I think few people would debate that Green Arrow is by far one of the best characters that DC has to offer, he has history and a great appeal, the sense of a cool American Robin Hood with a great attitude but still with human flaws.

and I think even fewer people will debate that Green Arrow is one of the worst titles that have come out of the new 52, pretty much systematically destroying everything that made Green Arrow interesting or original along the path

you might say Im exaggerating but one of the aspects that i have found more interesting than anything else is the seriousness of the character, Green Arrow is a mature IP, not necessarily means that he is a mature character but is something that is not a childish or juvenile character

well, Lemire said this in a tweet

and he also added

I wanted to make Green Arrow a hunter again. A street level hero of the gutters caught up in a world of violence, betrayal and conspiracy.

on his interview

I point this out for 2 reasons

1- is that i love Green Arrow Year One and Longbow Hunters

2- the new Green Arrow book IS NOTHING LIKE THAT

in fact, the book has never been like that in a very long time

Green Arrow is a character that has been screwed around for the last few years, periodically getting worse and worse, I would say that it started with Winick's Green Arrow run, not to say that it was bad, just that it wasnt good, his biggest contribution to Green Arrow was making Mia into the new speedy, and then making Ollie the major of Star City, but such plots never really went anywhere after the initial launch, this wasnt a short run either, this was a long period of time in which GA just stagger.

Which i think eventually lead DC to do this

The Wedding of Green Arrow and Black Canary, its an idea that has been going around ever since Ollie returned to life and even explored on Archer's Quest, the same ring made with the head of the Diamond arrow is what Ollie uses to propose. and in case you were never aware of this, this idea bomb hard

Green Arrow/Black Canary has to be one of the worst ideas in DC recent history, the whole idea of the wedding was very lighthearted and comedic, but what happen next was not comedic, it was an extremely underwhelming parade of poor designed villains one after the other with very little emphasis in them as a married couple, it was just a mediocre Hero book

but amazingly, it still could get worse, far worse

We got Justice League: Cry for Justice, probably one of the most controversial comics ever made, and one of the most hated comics too, the problems with this book are legendary at this point, constant editorial mandates, fails at meeting deadlines one after the other, problems with the art, problems with the writing, problems with the dialog, the overuse of the word JUSTICE in the entire thing, Characters who were suppose to be on it were removed by other writers vetos and the font of the title on the cover makes it look like it says GAY for Justice instead of CRY, which i think is hilarious

But most of this effects had nothing to do with the Justice League, in fact the book was created and promoted to be the big launch of a new era for the Justice League, and it was entirely inconsequential for it, the biggest impact of this book lied on the Green Arrow and the effect of that was that the entire Green Arrow Family was effectively wipe out, Green Arrow was exiled from Star City and Dinah left Ollie

Basically Green Arrow was once again alone and Once again DC tried to boost Green Arrow by tie it to its new event Brightest Day, the gimmick was that Star City was almost entirely destroyed and thanks to the power of the white lantern a huge forest in the shape of a star came out of the ruins, this new forest was "magical", it was like an ever changing maze, no technology could work on it, no magic could work either, it was the ultimate equalized ground, Honestly it had a ton of potential and even Geoff Johns in an interview said that the idea was to give Star City an identity

The problem was that Geoff Johns didnt wrote this, it was written by JT Krul

The best thing that i can say about this final pre-nu52 run was that the forest was cool, but that was a problem, since the very first chp you could tell that Krul had a very long run planned out and a ton of ideas, none which had anything to do with the magic forest and all went nowhere because half the focus of the book was the forest, and the other half were this ideas that just didnt mesh at all with the forest, for example Krul wanted GA to be more like Robin Hood, literally by having a new group of "merry men" which at the end of his run amounted to 1 guy, there was nothing robin-hoody about Green Arrow and reason was cause all this ideas had to deviate to the magic forest plot and non of them were really interesting at all.

But by the end of this time Flashpoint was about to happen and the New 52 was upon us, and with all the mess that Green Arrow had to suffer though in the last years a reboot was inevitable.

Its very understandable really, Green Arrow still kept the same origin that he always had with the same adventures since the Golden Age, he grew into Grell's Green Arrow, then he died, then he returned, and all the history and changes were going to meaningless if there was a continuation coming out of Brightest Day, The Green Arrow family was over so what was the point of bringing it up, and bringing them back was out of the question cause the idea of rebooting GA was just simpler

So who did DC look to reboot Green Arrow, well JT Krul, since he was the last writer

why?

at this point im not sure that JT Krul is entirely to blame by the reinvention of GA, since it looked like he was still following editorial mandates, his run lasted for 3 horribly written issues that culminated in Green Arrow breaking the 4th wall and complaining about the use of social networks like Youtube, Kruls departure was also very hasty, leaving Dan Jurgen and Keith Giffen with only 3 issues to fill in while DC get a new writer

I ask again

Why Krul?

Its obvious because of this that DC had absolutely no real plans for Green Arrow, if he was going to be important in the future, that really didnt matter, the only thing that matter was that they needed to have a title ready, but for half a year, the title had no consistent writer, and what was worst of all is that Green Arrow no longer kept anything inside of his previous self.

at this point we knew that he was in an island for some time but we didnt knew much about it other than he was saved by Aquaman, we knew that he had Roy Harper as a sidekick but it didnt work

why even keep Roy if DC made sure to utterly destroy the green arrow family? why give baggage if you want to start fresh?

And Star City is gone, replaced again by Seattle, i guess the identity that Star City got wasnt good enough

Green Arrow was now more like James Bond mixed with Iron Man, except that instead of using an armor he used a bow

the end of the first year didnt improve either, the coming of Ann Nocenti into the picture obviously left the fans unsatisfied as the sales keep declining and it left the editors on DC discouraged that started to look for a replacement very quickly

There is nothing that i can say about Nocenti on Green Arrow, its boring the plots are confusing and the character of Ollie is just plain dull

to put even more salt in the injury Green Arrow 0 by Winick gave him an entire new origin that makes little sense and just doesnt fit the character at all, Ollie was having a party at sea, he is attacked by a cyborg pirate, he tries to save everyone but he fails and all his friends die, and he ends up in an island

Guilt is a quite important factor in the new series of Arrow but i would have never thought that it was important to Ollie now, he is not like that in this comic which begs the question

Why Winick?

DC approached him to take over Green Arrow but Winick had to decline since he was pursuing a new project, so why is he writing issue 0, why not Lemire since he is taking over the book now, or not let Nocenti do issue 0?

13 months and 5 writers, with the enter of Lemire that would make 6 in 17 months

This kind of left me with a very interesting Epiphany

DC has no idea what to do with Green Arrow, HOWEVER, they want to do something, and at the same time not let the writers write, or they just dont care how they write

They want Green Arrow and BC to be married, why not stick with a comedy, the whole wedding was a lighthearted comedy, so hire someone who is funny, and then they turn it to tragedy, but the tragedy was so horribly receive that they decided to ignore it

DC has Failed at Green Arrow, It failed once and it failed Again, and again and again and again and 4 more times in a row

what makes DC think that this time will be different?

I do consider Jeff Lemire to be a great writer, I love Animal Man and Sweet Tooth, and Andrea Sorrentino is an Excellent artist, his work in I, Vampire was brilliant and one of the reasons why the book have survived this long

But there is an old saying which i think is from the bible that reads "The Wise man built his house on the rock, the foolish man built his house on the sand."

and as good of a writer that Lemire is, and as good of an artist that Sorrentino is, their book is build on the mediocrity that has been the Green Arrow Title

its being build under the rotten foundations that DC put here and has lead them rot for years

Lemire said in in his interview that he wanted to build a new mythology for Green Arrow, that the days of Longbow Hunters will be back and that his work will resemble the likes of the Question.

my point with all of this is

Will DC Allow that to be good?

I guess the pressure was too big when Marvel have something like this

End of Blog Post

Check out my Personal Blog lets-talk-about-comics.blogspot.com

Yeah it will be awesome probably I believe in Jeff Lemire

Agreed, many of the recent sh!t GA has gone thorugh can be blamed on poor editorial handling from DC. They clearly don't know what to do with the character.

Hopefully they'll leave Lemire alone and let him do his magic. Like you said, DC needs Green Arrow to be a good book, with Hawkeye in the competition and Arrow giving the character more popularity among the common folk.

Great blog post, BTW.

Lemire'll obviously still be subject to editorial, especially with GA being a part of JLA (which is written by Johns, the second most powerful influence in DC, so anything taking place in that series will take precedence over Lemire's work). Hopefully he's not building a "house on the sand", but starting fresh and ignoring the s### that's come beforehand in this relaunch. I have the utmost faith in Lemire, he's been killing it on just about every book he's working on. I also like that he has enthusiasm about being on the title, and that he has an overall sense of direction as to where he wants to take it.

@The_Tree said:

Lemire'll obviously still be subject to editorial, especially with GA being a part of JLA (which is written by Johns, the second most powerful influence in DC, so anything taking place in that series will take precedence over Lemire's work). Hopefully he's not building a "house on the sand", but starting fresh and ignoring the s### that's come beforehand in this relaunch. I have the utmost faith in Lemire, he's been killing it on just about every book he's working on. I also like that he has enthusiasm about being on the title, and that he has an overall sense of direction as to where he wants to take it.

In a very recent interview with CBR Lemire said that what happen in the first 17 issues still happen and he will still keep one of the 2 tech guys of the book(no, i dont know their names), and he will also make a new supporting guy

which is discouraging but he also said that he wanted to rebuild him up

you can also see how Lemire has been doing in stuff like on JLD where is obvious that there is some editorial presence but he is doing a good job

my point is not that, my point is that its because of all the problems that caused the editorial on this book, that this book has a really hard struggling chance

GA #1 started with over 50k copies, it started higher than Snyder's Swamp Thing and Lemire's Animal Man, now both of those titles are way ahead of it and the sales are about 25k average

so he lost more than half of those sales

Its the lack of preparation, the none-existent planiation on Green Arrow that can easily kill Lemire's run

It is never too late.

@arnoldoaad: I don't mind him moving forward from where the other writers left off, I just think it's best not to acknowledge most of what happened, and I won't mind him using one of those tech guys as long as he makes him into an actually worthwhile character. I'm most certain the editorial presence will be felt to an extent, especially on issues such as using Roy Harper or bringing back the beard, but I think it won't be as heavy due to Lemire being a trusted, experienced, and quality writer for the company.

And because of the points above, I believe the series will receive somewhat of a sales increase, due a little in part by bring over some of the Lemire fans. It certainly won't be brought back up to selling over 50k copies though, considering it doesn't have another relaunch backing it up. While Lemire and Andrea taking over the title does seem like it's lacking in preparation, I'm sure that them (or at least Lemire) jumping on the title has been in the works for months. I believe this will succeed, especially because Lemire seems to know the overall direction he wants to take the series in, unlike the previous creative teams. Even if it doesn't sell well, I don't think DC'll just let the comic die if it's getting good reviews; I think they'll let it keep going like I, Vampire. I also think that the Arrow TV series will help keep the comic afloat.

@The_Tree said:

@arnoldoaad: I don't mind him moving forward from where the other writers left off, I just think it's best not to acknowledge most of what happened, and I won't mind him using one of those tech guys as long as he makes him into an actually worthwhile character. I'm most certain the editorial presence will be felt to an extent, especially on issues such as using Roy Harper or bringing back the beard, but I think it won't be as heavy due to Lemire being a trusted, experienced, and quality writer for the company.

And because of the points above, I believe the series will receive somewhat of a sales increase, due a little in part by bring over some of the Lemire fans. It certainly won't be brought back up to selling over 50k copies though, considering it doesn't have another relaunch backing it up. While Lemire and Andrea taking over the title does seem like it's lacking in preparation, I'm sure that them (or at least Lemire) jumping on the title has been in the works for months. I believe this will succeed, especially because Lemire seems to know the overall direction he wants to take the series in, unlike the previous creative teams. Even if it doesn't sell well, I don't think DC'll just let the comic die if it's getting good reviews; I think they'll let it keep going like I, Vampire. I also think that the Arrow TV series will help keep the comic afloat.

here is one problem that i have with Lemire

he is a good writer but Geoff Johns is also a great writer and his take on the character Sucked on JL#8

there is just so much that can be done with the character as the character is right now, thats one of the reasons why Lemire is going to use more on the backstory and family of GA but its that shadow of those 17 issues what is going to hurt it more

It's not too late. I think DC really learned their lesson here, and with Hawkeye riding so high AND the success of Arrow; they NEED to change their approach. So they're bringing in their new ace in the hole. Animal Man had shreds of fans left over from Morrison's run, but he was basically a forgotten hero; and Jeff Lemire brought him back with a bang. And Andrea Sorrentino is just amazing. If DC hypes this enough I think it'll work, because Nocenti's been on the title long enough that it's not so much hated as it is just ignored, but this creative team change, right along with the lauch of JLA and likely around the season finale of Arrow; is the perfect time to treat it as almost brand new. He can build a brand new foundation, and leave the sand behind him.

I must also add that, by what I read from the bit about Brightest Day (I admit, I skimmed) I think Krul was a perfect choice to do the relaunch; if mandate hadn't been set to reinvent Ollie so drastically. All the parts of Krul's Pre-New 52 Green Arrow that were good was the stuff that wasn't stuck in Brightest Day. It seemed like Krul REALLY wanted to get into The Queen and the Robin Hood stuff and that was all EXCELLENT, imo at least. I was ravenous for more of that, but because Geoff Johns has so much pull at DC, I think he kept making sure Green Arrow was caught up exploring the forest, since it was such a pivotal part of Brightest Day, and Star City was Ollie's city.

Plus, one thing I think Olivetti might be about to do right is have Ollie's current world come crashing down around him; burning away a lot of the sand with napalm, so Lemire can start his foundation fresh.

@The Mighty Monarch said:

It's not too late. I think DC really learned their lesson here, and with Hawkeye riding so high AND the success of Arrow; they NEED to change their approach. So they're bringing in their new ace in the hole. Animal Man had shreds of fans left over from Morrison's run, but he was basically a forgotten hero; and Jeff Lemire brought him back with a bang. And Andrea Sorrentino is just amazing. If DC hypes this enough I think it'll work, because Nocenti's been on the title long enough that it's not so much hated as it is just ignored, but this creative team change, right along with the lauch of JLA and likely around the season finale of Arrow; is the perfect time to treat it as almost brand new. He can build a brand new foundation, and leave the sand behind him.

The problem that I see on Green Arrow is that, the core of the problem that I pointed out in all this article is that they always keep on changing their approach

thats exactly what killed Green Arrow for all this years, they tried something and change and change and change and this is what took is toll when the relaunch came

If you look at Marvel's Hawkeye, thats a title that pretty much went under my radar, it is not part of the Marvel Now titles, its before that and is on no way tied to the Avengers, they just ask Fraction "do you want to make a Hawkeye book, take this go nutz!" and that is why the title is so good, its pure originality and freedom for the writer just like what happen with Daredevil

With Green Arrow is the complete opposite approach from the beginning and this isnt different at all

@The Mighty Monarch said:

I must also add that, by what I read from the bit about Brightest Day (I admit, I skimmed) I think Krul was a perfect choice to do the relaunch; if mandate hadn't been set to reinvent Ollie so drastically. All the parts of Krul's Pre-New 52 Green Arrow that were good was the stuff that wasn't stuck in Brightest Day. It seemed like Krul REALLY wanted to get into The Queen and the Robin Hood stuff and that was all EXCELLENT, imo at least. I was ravenous for more of that, but because Geoff Johns has so much pull at DC, I think he kept making sure Green Arrow was caught up exploring the forest, since it was such a pivotal part of Brightest Day, and Star City was Ollie's city.

Plus, one thing I think Olivetti might be about to do right is have Ollie's current world come crashing down around him; burning away a lot of the sand with napalm, so Lemire can start his foundation fresh.

I completely disagree with this, you might argue that JT Krull wasnt a bad choice in hindsight to relaunch GA but it was by far the right one

from Brightest Day, the biggest problem was like that the biggest appeal of the book wasnt Kruls ideas, I will give him credit though, there were some interesting things there but most of them were buried under the BD Banner

I remember one issue where coincidentally Martian Manhunter visits the Forest on both the Main Brightest day book and in Green Arrow, and word by word, scene by scene it was the exact same encounter on Green Arrow, that lasted for half the issue just retelling the exact same thing that happen in BD,so if you read BD, GA turn very repetitive

finally the overall idea of the Merry Men went absolutely nowhere, like i said there was only 1 guy on the merry men, and he wasnt interesting at all, then Etrigan and Jason Blood appear in the forest and basically drag a fight for 2-3 issues which again goes nowhere

and Queen's plot got extremely underdeveloped too, but either way none of that matters cause none of those ideas were used for GA and instead we got an Ollie that was basically an unlikable ass who complained about videogames and youtube, with assistants that 0 character development in an entire year

I think that what might make this book work again is just distance itself entirely from DC and just do their thing, but thats difficult when they have 17 issues of crap behind them and in top of that they need to watch on what might happen in the JLA

I think Lemire has the right approach to Green Arrow his bringing him back to the street level hero, that is being chased by secret organiztions, and making him into the screw up he was back in the Grell, Dixon, Dooley, and Barr runs. As to why Hawkeye has recieved so much success 1. Great writer 2. He was given Green Arrow personality.

@Mia26 said:

I think Lemire has the right approach to Green Arrow his bringing him back to the street level hero, that is being chased by secret organiztions, and making him into the screw up he was back in the Grell, Dixon, Dooley, and Barr runs. As to why Hawkeye has recieved so much success 1. Great writer 2. He was given Green Arrow personality.

Im not sure how fair it is to say that he has Ollie's personality, but I will say this

I wish NuGA had this personality.

It is such a melancolic experience to read Hawkeye and be please for how freking good it is and at the same time beind sad that this is how GA should be like.

Never too late to do more reboots to fix Green Arrow. Getting some inspiration from the Mike Grell Green Arrow should help. For a while, the Mike Grell Green Arrow even had on the covers : suggested for mature readers, so readers can feel more mature by reading Green Arrow. I like former Vertigo writers to do super heroes so we can finally get vertigo versions of the super heroes. Still waiting for a vertigo version of Superman.

@colonyofcells said:

Never too late to do more reboots to fix Green Arrow. Getting some inspiration from the Mike Grell Green Arrow should help. For a while, the Mike Grell Green Arrow even had on the covers : suggested for mature readers, so readers can feel more mature by reading Green Arrow. I like former Vertigo writers to do super heroes so we can finally get vertigo versions of the super heroes. Still waiting for a vertigo version of Superman.

DC should have done something like that from the beginning.

and as for the suggested for mature readers label

A ton of comics should have that and they arent getting it, Costantine is going to be T+, it should get an M

Catwoman should had been an M for how it started, not now though

Animal Man, I, Vampire, Swamp thing, all of those should be an M, and probably being an M would attract more readers

So it is now March and the second Comic written by Lemire has come out. I already really enjoy JLD..... and the last two issues of GA have been great. Good story with a lot of unknowns to Ollie's background and where it may take him. I read the second one last night slowly and enjoyed the dialogue.

All the previous books I was basically skimmed through b/c they were all over the place.

Nice Job......