>I loved year one
the worst Green Arrow story in years? have you read Winnick's work on the character for the last 5 years?<
Sure Did, Pretty much read every GA Story since Hard Travelling Heroes multiple times. Winnick made some mistakes but then so did the other writes on the run.
Kevin Smith: ignored the already in place explanation of Hal removing Ollie from the plain before he was killed for his "Hollow" storyline. It brought Ollie back so...
Brad Meltzer: changed the fully believable history that Ollie didn't know he HAD a son to one where he ran out the day he was born. He was bound and determined to up Ollie's asshole factor. His rationalization? He didn't believe a man wouldn't somehow know he had a kid. If he hadn't seen here and she didn't tell him how could he know.
Winnick's main mistakes in my view were expanding on the Meltzer idea to include that Ollie knew Connor was in the Ashram and also making Mia HIV positive. While I applaud the attempt to keep socially relavant issues in the book I can't see anyone logically continuing to fight crime knowing they have a blood transferable desease.
Having said that his Crawling from the Wreckage / Road to Jericho storylines post OYL were great! He added dimensions to the character that simply weren't there before. Sadly DC editorial forced him to end the title early and forced the wedding and new title all of which not surprisingly felt rushed.
As for Year One...where to begin:
First: It's been done before! Several times the most significant being the Wonder Year by Mike Grell and the Year One annual in I believe 1996!
Second rather than treading new ground and showing us HOW he established himself in Star City, How he developed the arrows, Car, Plane etc...we got another retelling of the island. Granted he added the traitorous employee which was a nice touch but that was about it.
It's been mentioned several times in DC history that Ollie logically made a bow out of wood on the island...now it's suddenly a leaf spring from a generator?!?! What is this LOST? A bow NEEDS to have fleaxability which a leaf spring wouldn't.
Next the island is POPULATED! Ollie not only makes himself known to the enemies on the island but rescues dozens of prisoners and gets them off the island and hands them over to the authorities without ANYONE putting it together that the mysterious Green Arrow who shows up a few weeks later in Star City is Oliver Queen? Not likely!
Perhaps the most egregous part of the story is when Ollie's being nursed back to health. He becomes dependent on the opiats (Not likely unless he was taking frequently large doses) and then begs for more as he's withdrawing from it. This is supposed to be years before he threw his ward out for being hooked on Heroin?!?!
Read "The Wonder Year" by Mike Grell it's a much better rendition of his origin and while it adds newer aspects does not ignore the character's history or logic for that matter.
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