Green Arrow

Current Events

Recently, Ollie has taken down Rush and his band of thrill killers, ran into Grifter and battled with the monstrous Midas. Now, Ollie finds himslef being adored by triplets whom have made gadgets of their own. Instantly taken by their presence, Ollie takes the company jet to Canada so the Skylarks can show him their home.

Creation

Green Arrow was created by Mort Weisinger and George Papp and made his first appearance in More Fun Comics issue 73 in 1941. It was said that Mort Weisinger was inspired by a group of movies called The Green Archer, the movies where adapted from a series of books by Edgar Wallace, Mort took his inspiration and created a hero, borrowing ideas from the Batman series round the same time. It is easy to compare the two in the early forties, the Arrow Car and the Batmobile, both had sidekicks and where billionaire playboys. Green Arrow and Speedy were mainly used as back up features up into the sixties where they became more of a main feature and grew into a fan favourites. Green Arrow became one of the more mature features in DC comics in later years dealing with drug abuse and male rape, the comic even received a letter of applause from the mayor of New York, John Lindsay.

Origin

Oliver Queen

Oliver Queens’ story starts when he washes up on a deserted island. A playboy who fell into millions when his parents died, Oliver never gave much back to society and lived his life how he wanted; of course he made many rivals and enemies. After being pushed overboard by one of his own employees on his boat, Oliver was presumed dead and lost at sea, but had in fact washed up on an island. Oliver had a talent for archery and using his own initiative built a bow made out of spare parts of a broken generator; using his make-shift bow Oliver began hunting in order to eat. Spending weeks alone on the island, Oliver began to search and found a small settlement with no people. He soon tried to retrieve water from the well but found the dark truth that hid at the bottom!

The people of this village had been killed and their remains thrown into the well. Oliver was shocked by the horror of this action and knew that these men needed to be brought to justice. Later a plane came towards the island and Ollie began to signal it; they opened fire. But, using his bow Ollie managed to gain the upper hand and downed the plane. He was able to get off the island when some drug smugglers mutinied and took over a cargo ship. Dressed in a leafy disguise he had made his way on the island, and covering his eyes with a mask of grease from the anchor chain, he managed to capture the mutineers and save the crew. It turned out that they where the drug smugglers who had killed the islanders, picking up his bow Ollie began fighting back and overpowered them. His first taste for crime fighting came when he handed the drug smugglers over to the police and returned to a world he was set on changing for the better.

Using his vast fortune, he began to create various trick arrows to use under his new mantle. These include the rope arrow, the electric arrow, the explosive arrow, etc. Ollie did not stop there. Later on in his early years, he also built an Arrowcar, an Arrow Plane, and he even used the idea of the Bat signal for his own use but changed it to the Arrow Signal that Star City could use to call him when he was needed. Green Arrow was joined by a younger counterpart named Speedy. Speedy was also a skilled archer and the two were a formidable team and worked together for quite awhile. Green Arrow became a much darker character after he lost his fortune and became more in tune with the streets he protected, even growing a goatee that is now famous; it was during this time that Ollie became very left winged in his political views and became very outspoken in his views.

Character Evolution

Golden Age

Green Arrow (Golden Age)

Unlike Batman, Green Arrow has no problem with telling the world his point of view and the two find it very hard to agree or work with each other, but do so when it is called for during Green Arrow's stint with the Justice League. He was given the name Green Arrow by the press and soon became a member of the Justice League of America. His political views also brought him into direct conflict with a soon to be friend, Hal Jordan. While Green Arrow demanded change on a massive scale, Hal wanted order, as a Liberal figure and wanted to work with the government rather then against it. Ollie saw Hal as a man trapped within his role in the Green Lantern Corps and thought that he could not see those who really needed help. The two of them set out around America and witnessed crimes that affected the day to day lives of Americans.

Post-Flashpoint / Earth 0

Green Arrow (Earth 0)

In the new DC Universe, after the events of Flashpoint, Oliver Queen is now a younger and clean-shaven Green Arrow, resembling his Smallville counterpart. He is now based in Seattle and works with his team. Naomi on computers and Jax on gadgets. On the business side, Queen Industries has had profitable quarter after quarter thanks to their Q-Core division. Q-Core has passed out many successful devices such as the Q-Phone and Q-Pad. Oliver Queen is commonly missing from company board meetings, much to the annoyance of CEO Emmerson, who hounds Oliver, trying to reign him in. Green Arrow is currently building up his rouges gallery as new criminals arrive to challenge the Emerald Archer.

Major Story Arcs

Golden Age:

The Longbow Hunters

Shado

Green Arrow fell in love with Black Canary during his time in the Justice League and the two began a relationship that has spanned the decades. This love that would lead to Green Arrow killing a man. Black Canary is captured as she tries to stop a group of drug dealers, Green Arrow starts the hunt and soon comes into contact with Shado, a deadly archer who is hunting the men who killed her family. Ollie at first is shocked by her ways but teams up with her in order to find Black Canary. They finally find her, Black Canary is tied up and has been beaten and tortured; a man in front of her lifts her chin and implies that he is about to “have some fun with her”. A green shafted arrow explodes out of his throat. The two men that have been holding her are killed and Green Arrow unties the woman he loves, his anger getting the better of him as he leaves the dead drug dealers behind. Green Arrow moved from Star City and relocated to Washington. His old gadgets left behind as Green Arrow became a lot more dangerous, willing to kill rather then show mercy to the scum that lurked the streets. It was now that Ollie met Eddie Fyers who would become a close friend to Ollie. Ollie's actions caught the attention of the police who would hunt him due to his violent actions towards criminals. Ollie was forced out of Washington when he is accused of helping terrorists. All of this became too much for Black Canary who during this time had lost her powers and was now unable to have children; Canary broke up with him over everything that had changed him.

One year after, Ollie would once again meet Shado. Ollie was blackmailed into hunting her down to find a treasure map by CIA Agent Osborne; Ollie finally caught up with her but as soon as he found her, she shot him in the chest with his own arrow. Shado went on to nurse him back to health, we also discover that while he was healing and drugged from the medication that Shado had given him that he was raped and conceived a son named Robert. Ollie would not discover this till years later. After she had healed him, she said that she had mistaken him for one of her attackers and he left without the map. When they met years later, Shado showed Ollie his son Robert and went on to tell him how she had raped him. She then told him she wanted him to have nothing to do with his son.

Zero Hour

Parallax

Ollie began to return to his hero roots and played a pivotal part in Zero Hour. When Hal Jordan had gone mad, Ollie had no choice but to shoot his friend just at the right moment to allow the other heroes a chance of beating him. Ollie had helped Hal earlier that year in saving his long time love interest and was one of the main reasons why he came back into the Hero world after he lost his way. Some time later, Ollie discovered he had a full grown illegitimate son, Connor Hawke, also a skilled archer. Ollie and Connor became close and Connor even decided to help Ollie with his crime fighting. But disaster was soon to strike the two as Ollie would infiltrate a group of Eco-terrorists known as the Eden Corps and sacrifice his life in order to prevent the group from detonating a bomb that would destroy the city of Metropolis. Connor decided to take over the mantle of the Green Arrow in his father's honor.

Quiver

Ollie Returns

Several years after his death, Ollie was seemingly resurrected by Hal Jordan when he was corrupted by Parallax, who now operates as the Spectre. Despite Ollie being alive, he had no memories of the years prior to his death. This was because when Hal resurrected him, he raised Ollie's body without his soul and turned him in to a "Hollow," a body or person without a soul. Just after Ollie's resurrection, he saved an old man, Stanley Dover, from a group of muggers on the streets of Star City. Stanley took him in to his home and got him back on his feet. During a raid on a corrupt official's house party, Ollie's rescues an underage prostitute named Mia Dearden and takes her in as his ward at Stanley's house. After a while, Stanley discovers that Ollie is a Hollow, and due to his Satanist background and obsession with immortality, decides to try and transfer his soul into Ollie's body to extend his life and to gain control of a demonic creature that would do whatever he wanted. Stanley managed to capture Green Arrow and held him prisoner in his basement with a blood seal spell that only allowed Ollie's DNA to pass through. Connor Hawke, Black Canary, Batman, and Jason Blood were all outside of the building trying to breach in and rescure Ollie and Mia. Because Connor Hawke is Ollie's son, he was allowed to pass through. Stanley opened a gateway to Hell in his basement. Demons and foul creatures started to rush out of the portal. While Connor was trying to fight off an army of demons to save Ollie, Hal finally convinced Ollie's soul (who was enjoying himself in Heaven) to join back up with the body. Once they merged Stanley was blocked out and could no longer complete the transfer of his soul to Ollie's body. Ollie then broke free. Father and son fought off the waves of the demon horde but were eventually cornered. The long sought after demon that Stanley tried to control appeared out of nowhere and closed door to the underworld, effectively saving everyone. After all is said and done, the demon eats Stanley.

Identity Crisis

Green Arrow vs. Deathstroke

During the events of Identity Crisis, it was learned that Ollie, Barry Allen, Hal Jordan, Black Canary, Zatanna, Hawkman, and Elongated Man were involved in the mind wiping of Dr. Light after he was found in the JLA satellite having raped Sue Dibny. When Sue was murdered, they all went after Dr. Light, believing it was he who killed her for revenge. In order to protect himself, Dr. Light hired Deathstroke as a bodyguard. When the group finally found Dr. Light, Deathstroke almost incapacitated the entire group, but Ollie got the best of him by sneaking up behind and jamming an arrow in to his empty eye socket. This began the long running feud between Ollie and Deathstroke.

A New Speedy

Speedy

Later it came to light that Mia had HIV, this hit Ollie hard. He told Mia not to go back out on the streets and fight crime and was also dealing with a new villain by the name of Danny Brickwell or Brick as he was called, a meta-human with an almost unbreakable red skin. Brick went on a crime spree taking over the streets from the mob and also gave himself up to the police. But was set free less then twenty four hours later, as he had taken the mayors daughter hostage. Connor and Ollie start shaking everyone down to save the daughter but came up with nothing. During a night out on patrol, Green Arrow is set up and finds himself surrounded by a group of Brick's men, but just as it looks like he is about to be beaten Mia comes in wearing a new costume and saves him. Ollie escapes and tells her to hang up her costume, but she tells him that she wants to do something good with her life. She later goes on to do a talk at her school and Ollie's anger gets the better of him and goes off to face Brick by himself. The two face off and GA gets the upper hand firing a glue arrow into his mouth; Brick starts to choke and Green Arrow saves him and reminds him that the only reason he is alive is because he let him and leaves. Mia talks to him again; Ollie agrees to let her back out on the street. Roy finds out the about Mia and confronts Ollie and they talk about his past and how it could have been him and that Mia took the name Speedy out of respect for him. Roy gets captured by Constantine Drakon and Team Arrow sets out to save him along with the Outsiders.

One Year Later

Mayor Ollie

During the the event One Year Later, Ollie hired the world's best martial arts masters to train him to the peak of physical human condition. A rift was formed between Ollie and Connor when he hired the assassin named Natas (whom had trained Deathstroke the Terminator) to mentor him in the killing arts. Then, Ollie decided to try to make a difference in Star City by running for and becoming mayor. He won, and he used this position to aid in his "other" job.

After this, the world changed and Star City became much like Gotham during No Man's Land when the low-income neighborhoods, known as the Glades, were cut off from the rest of the world by large concrete wall. Green Arrow teamed with the mob and local Gang's to help protect the streets when mutated creatures attacked.

As Mayor, Ollie began forcing the world to see the trouble that Star City was in, forcing the media to report on the gay weddings he conducted, in one series we see Ollie marry over 140 couples on the steps of city hall, in order to be married they had to stay in Star City for more then fourteen days, forcing them to spend money in his city and helping bring revenue into the city. He later went on to keep taxes back from the government once again helping his city to be strong. Hal offers to remove the Wall around Star City but Ollie says no; it was not time and his city was not ready. An attack on Ollie was put out by a group trying to gain money and control over the city. Ollie uses an inside man to black mail the company into actually helping him.

Bruce Wayne steps in to help the city rebuild, and for once, Ollie thanks him and the two later go on to face off against Brick and Jason Todd who is masquerading as the Red Hood. It was also here that Roy took up the mantle of Red Arrow and joined the Justice League. Roy took the name out of respect for his former role model and wanted to continue the family name. Red Arrow is now a strong part of the Justice League but something happened to him that would shake the Arrow Family to it's core.

During his time as mayor he was confronted by Deathstroke once again. It later turned out that this was a trap set up by Ollie to capture Deathstroke. In the end, Slade had no choice but to surrender. But all was not what it seemed with while in prison Deathstroke set up a meeting between himself and Constantine Drakon, Slade wanted to know what had happened to Green Arrow in the year that he vanished, Drakon had been keeping tabs on Ollie and told Slade everything. This meeting of course lead to their escape after making a deal with the warden and telling him that they would make him Mayor. Afterward, Ollie went on to hand over his mayor title to his closet aid during the above events and went back to being Green Arrow. Shortly thereafter, Queen proposed to Black Canary.

Cry For Justice

Death in the Family

Ollie and Hal once again team up and form another Justice League, after the main team get beaten by the Shadow Cabinet. The two old friends discover that Prometheus has been planning something and head off to warn the other Justice League. Prometheus was already one step ahead of them pretending to be Freddy Freeman, from here Prometheus manages to defeat both teams and cuts off Red Arrow’s left arm. This effected Ollie on so many different levels as he watched his protege's arm being cut off. What did this mean for Red Arrow? Before Prometheus can escape Donna manages to capture him and he tells them his plan. Using a series of teleporters, he was going to send cities to random spots in time. Prometheus demonstrates this with Star City, but things don't go as planned, and the machine, instead of teleporting Star City, destroys a large section of Star City.

Events take a turn for the worst, now with Roy down and Green Arrow's "granddaughter" killed at the hands of Prometheus. Ollie is pushed to the edge once again, but, in order to get the codes to stop more destruction from happening, Prometheus is let go. Ollie tracks down Prometheus, face to face with the man who mutilated his adopted son and the killer of his granddaughter and many people in Star City, Ollie takes his own brand of justice and shoots an arrow into the head of Prometheus killing him. But what does this mean for Green Arrow and the heroes of the DC Universe. Has Ollie gone too far or was it simply justice?

Into the Woods

With Star City still decimated by Prometheus, a new forest is brought to life in the center of all the destruction by the White Lantern Ring. Green Arrow has been banished after murdering Prometheus and now lives inside this forest acting as a modern day Robin Hood. Meanwhile, Queen Industries has been bought by someone calling themself ‘Queen’ who promises to rebuild the city and starts enacting their own police force.

Alternate Reality

Earth-2

In this reality, Ollie is a member of the Seven Soldiers of Victory and the All-Star Squadron. their lives almost echo that of Earth-One's. There are a few minor differences, such as Speedy has blond and not the red hair

Earth-11

Oliver Queen is "Olivia Queen" in this gender-bent universe. Black Canary of that world wears a costume similar to the Green Arrow's. Flash and the Justice League fend off and invasion from Amazons led by Wonderman.

Earth-31

Seen in The Dark Knight Returns and The Dark Knight Strikes Again, this is a much older version of Earth-One’s Green Arrow. The story is set in the future when the world has been taken over by Lex Luthor and Brainiac. In this reality Ollie lost his arm due to Superman. In the sequel, Ollie has replaced his lost arm with a cybernetic one.

In the HP Lovecraft inspired Elseworlds, The Doom That Came to Gotham, Oliver Queen is a Gotham millionaire around the turn of the 20th Century. Oliver has knowledge that his centuries old father, Henry Queen, had made a deal for wealth with a man named Ludvig Prinn. Queen, along with his companions Bartley Langstrom and Thomas Wayne, ultimately renege on their agreement and leave Prinn for dead in the Forgotten City underneath Gotham City.

Oliver Queen grows up thinking he will be the one to stop the titular Doom, a Cthulhu-esque entity called Iog-Sotha. Queen trains by becoming a big game hunter, and somehow acquires the arrowheads that pierced St. Sebastian in 288. Queen, in full Templar garb, attempts to fend off an agent of Iog-Sotha, but is killed before Batman can rescue him. His arrows are ultimately useful against Ra's Al Ghul.

Flashpoint

During the Flashpoint story arc, Oliver Queen is the CEO of Green Arrow Industries, a weapons manufacturer that specializes in adapting supervillain technology for military use. He shows very little physical prowess or martial skill, but manages to survive an assassination attempt from a woman who claims to be his daughter from Queen's affair with Vixen.

Weapons & Powers

Green Arrow's weapon of choice is the longbow, but he has been known to use recurve and compound bows. With an assortment of trick arrows, gadgets, and even a sword for close combat, Green Arrow is a formidable non-superpowered being. He has famous trick arrows such as the boxing glove arrow, bolo arrow, net arrow, electric shock arrow, explosive arrow and so on.

Trick Arrows: Ollie has used a number of different trick arrows over the years, though he rarely uses them now.

Accuracy: Green Arrow is one of the greatest shots in the DCU, if not the best.

Fighting Ability: After the events of One Year later, Ollie completely retrained himself and became an excellent hand to hand combatant as well as a expert weapons handler.

Characteristics

Height: 6'2"

Weight: 195 lbs

Nationality: American

Other Media

Live Action

Smallville

Smallville, Oliver Queen (Green Arrow) is played by Justin Hartley and first appeared in Season 6, Episode 2. He remained an important character through the first half of the season and has become a main character in both seasons 8 and 9, it is also suspected that he will also play a prominent role in the upcoming and final season. He has been in romances with Lois Lane, Tess Mercer and Chloe Sullivan who controlled the Watchtower.

Animated

Justice League Unlimited

In the Justice League Unlimited TV series Ollie is voiced by Kin Shriner. The Green Arrow is seen as the representative of the ordinary people who fights not on a global scale but on a much smaller one, and thus is reluctant to join the League. This attitude changed and he eventually became a prominent member of the team. He fought alongside Supergirl, John Stewart and Captain Atom in the first episode against a rampaging nuclear war machine.

Young Justice

Ollie appears in the new animated show from DC called Young Justice. At the moment it is unknown how many appearances he will have in the show, but he appears in the first episode alongside his sidekick, Speedy. They are fighting against an enemy who is able to shoot ice out of his body, but he is quickly defeated by both archers. After the fight, Ollie makes some remarks and Speedy finishes with "today's the day."