Green Arrow #1

I have been a longtime reader of Green Arrow. When Kevin Smith's Green Arrow books came out I bought them simply because his name was attached to the book. I didn't actually read them for about 6 or 7 years. Sad, yes but at least they were read and an insane avid fan was born. Green Arrow is my favorite character. Something about him, particularly the way Smith wrote him I just was attracted to. I love the organic feel to him, using a bow and arrow is something unique in this time when technology triumphs. While Batman has a belt of goodies that I would drool for, I appreciate the art of archery. As someone who grew up around firearms and learning a lot about them, the old bow and arrow never really fit in so perhaps it was attraction of something new and unknown (ironic though since it's such an ancient weapon). None the less I just bought Green Arrow up like no one's business. I watched the last two season of Smallvile, a show I had grown to detest, simply because a rendition of my boy was on it. I was traveling down the street and noticed a comic shop I had never been too simply because they had the Alex Ross art poster in a window for display purposes only and I then harassed the owner into submission where I picked up the poster for a whopping 4 bucks. Now this isn't about how I haggled for an over blown picture, I simply want to get across that Green Arrow is easily my favorite hero. While I love Captain America, I love Batman TO DEATH and I love the X-Force's Wolverine ( I love old wolverine before he was so over saturated) but they all stand inline behind Green Arrow. Perhaps it's his obscurity that wins him over for me. When someone asks me "who's your favorite super hero?" instead of dropping the ubber popular names like Bats, Cappy or Wolvie I throw a hero name out there that they have never heard of thereby concreting my position in nerdom forever with said person. All of these things make my man's debut in the new 52 that much more disappointing. (that' rhymed)

First I want to start out by saying that I actually loved JT Krul's work on Volume 4, something about fighting inner and outter demons at the same time is super awesome to me. I felt it was pretty introspective, I dug it. When I heard that DC was in fact rebooting their entire catalog I was curious how Green Arrow would fit in. I mean he has had almost as many reboots as the X-men title. (Though leave it to Marvel they found a way to not be outdone come this December!). To my relief it was announced that JT would reprise his role as writer in the beginning books at least for the archer. Before September 9th came around (I had to wait two days to read this because my comic book store received the shipment late due to Labor Day) I heard the book described as a James Bond style take on Green Arrow and as a long time lover of those movies my mind was preparing to be blown. That seems like such a logical and awesome idea. It was assumed that Ollie's identity would go back to secret, a wise and welcomed move by me and it seemed logical that head of one of the biggest companies in the DCU would act more stealthy and secretive. I mean he only wears a domino mask and unlike Batman he isn't expected to be dead silent, quite contrary, one of his best features is his smart mouth in my book. Now being sly and stealthy doesn't mean he has to keep to the shadows like Batman, that works for Gotham and Bruce but here we could have something less ominous. Lets not even use Bond as an example, lets say Oliver Queen is DCU's version of Ethan Hunt. THAT SOUNDS GREAT! For some reason that's what I was expecting. Now I am not one to disregard a book simply because the story didn't go where I would have taken it. If that were the case I would never read books or movies. My life would be dull. But that's where my hype was. Something fresh, new, something to really warrant yet ANOTHER reboot.

On the Positive side of things I can absolutely say that this book has major potential and it could even go where I was hoping as long as it is honed in quickly. I get the Bond reference being more int hat he uses gadgets and while I love the organic feel of a man with a bow jumping around rooftops, in this day and age as a powerless hero it's hard to swallow. You have to give yourself an edge and I'm more than happy that they take a little direction form Tony Stark and let Oliver's public affairs help his private ones. It's not as if he has a suit made of metal and rocket boots and really what mega-billion dollar companies are there that don't at least contribute to weapons research and possible development? I am not so vapidly opposed to the idea of Oracle 2.0 for Ollie as many seem to be either. As a powerless hero this is logical and realistic. It really begs the question though, if Barbara weren't dawning her cowl again, would this have been included?

So to recap, I think the positive things to take away is Ollie is embracing and allowing technology to help him do his job better and isn't opposed to the aid of an eye in the sky and I really think those are huge things that will help this book survive.

Unfortunately the negatives outweigh the positive. If this story had come out three months prior in the old continuity, where there were literally a Batman in every region of the world and Flash was in an alternate timeline and Oliver was battling robots this would have been received much better. In fact it's easy for me to replace this story for the Robot Warrior story that closed out the last volume. Zingers aside, this book came out after JLA and the same week as Action Comics and Detective Comics. Now I refrain from explaining why I am so hyped for this DCU reboot, because I have typed a lot and you are tired and I am tired, surely, but I LOVE IT. I can finally jump into characters that I know I would really like. I thought JLA was amazing and I 100% admit it's probably because I never read JLA before at all.. but that's another reason why it's great. I thought the story was top notch and it was really accessible. I look forward to next month for that title. I picked up random titles of JLA and could never fit the groove before, but now I am stoked. Same goes for Action comics which really made me love Kal-El. I can't wait to see where Morrison takes this book but seeing that Supes is getting back to his 30's era attitude and less the big blue boyscout is super exciting (JLA also helped that excitement). Green Arrow has the unfortunate task of competing with books that got me giddy as a school girl. So when compared to really stellar awesome work it's merely mediocre, which hurts it a little bit more. It's like having a batting line up that is amazing from first spot to the eight spot.. but you always have the pitcher in the 9 hole who has rare glimpses of brilliance. That's the best way I can describe what Green Arrow #1 (5th or 6th time around, but who's counting) fits into the first month of the new 52, he's the pitcher who watched three great pitches go buy and didn't capitalize but hey... there's always the next at-bat, here's to hoping his next appearance he smashes it out of the park.