to dinner. Ollie lapses into his old habits, calling Dinah "his girl". She repeatedly says that they are just out as friends and that he should not be saying things like that. Ollie agrees and apologizes but explains that she was the only thing he missed about Earth in the afterlife and that he is willing to wait as long as it takes. The two wind up having a wild night of mad adrenaline-fueled love-making after stopping The Riddler from robbing the restaurant they were eating at.

Green Arrow #13 - Ollie tries to sneak out in the middle of the night, afraid that Dinah will say what happened was a mistake if she sees him the next morning. He is caught by Hawkman (they were staying in her room in the Justice Society headquarters), a fight broke out and it ended with Dinah saying that nothing was going to happen between them for a long, long time. Meanwhile, Connor Hawke (Ollie's son, the new Green Arrow) is ambushed by a mysterious super-villain who only speaks in onomatopoeia.

Green Arrow #14 - Dinah gets the news of Green Arrow being shot in Star City. Thinking it is Ollie, all that happened is forgotten as she demands an immediate JLA teleport to Star City. Despite her protests of the night before, it is obvious she still cares deeply for Ollie.

Green Arrow #15 - As they are visiting Connor in the hospital, Ollie blanks out for a second. When Dinah asks him what happened, he says that he was just distracted by his favorite sound; the sound of family. She doesn't contradict him, but just pulls him closer.

Green Arrow #21 - The final part of Archer's Quest, Ollie uses two of the artifacts he was traveling around the world to retrieve (the diamond tip of the arrow he used to save the JLA and a ring Barry Allen made him) to create an engagement ring for Dinah. We learn that the two have been hanging out a lot together, but that they are apparently not dating exclusively or indeed seeing each other as anything but friends the way Dinah talks about it. He takes her to dinner in the Space Needle planning to propose, but aborts the plan after she tells him not to do anything drastic as he talks about how much he loves her.

Green Arrow #28 - Ollie has a one night-stand with Joanna Pierce; niece of superhero Black Lightning.

Green Arrow #31 - Joanna dies because of her involvement in helping Ollie with a case.

Green Arrow #34 - Dinah shows up and asks Ollie how he is holding up about Joanna's death. Her dialogue suggests that she is sensing there is more than he is telling her about why he is so upset, but she lets it go. The tone seems more friendly than romantic here.

Green Arrow #40 - Dinah and Ollie break up. Ollie says nothing, but it is suggested that Mia and/or Connor told her everything.

Birds of Prey #68 - Dinah goes through fighting practice with Wonder Woman. She internally refers to Ollie as the "stupid cheating archer".

(It gets a bit rocky here, what exactly happened in what order and what is considered hard continuity, so bear with me)

Justice League Elite and the Joe Kelly JLA run - Ollie joins a more extreme superhero team. While on it, he flirts a little with Dawn, wife of teammate Manitou Raven. Apparently the two slept together off-camera.

The Kurt Busiek JLA Run - Ollie and Dinah are openly hostile to one another. They are barely capable of working together in the field.

The Bob Harras JLA Run - Ollie and Dinah are on speaking terms and almost friendly. The affair with Dawn IS discussed, but Dinah seems oddly calm about it.

Birds of Prey #88 - Ollie and Dinah finally have a much needed talk about where they stand. The basic upshot is that while Dinah is not ready to get involved with Ollie again,though she misses how things were and she still loves him and forgives him everything. He apologizes for everything and agrees that he misses how things were.

It should go without saying that I, as well as most of the Green Arrow fans out there, found his portrayal in Justice League Elite to be HORRIBLY out of character. The only trait of Ollie's personality present was his flirtatious nature. Despite this, Ollie has never gone after married women even in his worst days and it flies in the face of everything he stands for as a romantic to do what Joe Kelly depicted him doing.

This is doubly odd, considering that the story had Manitou Raven being rather annoyed at what Ollie had done, despite the fact that he offered his wife and her "use" to his fellow Justice Leaguers back during The Obisidian Age. Then again, I guess Joe Kelly forgot that little detail. Lord knows I tried to forget Obsidian Age...

Ignoring that storyline, I was able to create an explanation of what went wrong. Something that can explain away everything while maintaining the dignity of the characters and the continuity of the stories.

Consider this; Dinah has always longed for independence from her man and traditional women's roles but she gave Ollie the same freedom reluctantly. When he spent a year traveling abroad without her trying to find himself, she told herself it was fine but she really wished she could be with him or keep him with her. She has matured to the point where she recognizes this conflict within herself and has wisdom enough to keep him at bay where he can't color her emotions- much as it hurts her to do so. She wanted to go out and save the world, but expected her white knight to keep waiting for her. She never let Ollie know (at least not recently) that she did love him but that she still wasn't ready to settle down even if he was.

Ollie, for his part, went to extremes as he is wont to do. He was ready to propose to Dinah and she shot him down, encouraging his deepest fears regarding how she didn't want to be with him. So thinking that she didn't want something serious, he turned to other women who showed him the emotion that she was trying so hard to repress. Her time as one of the Birds of Prey made Dinah a lot tougher, emotionally and physically and it was jarring for her to have to once again deal with the only man who made her feel good about going weak in the knees.

In short, he assumed she didn't want a relationship and she assumed that he did. She assumed that he would wait for her no matter what and he assumed that she had moved on. Once again, it all boils down to Ollie and Dinah's biggest problem - the lack of communication regarding their wants and needs.

THAT is what I mean when I say that Gail Simone has made my life as a Green Arrow enthusiast more difficult. Because by having the two talk about "the break-up" in the most recent Birds of Prey it completely destroys any ideas of explaining this all away by saying that the two were never really involved but instead misinterpreted their relationship.

But then again, it's not really that difficult, is it? As I said, the biggest problem the two have always had is that they rarely ever talked about where they stood in a straightforward manner. But then again, how many people REALLY do that with their significant other? The fact that they are finally doing so now shows a good deal of progress and I for one am glad to see it.

Besides, it will all be a moot point in six months anyway when Infinite Crisis changes everything around again. ;)

Tune in next week. Same Matt time. Same Matt website.

Green Arrow #30 - A Review

Written by: Judd Winick
Penciled by: Phil Hester
Inked by: Ande Parks
Colored by: Guy Major
Lettered by: Sean Konot
Editor: Bob Schreck
Publisher: DC Comics

Regular readers of my writings may recall that I’ve had… words about Judd Winick’s handling of the character of Oliver Queen in the past few issues. (See this past Looking to the Stars for the original comments!) Specifically, how Oliver has been handled in regards to his fidelity to Dinah Lance or lack thereof.

As I pointed out, they never have said exactly where the two stand right now… until this issue, where it is confirmed that Ollie and Dinah were “together”. At least, together enough for Connor and Mia to give Oliver the sharp tongue and cold shoulder respectively.

Now this is a major sticking point with me as well as a lot of other Green Arrow fans, who will tell you that while Oliver Queen is a flirt and has Italian eyes (they’re always roman!), he will never actual act on any suggestive remark he makes. (Again, read THIS Looking to the Stars for the complete history of why Oliver Queen ISN’T a cheating scum bag.)

The sad thing is that aside from that one point, the writing on the book has been good. The action scenes are good, as Oliver has to fight an entire army of the odd troll creatures besieging his city. The wise-cracking dialogue and sarcastic internal monologue are spot-on (“Being first doesn’t exactly count… not when you’re out-numbered twenty-to-one and your adversaries can throw cars one-handed”). And yet… there it sits. Oliver Queen is perfect when Winick is writing the heroic man of action… but totally misses the mark when written as a father, lover and person.

Sadly, judging by the end of this issue it looks as if Winick is going to take the easy way out in dealing with the issues that Ollie’s affair has raised and that all the consequences of it will be ignored or… God willing, retroactively removed from continuity when the next writer comes onto this title like when Winick took over from Meltzer.

Still, Hester and Parks continue to do an excellent job on the art. The shadows project outward, giving the whole book a film-noir feel without being heavily inked or overly dark. Indeed, Parks inks barely cover Hester’s pencils at all… except to bring out the shadows.
In closing, I think it best to end with two quotes that best sum up my feelings about why I’ve not been enjoying Green Arrow lately. One is from a fictional character; the other from the reviews section at The Green Arrow Fansite (http://www.greenarrowfansite.com )

“That pisses me off! I can’t help it! I wish I could shrug it off, but I can’t! …Why do you pull crap like this?” – Connor Hawke

“I like the way Judd Winick writes. I just don't like what he writes.” – Jayme Lynn Blaschke

Looking To The Stars: Random Thoughts

First of all, my apologies for my lack of a column last week. Those of you who didn’t notice, five points from your house. Those of you who actively cheered my absence and hoped that it was a sign of my retirement, fifty points from your house.

Yes, I did read the new Harry Potter book. Rather liked it, thank you.

Anyway, personal issues with class, work and family concerns kept me rather busy last week and I missed being able to give my two cents on a number of items in the comic news and commenting upon the writings of some of my colleagues.

To that end, here are some Random Thoughts….

1. The Hulk

Still haven’t seen it yet. Been too busy, but I heard it wasn’t that great and the special effects were horrid. Will write a full review once I do see it.

2. LXG

Did manage to get a night free to see it. Rather liked it, despite it being nothing like the book and totally getting the story of Dorian Grey wrong. Still, if you aren’t a total fanboy or literature geek and take it on the level of an adaptation and not a translation, you won’t find a better movie.

3. Mark Waid’s Departure From Marvel.

Based on the writings of Paul Sebert and Jesse Baker, I am one of the few who feels that Mark Waid’s firing from Marvel will go down at the latest nail in the coffin that Bill Jemas is making for himself.

Simply put, Waid’s run on Fanastic Four has revitalized a long-dull title and anyone who says otherwise must not be reading the same comics that I am. Personally, I have no idea where this whole “Waid is a prima donna” thing came from and I’ve only heard nice things about the man. But I could care less about the personality of a writer, so long as they deliver a good story. And I don’t think any comments about Waid’s ability to deliver good stories can be taken seriously.

On that note…

4. The DC Coup De Tat.

DC just snatched up Grant Morrison, Jeph Loeb, Tim Sale and Greg Rucka with exclusive contracts and I couldn’t be happier. Okay, so I will miss hearing all the X-Men fans complain about not understanding Morrison or the Wolverine fans who don’t like the new detective-based stories and want to go back to Wolverine slashing up ninjas. And goodness knows I’m not going to object to any more Tim Sale/Jeph Loeb team-ups.

But this isn’t enough DC. You need to nail down more of the writers with exclusive contracts. Mark Waid is free of Marvel now and is already working for you on Empire and Birthright. Give that man a contract and put him and Morrison to work on Superman, like they wanted to do a few years back. I’ve been reading Superman and I don’t care HOW radical their proposal was- it can hardly be worse than the Supergirl daughter from the future story that can be going on right now.

For that matter, give Gail Simone a contract too. I can’t keep Birds of Prey on the shelf at my comic shop and goodness knows she’s just as worthy of keeping around as Geoff Johns and Judd Winick.

And Speaking of which.

5. The Judd Winick/DC Pimp Slap

Okay Judd. I defended you when you turned Kyle Rayner into a clone of yourself; successful artist loved by the media because most of your stories, continuity issues aside, were pretty good. I sat through all of Blood and Water, which started out brilliant and unique but degraded into another generic World of Darkness vampire brawl comic. But I cannot be silent about your turning Oliver Queen into the man-whore everyone thinks he is.

As anyone who read my recent“Your Cheating Heart” article or the last ten issues of Green Arrow could tell you, Oliver Queen may be a world class flirt but he has never once cheated on Dinah Lance. Hell, not five issues ago he was ready to propose to her! And now he’s had a one night stand with the niece of a friend for no readily apparent or believable reason other than “he’s a horn dog.”

Then again, what IS the status between them now? Birds of Prey hasn’t said anything about Dinah’s dating status. She dumped Dr. Midnite to figure things out in JSA, but nothing has been said there. And the last I checked in Green Arrow the two of them were dating and maybe back together. Smith definitely suggested they were at the end of his last story. Hester pretty much ignored it, except to show Ollie preparing to propose to her. And Winick? Canary wasn’t mentioned once until Ollie was making an excuse to cover what he was doing to Connor.

So maybe Ollie isn’t really cheating… but it sure makes me crawly thinking he might be. So could someone from DC please make a definitive statement one way or the other on where my favorite couple stands?

And as long as I’m feeling combative.

6. Jesse Baker: The Anti-Starman

Fellow 411 writer Jesse Baker has revealed himself to be the dreaded Anti-Starman. Yes, this strange being from a parallel anti-matter universe has declared J. Michael Strayczinski’s run on Spider-Man to be “hit and miss”, Mark Waid’s The Flash run to have missed the finish line and generally shown himself to disagree with me on every major point of comicdom.

Except that Rawhide Kid #1 wasn’t funny. We both agree on that. Take that, Ron Zimmerman! Ha!

Seriously, Jesse and I do disagree on some books but we get along just fine. If nothing else, we have someone we can argue comics with and that bond goes much deeper than any disagreement over whether or not Mark Waid writing Superman would be a good thing.

Tune in next week. Same Matt Time. Same Matt Website.

Looking To The Stars: Your Cheating Heart...

Oliver Queen. The Green Arrow. Father. Hero. Lover. And looser than Rodney Dangerfield’s tie at the end of his set.

For a long while, it has been conventional wisdom among some of the more vocal members of the fanboy set that good ol’ Ollie has the same ability for strict monogamy as your average tomcat. That is to say none at all.

But are things really that cut and dry? It is true that Ollie has always been one of the more overtly sexual characters in comicdom, at least in terms of charisma and personality. But has he ever, as Kyle Rayner accused him of doing in a recent issue of Green Lantern “cheated on his woman”?

The Young Oliver Queen Chronicles

Not many stories have made specific reference to Oliver Queen’s life before becoming Green Arrow. Those that do were written after Crisis on Infinite Earths, and added on a great deal to his past life.

One such story was “Peacemakers” (Legends of the DC Universe 7-9) by Denny O’Neil. An untold tale of how the Oliver Queen and Green Lantern Hal Jordan truly first met before the formation of the Justice League, the story showed Queen as a spoiled playboy whose main motivation for heroism was wooing women. The story also showed a clueless Queen talking about the joys of heroism to an unidentified blonde woman, who was trying to get him to listen to some news about her visit to a doctor.

Chuck Dixon also portrayed Oliver as a womanizer, in various flashback scenes of Oliver and Connor speaking together during their time at the Ashram. Oliver told Connor about how he had been with a lot of women in his past as a playboy and the early days of heroism, but how he gladly would have risked his life for any of them.

Mike Grell, while not having written much about Oliver’s pre-heroism days, also made reference to Oliver having been quite the ladies man among the other hippies while he was in college in The Wonder Year miniseries.

Clearly Oliver has an eye for the ladies and is a man of the world in that regard. Still, the question remains: did he ever cheat on Black Canary once the two met and began dating?

The Early Years of Heroism: Hard-Traveling Heroes

Back in the ol’ Hard Traveling Hero days, as written by Denny O’Neil in his now legendary run, Oliver Queen was always depicted as steadfastly devout to his “Pretty Bird”. In fact, Dinah complained that he was too possessive. An example of this occurs in Green Arrow #85, where she cuts a date short after Oliver dumps his chili a man who was looking at her.

Even in the more recent “retro” JLA stories, (JLA: Year One) Oliver has always been shown as being faithful, if not down right territorial, towards the love of his life. So where did the ideal of his unfaithfulness come in?

Enter Shado

Shado, a Yakuza trained archer assassin, first entered Oliver’s life at a time of great change. (See the excellent Longbow Hunters TP for this story) Newly moved to Seattle with Dinah, the two vigilantes hadn’t even been given time to settle in before being drawn into a plot involving a serial killer stalking prostitutes, drugs and a fortune in stolen money.

Ollie would cross paths with Shado again in GA #10-12. Blackmailed into tracking down Shado by a corrupt CIA agent, Oliver was shot through the heart when he surprised Shado in the middle of her practicing. She would nurse him back to health over the next few weeks, the two parting ways after dealing with the agent. There was a suggestion of a strong attraction between the two archers, including one scene of the two together where it appears that at least Shado and possibly Oliver are both skinny-dipping.

Still, this doesn’t necessarily mean that anything happened. At the very least, nothing that Oliver was consciously aware of.

The Rising Son

Shado and Oliver would meet again over a year later (in DCU time and real life time) in GA #21-24. This time, Shado was trying to save her newborn son from the Yakuza, whom she had fled rather than serve further. Oliver helped her to rescue the boy and, as the two part ways again, asks about the boy’s father. Shado cryptically says that the father was unaware he had a son that his life was complicated enough without him knowing. Oliver comments that whoever he was, he was lucky to have known her that briefly and that he is a good-looking boy. Shado thanks him and says “He has his father’s eyes.” As Oliver leaves, we close in on the boy… and see that he has bright green eyes, the same shade as Oliver’s.

Rather damning evidence, except for the fact that Oliver does not ask specifically whether or not he is the father. This suggests that he does not believe it is possible that he is the baby’s father, further suggesting that he never had willing relations with Shado the second time they met. The key word here is “willing”.

About Last Year…

The next revelation in the Shado/Ollie/Dinah love triangle would come a year later, again. In GA #34, Oliver would be framed for treason and was forced to go into hiding after being freed enroute to prison by the same man who framed him: Eddie Fyers. Dinah, having the means to contact Shado somehow, called her and said Oliver needed her help. The two met for the first time in GA #36-37and Dinah quickly figured out who the father of the child by Shado’s side was. Shado confirmed what had only been suggested: that Oliver was the father of her baby. However, she would go on to explain two things…

1. That Oliver was totally unaware that the child was his.

2. That the child was conceived while Oliver was delirious with a fever while recovering from the shot to the heart.

Shado also notes that she did what she did out of a need to have a part of Oliver, knowing she could never steal him away from Dinah. Her reasoning behind this was that she saw Oliver become a killer for Dinah and that for him to change himself that much, he had to have a love for Dinah that could not be broken. Since she could not share his life, she decided to give him a legacy since at that point Oliver wanted to have children but Dinah refused on the grounds that with their lives as heroes they shouldn’t risk leaving behind orphans. Shado also notes that he was speaking Dinah’s name throughout his delirium, including the time she spent “lying with him”.

Dinah says nothing about what she finds out to Oliver. Of course, she sees little of him over the next year as he goes on a quest to find himself. But during his time in hiding, Oliver befriended another woman who would later have an effect on his relationship with Dinah; a homeless young woman named Marianne, who we will discuss in a moment.

On The Road Again

Oliver does get a chance to “let his shaft loose” while on his journey around the world. He is seduced from a distance by Laurel Jones (GA #44-45), but he turns her down. And while Oliver does flirt with Angela, part of a team of poacher hunters he joins in Africa (GA #46-48), he does nothing more than that. And it says something that he drops the entire journey when he finds that Dinah has been taken hostage in Seattle and rushes back to save her. (GA #50)

Marianne

Before leaving on his journey, Oliver instructed Marianne (who gave him quite a bit of help during his time underground) to go and see Dinah about a place to stay and a job. Dinah does take Marianne on as a roommate and employee and she continues to live there, even after Oliver does return. It is immediately made obvious that Marianne has a major crush on Oliver and would love to drive Dinah and him apart. When a police officer starts calling on Dinah during the year Oliver is away, Marriane encourages Dinah to agree to go out with him.

Later, she not so subtly starts tries to seduce Oliver (undressing with the door open) and the tries to spend more time with him, becoming his link into the world of Seattle’s homeless population when Oliver needs a lead concerning a crime.

Still, Oliver does nothing to encourage her attraction other than being a good-looking, charming and heroic figure to a college-girl looking for Prince Charming. And so in GA #74, at a New Years costume part, she confesses her love to Oliver. He tires to talk with her about it, saying he has never done anything to lead her on. She agrees that he hasn’t, but that she has still fallen for him.

The artwork is unclear on the next page, but Marianne is definitely pressing her lips against Oliver’s as Dinah enters the room. What is unclear however is if she started the kiss or if he did…. Or to what degree Oliver is kissing back. In the end, it doesn’t matter. Dinah says she is unwilling to share Oliver and kicks him out at the end of GA #75.

Harsh? Perhaps, but from Dinah’s viewpoint, it is understandable.

1. She had to have known about his past as a ladies man and, like most people in love, been a little afraid of him finding someone else.

2. She knew that Oliver had a child with another woman but had only the word of “the other woman” that he was not aware of the child or that he was unaware that the two of them had ever “made babies” together.

3. Oliver disappeared for a year, during which time he never wrote or called Dinah.

4. Oliver let into their house a woman who was the spitting image of Dinah when they first met. (Dinah Lance was 19 at the time she joined the JLA and Marriane was about that age during the time she lived with Oliver and Dinah, since references were made to her taking college classes)

5. Said woman is very flirtatious toward Oliver and had, when he was gone, tried to get you to see other men.

Add all this up, and Dinah has more than enough reason to be suspicious about “just one kiss”.

On The Road Again

Oliver went back on the road in GA #81, his departure mirroring that of Grell from the regular Green Arrow title. Still, before he left Seattle forever Oliver did sleep with Marianne in the rooms they hid in several years before (GA #76). However, since Dinah at this point had already dumped him, this doesn’t technically count as cheating.

Any attempt that Oliver might have made at reconciliation was shot (no pun intended) in GA #81 when, while trying to stop a fight between superhero Nuklon and supervillain Shrapnel, he was grabbed and hugged by an affectionate passerby who wanted to “thank” him for saving her. Of course Dinah was in the crowd of passersby watching the fight and got enough of a look to be disgusted, never mind Oliver’s trying to push the woman off of him.

Oliver had two more “affairs” of note before his death in Green Arrow #101: a one-night stand with a nameless redhead who he hitchhiked with and, in one of the more controversial stories of the run, Catwoman in GA #86. Many Green Arrow fans can’t believe that Oliver, even if unattached, would ever sleep with a known thief like Catwoman. Of course there are many Catwoman fans that believe that Selina is too independent to ever have a one night stand with any man. Regardless, the story took place just before Zero Hour and is considered non-cannon by most fans of both characters.

Conclusion

So was Oliver Queen a flirt? Yes. Did Oliver Queen sleep around? Yes. Did he have children out of wedlock? Yes. Did he do some incredibly stupid things regarding his love life? Hell yes.

But as far as I can determine, when he was with Dinah Lance and they were “going steady” as it were, there was nothing short of blood-loss induced delirium that could get him to turn away from her. Still, with the possible exception of Matt Murdock, it can’t be denied that Oliver Queen has had the most turbulent romantic life of any man in the comic universe.

Tune in next week. Same Matt Time. Same Matt Website.