Giffen Arrow Is An Improvement
The Good: The cover is quite nice, the artwork of it is great, the perspective is interesting, Green Arrow and Blood Rose are in very nice 'movie poster' poses, and I really enjoy the chaotic red with Chinese / Japanese symbols background. This is hands down the best cover for the series thus far.
Kieth Giffen definitely works better with Dan Jurgens than J.T. Krul did. It's still not amazing, but the fights have definitely improved in terms of kinetic energy.
Jurgens also has some pretty damn good panel layouts. Nothing super outstanding, but very well thought out.
After a slow start, the pacing really speeds up into a nice tense pace that doesn't stop until the issue reaches the climax, and has a nice little foreshadowing final hook.
The Bad: Although the cover is the best yet, the words on the cover are annoyingly misleading. The first instance we see Blood Rose in the issue, she makes it abundantly clear that she's NOT in it to kill Oliver Queen just yet. She's hunting him to torture him, NOT to kill him.
Blood Rose's partner has an absolutely HORRENDOUS broken speech pattern. Normally this is something that could be interesting, but there's absolutely no rhyme or reason to it, other than being the mostridiculously awkward thing to read. Even if someone had some kind of stutter, there's no way it would be as painful to articulate as this.
The beginning of the issue just kind of drags on a bit. I know it serves a purpose, but it just barely crosses the line into being a bit too long.
The inking is kind of rough and gritty in a way that really doesn't work.
Green Arrow's supporting cast just isn't very well developed. I keep forgetting which people are who, and most of them are pretty flat and hard to be interested in.
In Conclusion: 3.5/5
Keith Giffen is definitely a better fit for this series than Krul is, which is a shame due to how fantastic Krul's pre-Flashpoint Green Arrow was. GIffen's a much better fit for Jurgens, but Jurgens still isn't a good fit for Green Arrow. But, Green Arrow's NOT kicking the shit out of Jersey Shore personified, and I'm still interested in the story. The art's a bit more dynamic, the panel layouts are more interesting; overall it's not as stiff as the first arc. Until we get the new artist on #7, Giffen makes a great fill-in, and anyone who trudged through the first arc should be pleased by the increase in quality... however, it's still no great shakes. I'm not ready to advise keeping up until the next arc yet, so anyone interested in Green Arrow might still want to wait until then to pick up the series, but if you've enjoyed it this far, you might as well stick with it.
