Review: Green Arrow: Into the Woods hardcover/paperback (DC Comics)

J. T. Krul's Green Arrow: Into the Woods is akin to J. Michael Straczynski's Superman: Grounded and Wonder Woman: Odyssey. That is, though we didn't know it at the time, Krul's Green Arrow is essentially a limited series of about a dozen issues where Krul can recreate Green Arrow Oliver Queen as he sees fit, all to be wiped away after the DC Relaunch. And Krul does take some surprising liberties with Green Arrow's character and origins; I like Krul's take on Green Arrow and enjoyed the tone of this book better than I thought I would, but this is a book geared more toward a new Green Arrow reader than an experienced one.

[Contains spoilers]

Based on cover images and assorted previews alone, I was concerned J. T. Krul would turn Green Arrow into a "swords and sorcery" book, defined as you see fit -- appearances by King Arthur's knights, the Lady of the Lake, and in the next volume, the Demon Etrigan. None of that is the case, however -- Into the Woods is not near so urban as Andrew Kreisberg's recent Green Arrow/Black Canary run (and light years from Mike Grell's) but Ollie fights techno-soldiers and gang members just as much as he does Black Lantern zombies here, so the tone isn't quite so different than in Green Arrow series past.

Matter of fact, I have liked and continue to enjoy Krul's take on Green Arrow -- important, since Krul continues with the character (if not this exact iteration) after the DC relaunch. Krul's Oliver Queen is old and wry, self-deprecating but tough -- perhaps one of the best early scenes of the book is Ollie defending a powerless Green Lantern Hal Jordan from the aforementioned soldiers, when it's often Green Lantern that's more imposing in a fight. In these pages, Krul's Green Arrow doesn't have the space to be as socially conscious as he was under Judd Winick or Dennis O'Neil's pen, but Krul's Green-Arrow-as-Robin-Hood aesthetic is fitting; Ollie steals food from Star City's fat cats' banquet to give to the city's poor, for instance.

Even the more fantastic elements of Into the Woods work. Krul's conflating of the Robin Hood and King Arthur legends is strangely charming, and Green Arrow's Galahad leans enough toward "kooky mental patient" than Knight of the Round Table to make him an appropriate foil for the curmudgeonly Oliver Queen. Against type, Krul quickly kills off the "Sheriff of Nottingham" character Commissioner Nudocerdo and instead pits Ollie against "the Queen," one of his father's former lovers -- his wicked stepmother, essentially. Aside from the appearance by the Lady of the Lake, the most "magical" thing Green Arrow deals with stem from this book's Brightest Day crossover elements -- White Lanterns and Black Lanterns and the like, as much science-fiction as fantasy and therefore about par for the course for a Green Arrow title with ties to the larger DC Universe.

I am of two minds, however, about Into the Woods's last two chapters, in which Krul picks up on an obscure Scott McCullar story from 2002's Green Arrow: Secret Files & Origins that shows young Oliver Queen's parents mauled by lions because of Ollie's unwillingness to kill with, you guessed it, a bow and arrow. Krul suggests, though does not explicitly state, that Green Arrow's murder of the villain Prometheus in Justice League: Cry for Justice specifically stemmed from his pent-up guilt over not saving his parents.

This is interesting, and offers a useful through-way for those who can't stomach Ollie's current direction, but it's a bit of putting the cart after the horse. Prometheus's murder was really for shock value and thematic aspects of Cry for Justice, characterization be damned, and to suggest Green Arrow had a deep-seated psychological motivation for it comes off as exactly what it is -- a quickie attempt at patching over a controversial plotline that probably didn't need the patching. I'd just as soon stick with Cry for Justice's reasoning, that Prometheus was a bad guy and Green Arrow had finally had enough, than mitigate Ollie's actions in this manner.

Also, given how obscure the McCullar story is (it came out during the Kevin Smith/Brad Meltzer runs almost nine years ago, but I don't recall it being referenced since), Krul has too much faith in its ability to move the long-time Green Arrow reader. At the end of the book, Ollie literally sobs at the ghostly appearance of his mother; the scene might be passable with a young Justin Hartley-esque Green Arrow, but seems especially maudlin with our grizzled, Van Dyke-bearded Oliver Queen. Krul is true to what's come before in suggesting Ollie tortures himself in part because he misses his parents, but when the source material is only McCullar's story, and otherwise we haven't witnessed Ollie's distress over his parents in hundreds of other stories, it's hard to have emotion for Ollie here. The book ends with a whimper and not the emotional bang I think Krul intended.

Overall, however, what Krul has here is entertaining, especially at the beginning and in the guest appearances by Hal and Martian Manhunter J'onn J'onzz (neither of whom, pleasantly, seem to want to set aside years of friendship with Green Arrow just because he murdered Prometheus). Green Arrow: Into the Woods does not open insights into Green Arrow greater than Kevin Smith or Judd Winick's runs did and this will not be known as a defining Green Arrow run, but it's a good start. J. T. Krul has the tone and tenor of Green Arrow Oliver Queen down pat, and that's a good starting point as he recreates the character entirely a few books from now.

[Contains original and variant covers. Printed on glossy paper.]

Next week, by popular demand, the Collected Editions review of Wonder Woman: Contagion. Be there!

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Review: Justice League: Rise and Fall hardcover/paperback (DC Comics)

Comics Alliance's Chris Sims rated the third issue of J. T. Krul's Rise of Arsenal as one of their "Worst of the Worst" issues; Savage Critic Brian Hibbs labeled it "the worst comic I have ever read." Though I might not say "absolute worst," I don't disagree with their assessment that some aspects, including the infamous "dead cat incident," are over the top, not to mention some laughably poor drug "lingo."

And yet, if I might be charitable, I didn't feel let down at the end of Justice League: Rise and Fall -- which collects not only the Arsenal miniseries, but also the closing issues of the previous Green Arrow series and a Justice League special -- as much as I did when reading Magog: Lethal Force, for instance, or Superman/Batman: Big Noise. There were parts of this book as a whole, even after two readings, that I found I rather liked

As there are any number of reviews out there that will tell you why you should avoid this book, I'll provide a little contrast by illuminating what I liked -- not, by any stretch, ignoring what's still rough around the edges here -- and then you can make the decision for yourself.

[Contains spoilers]

Mark Waid's JLA: Year One and Brad Meltzer's Identity Crisis are two books that most would agree are far away from one another in tone, yet similar in this way: they emphasize the Green Lantern Hal Jordan, Flash Barry Allen, Green Arrow Oliver Queen, and Black Canary Dinah Lance relationship. Both books are about, as Meltzer presented it, the second level of the Justice League, those who do the clean-up after DC Comics's Big Three walk off the stage. Both Year One and Identity Crisis are set in the past (or Hal appears as the Spectre, etc.), however, and the recent Blackest Night crossover focused on Hal and Barry, but not Ollie.

The "Fall of Green Arrow" aspects of this book are a modern-day "second League" story, possibly the first since Green Lantern, Flash, and Green Arrow's respective resurrections. It is far from perfect -- Krul makes Flash Barry Allen terribly unlikeable, a caricature of Geoff Johns's nuanced police scientist -- but the broad strokes are there. I have complained in the past that it was unnecessary for DC to resurrect these old heroes, supplanting their newer counterparts, but the bottom line is you can't tell the same stories with Flash Wally West, Green Lantern Kyle Rayner, and Green Arrow Connor Hawke that you can with Barry, Hal, and Ollie. Among them, they created the Justice League together; among them, they were the "hard traveling heroes." The emotions are just plain deeper, and they added a sizzle to Hal and Barry's discovery that Ollie had killed the villain Prometheus, and their attempt to bring him in, that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Further, if Krul's Barry was off, and his Connor Hawke completely mischaracterized (which made ardent Connor fans crazy, no doubt), I thought Krul absolutely nailed Hal Jordan and Oliver Queen's friendship. It's obvious throughout the story that Hal's of two minds about Ollie's guilt; this is the same Green Lantern who himself not only killed his enemy Sinestro in a crazed rage, but was later ready to flip the switch when a (resurrected) Sinestro was sent to death row. When a judge clears Ollie of all charges but exiles him from his home of Star City, Hal is waiting outside to lend his support and wish Ollie well. It's a beautiful couple of pages, and it's why I say if you're a fan of Arsenal Roy Harper, maybe you'll have trouble with this book, but if you're a fan of Green Arrow, this is actually a somewhat promising Green Arrow story.

Second, I thought some of the moral issues in this book were handled well. One thing I liked about the Sacrifice storyline where Wonder Woman killed Max Lord is that Wonder Woman remains unapologetic about the act; maybe she was wrong, but she (and the writers) are sticking to their actions. I don't mind that Superman executed villains in Exile and later renounced the action, but carrying on, I think the "murdering and feeling remorse" storyline is less complicated, asks less from the reader, and has more danger of straying into cliche than a storyline where heroes kill, feel justified, but then have to balance that justification with censure from their colleagues (see, for instance, Bartlet and assassinating a terrorist in West Wing's third season).

Krul's Green Arrow deals with a little bit of both. In the beginning, Ollie does feel he's done the right thing, even as he knows neither Hal nor Barry, nor his wife Dinah, will approve; it's only after he sees how his actions feed his sidekick Speedy Mia Dearden's bloodlust that he rethinks his actions. Later, a jury clears Ollie due to that same bloodlust, and Ollie fails to stop Arsenal from killing a villain on his own. It's not just that Ollie feels bad; there are real consequences to Prometheus's murder in terms of the actions of those who look up to Ollie, and it's ironic since Ollie gets flak for not being a stalwart mentor (even as we see the pervasiveness of his influence). Krul doesn't treat these matters lightly, and moreover I think he gives them some nuance (especially when Ollie can't stop Roy from killing in front of him).

Not any of this, I'll grant, excuses the excesses of this book, especially in the Arsenal miniseries chapters. Krul shows good attention to detail at times, like remembering Deathstroke's daughter Ravager's relationship with Roy's daughter Lian, killed by Prometheus; but then in comparison, the drug-addled Arsenal manifests a new costume without the writer spending any time on how or why, or on Arsenal's new moniker. As well, a good number of splash pages bear artist Geraldo Borges signature, quite overtly; I'm not used to seeing this, and moreover these pages, with obscenely misshapen facial expressions, aren't near as impressive as the signatures seem to suggest. Often these splash pages are considerably violent, and it suggests a disconnect between artist and reader -- the book is a tragedy, not a Lobo-esque violent comedy, and this blithe glorification-by-signing took me squarely out of the story.

Possibly, Krul is trying to do something here that either doesn't work in serial comics, or doesn't work with today's serial comics audience. Obviously, somewhere down the road, Arsenal will be redeemed, either by Krul in Green Arrow or by new Titans writer Eric Wallace in that book. The "Arsenal" section, though called "Rise of Arsenal," is really about Roy Harper's downfall (just as Green Arrow's "fall" is in many ways his "rise"). But, whereas a two-hour movie might demonstrate Roy's fall and rise all before you leave the theater, Arsenal is about Roy's fall only; it's all about how low can Roy Harper go. Krul, as Chris Sims notes, fails to make Roy sympathetic even when it seems Krul is trying to -- the scene where Roy attacks Mia especially embitters Roy to the reader -- but also, I think, making Roy sympathetic is not what this book is about. That comes later.

And that's where I'm just not sure this approach works; I'm not sure a reader wants to spend money for four months on a book where you pity the protagonist to begin with, hate him in the end, and only read his redemption later on in a different title; with all the other problems these chapters have, I think that's asking too much.

Justice League: Rise and Fall is far from perfect, but it has some nice touches (I continue to like that DC is including previews of new titles at the end of their collections; here, a preview of Krul's new Green Arrow series). I enjoy interplay of the characters this book features, and so far I've liked more stories I've read by J. T. Krul than I have disliked. This will not be a book for everyone, but I had not as much difficulty with it as I'd expected.

[Contains full and variant covers. Printed on glossy paper]

We continue the week with a look at another contentious DC Comics title, Titans: Villains for Hire. See you then!

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Review: Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters trade paperback (DC Comics)

Given the recent controversy over Apple's apparent embargo of the digital edition of Mike Grell's Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters, I thought this would be a good time for a review of that classic miniseries.

For those following along at home, Longbow Hunters is to Green Arrow what Man of Steel was to Superman and Year One was to Batman -- the first major post-Crisis on Infinite Earths appearance of Green Arrow, re-establishing his post-Crisis origin. Unlike those stories, Longbow Hunters takes place in the present, just before the Millennium crossover, but Green Arrow's origin figures prominently in the first issue.

[Contains spoilers]

And what an origin it is. It's been a while since I first read Longbow Hunters, and in that time I've read and liked a lot of other Green Arrow stories. Grell's Longbow Hunters is an Eisner Award-winning classic, don't get me wrong, and if you haven't read it, you absolutely should -- but I didn't much like Grell's origin of Green Arrow Oliver Queen. Grell would argue that Oliver wasn't much in danger when he was marooned on an island, and he did not so much defeat an entire gang of drug dealers as legend (and past continuity) had it, so much as two minor criminals tripped over themselves and Queen took the credit, dubbed accidentally "Green Arrow."

I entirely understand that this goes to Grell's dual purposes of minimizing Oliver's superhero past and also giving the impression that Oliver's real serious life starts here -- Oliver the superhero dilettante versus the Yakuza assassin Shado trained to kill from birth -- but I rather like some triumph over adversity in my superhero origins, and Grell would argue that Oliver's has none.

This is the start, however, of Grell's rather ingenious take on Green Arrow, one that I sincerely wonder if current audiences would accept. Oliver Queen is old here, just past his prime, and recognizing that his best days might have passed him by and he missed them. He very often misses the arrow-shots that he takes, and scolds himself for being slow -- there's probably not a character in the DC Universe more suited than its archer for the metaphor of being impotent.

Oliver wants to settle down and have kids -- to domesticate -- and his girlfriend Black Canary Dinah Lance does not. In one particularly effective scene, Oliver stands naked in the window wondering where Dinah is, and then goes to bed alone. Grell plays with stereotypical gender roles here, especially in a superhero comic book, in a way that I imagine many writers wouldn't be comfortable. Oliver is still masculine, and his name is still on the masthead of the comic, but his actions and desires are those that you might otherwise see from the love interest in a story, and not from the protagonist.

I don't have any additional issues of Grell's Green Arrow series that followed (wish I did -- where's that collection, DC?), but editor Mike Gold suggests in his introduction to Longbow Hunters that the story continued to explore these and similar themes. Yet, Longbow Hunters, as the name implies, is in addition about breaking down some of these peaceful and superficially superheroic impulses in Oliver Queen, and replacing them with a hunter and predator. Oliver is continually unable to make his shots, but the one he lands, of course, instantly kills the man who's been torturing Dinah. Thus having loosed the chains of straight-and-narrow superheroism, Oliver ends up as the recipient of a fortune in drug money after Shado kills the dealers. A corrupt CIA agent sizes Oliver up, wondering if the vigilante's "occupation" can still be listed as hero -- the answer is, we know, not so much as when the story started.

I've only read Justice League: Cry for Justice, and haven't yet decided if I want to pick up the widely-panned Justice League: Rise and Fall that follows the first book's events -- but I hope somewhere this latter book acknowledges the fact that Green Arrow killing the villain Prometheus is not so shocking as the rest of the Justice League (and the writers thereof) would have us believe. Oliver kills a bunch of non-super-powered street criminals in this book and -- let's face it -- he's a guy that shoots arrows. There's nothing wrong with the pacifist Green Arrow Connor Hawke approach, nor with a non-lethal boxing glove arrow once in a while, but inasmuch as I disfavor Grell's origin of Oliver Queen, I appreciate his more realistic approach to how a person with sharp objects would fight crime.

And if I might offer one more push for a Green Arrow by Mike Grell Omnibus from DC Comics, Grell's artwork is absolutely stunning here. A page will have a number of standard full color panels, and then one large shadowy black and white image that serves, especially, to drive home the emotional moments between Oliver and Dinah. There's also one page where Oliver and Shado stare each other down, and Grell's image of Oliver's deep-set, masked eyes is just phenomenal.

If not that, then I applaud DC for the big step of making Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters available as a digital download the other week, and I hope maybe more Grell Green Arrow issues are set to follow in digital form -- hopefully without Apple interference this time.

[Contains full wrap-around covers, introduction by Mike Gold. Printed on rough (not glossy) paper.]

New reviews on the way!

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Uncollected Editions #2 - Batman/Green Arrow: Brotherhood of the Fist (DC Comics)

[Continuing our "Uncollected Editions" series by Paul Hicks]

You know what I get sick of hearing? I get sick of hearing that in the 1990s, comics sucked. The comics YOU might have read in the 90s may have sucked, but I was mostly reading DC comics for that decade. Back then, DC wasn’t the creative wasteland that many like to characterize it as, it was actually a time of new ideas and exciting stories. Just consider these pieces of evidence:

* Mark Waid reinvigorated the Flash book turning Wally West from an also-ran into a fan favorite
* James Robinson’s Starman breaks new ground in character based story-telling and almost single handily revives interest in the JSA
* John Ostrander and Tom Mandrake shatter the pre-conception that no one can tell a long-form story about the Spectre
* Grant Morrison embraced the concept of widescreen story-telling and combined it with everything great about the Silver Age
* Chuck Dixon made the extended Bat-family his personal playground

So I really want to talk about Chuck Dixon today. Chuck Dixon became a central creator in the Bat-office in the 1990’s beginning around the time of Knightfall with his creation of Bane. From that time on he was incredibly prolific, simultaneously being the main writer behind Robin, creating and writing the Birds of Prey, handing the first seventy issues of the Nightwing solo book, having a few stints on Batgirl and Catwoman, becoming the regular Detective Comics writer and taking over Green Arrow after Mike Grell’s lengthy run.

He is undisputedly the benchmark writer for Tim Drake, Connor Hawke and Nightwing, to which all other writers will perpetually be compared when they tackle those characters. If you want to argue that point, then you haven’t read enough books. Gail Simone has possibly wrested Birds of Prey from Mr Dixon, but that’s the rare exception. It’s testament to how fondly these books are remembered that the trades that exist of his runs are mostly out of print, very pricey and highly sought after.

This brings me to the subject of the five part crossover “Brotherhood of the Fist” -- a white-hot pure distillation of everything great about Chuck Dixon’s DC work in the 90s. I’m calling it a Green Arrow trade that never was, but it could easily have been branded as a Batman, Nightwing or Robin book by the mere inclusion of an additional chapter. The story is told over these five issues:

Part 1 – Green Arrow #134
Part 2 – Detective Comics #723
Part 3 – Robin #55
Part 4 – Nightwing #23
Part 5 – Green Arrow #135

For those of you who have the DC trade paperback timeline tattooed on your back, this story falls after Cataclysm but before the debut of the Cassandra Cain Batgirl in No Man’s Land.

The back story of this crossover is that Connor Hawke has previously defeated and shamed a fighter called The Silver Monkey. Silver Monkey belongs to an order of martial artists The Brotherhood of the Fist who wish to avenge his impugned honor by declaring war on the new Green Arrow and every other distinguished hand to hand combatant in the world. That puts targets on the backs of everyone from Batman to the Question [Vic Sage is in this story? Cool; did not remember that. -- ed]. Game on.

The story opens with Connor encountering Batman in the Alaskan wilds on the trail of a Kobra terrorist cell. They’re not exactly buddies, as Batman puts Connor in his place with “Your saves with the JLA could have been flukes.” Pretty soon things are exploding and the major stirrings in the martial arts underworld are spilling everywhere.

The story whips around the globe showing us hordes of monkey-masked assassins attacking all the major and minor players, such as Katana, Black Canary, Bronze Tiger, Judomaster, Nightwing and Robin. This sets off a variety of missions and team ups as the heroes try to protect each other and shut down the cult at the source. There’s fun to be had as the cult is made up of different schools of martial arts, in various quantities with different skill levels -- jade, steel, bamboo and iron monkeys are all represented. The harder the style, the less proponents, and the thinking behind each is delightfully non-western as Connor observes “Ivory is strong but brittle, bamboo is strong but flexible.”

The story includes some nicely understated nods to continuity as Black Canary’s team up with Bronze Tiger prompts discussion of the mysterious Oracle who assisted the Suicide Squad on missions, and is now working with Black Canary (in the days before Black Canary knew Oracle's identity).

It’s not just all kung fu -- we also get to see some "gun fu" too as Connor’s ex-CIA sidekick Eddie Fyers [longtime Green Arrow Oliver Queen ally -- ed.] takes the fight to the Monkey’s hidden temple in Burma and finds himself up against a familiar one-eyed mercenary.

The story builds towards a Gotham City showdown in a sideways sky-scraper (thank you Cataclysm!) as Connor and the Bat-family find themselves outnumbered by hordes of fighters, and inevitably the always-deadly Lady Shiva appears. Faces are kicked, necks are snapped, respect is earned and debts are cashed in. The resolution returns things to relative normality for our heroes, but the martial arts pecking order has been re-sorted.

Art-wise, each title has its own artist, with pre-Daredevil’s Alex Maleev putting in a robust showing in Detective Comics, Will Rosado contributing strongly to Robin, Scott McDaniel providing his usual delightfully dynamic Nightwing art and the always reliable Doug Braithwaite providing the pencils for Green Arrow. All artists have a confident approach to story-telling and they each make the action clear and easy to follow.

While it’s not Watchmen, "Brotherhood of the Fist" is undiluted fun, with no slow or flat spots. It would have made a great little trade paperback, fitting snugly on the shelf amidst the Dixon Nightwing run. I recently saw a bundled set cheap in a local comic shop. You might also be as lucky in your country or through the magic of the internet.

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Review: Green Arrow/Black Canary: Enemies List trade paperback (DC Comics)

Writer Andrew Kreisberg transitions Green Arrow well from the end of Judd Winick's run to the beginning of Kreisberg's, enough so that I actually breathed a sigh of relief about the new team taking over this tricky title. Well, I breathed too soon. In terms of Green Arrow himself, Green Arrow/Black Canary: Enemies List isn't a poor story so much as it just doesn't reach out and grab me; in terms of Black Canary, however, Kreisberg seems unfortunately to fall into a bunch of the same traps as writers before him.

My biggest complaint about Enemies List doesn't involve the characters themselves, but rather a far-too-decompressed plot. To sum up in a sentence, a woman that Green Arrow saves goes mad and begins picking off his enemies, before trying to kill Green Arrow in a murder/suicide pact. This takes five of the book's six chapters, including a rather run-of-the-mill showdown between Green Arrow and the dark archer Merlyn, and then a couple issues where Arrow and Black Canary have a big think, unsuccessfully, about who might be killing their enemies on their behalf.

The problem is, as new villain Cupid is able inexplicably to slaughter Arrow's entire rogues gallery (including, unfortunately, the rather interesting Brick), it only serves to remind the reader how un-interesting Cupid is, basically a Green Arrow version of Harley Quinn. Without pages upon pages of needless angst, Arrow's first encounter with Cupid could've come down to two chapters, in my opinion. That would have left plenty of room for a satisfying conclusion to the story, instead of the cliffhanger that makes Enemies List feel like all setup and no resolution.

Kreisberg, I think, meets with the same trouble that I think faced Birds of Prey writer Tony Bedard and also numerous writers who've taken on Superman and Lois Lane -- when you have a strong, happy character, especially strong happy characters who are married, but you want to create conflict in a series, where do you go? In Bedard's case, this meant weakening the previously-strong Oracle; in Kreisberg's case, it involves pitting the previously-stable Arrow and Canary against each other in a way that comes off as artificial.

Arrow essentially vanquished Merlyn at the end of the previous Green Arrow series, so the irrational bloodthirst that Merlyn inspires in Arrow seems just that -- irrational. At the same time, Canary has her own vendetta against Merlyn in regards to her adopted daughter Sin, so Canary's failure to understand Arrow's rage is equally arbitrary. The scene of Arrow and Canary in marriage counseling is cute, but altogether a plotline that involves a ridiculously overpowered female villain coming between Arrow and Canary takes for granted the broad strokes of these characters (Arrow's womanizing, Arrow and Canary's troubled past) without delving into any of the nuances.

And indeed, any story is in trouble that begins with Black Canary, martial artist extraordinare, with a knife held to her throat by a street punk named Dregz while Green Arrow has to save her. As well as I thought Kreisberg wrote Green Arrow -- especially in the first chapter, he got Ollie's overprotectiveness of his children, as well as the sexual humor Winick used in the book, down pat -- his Black Canary comes off again and again as a damsel in distress. It's almost a shame to find Canary here in her trademark black-and-yellow Birds of Prey gloves, when the story takes up none of her Birds of Prey-established growth. I wasn't quite sure where this story took place in relation to Canary's losing control of the Justice League over in that title, but the stories are part and parcel of the same problem with the character.

Frankly, it's perhaps how much truer to life the Green Arrow and Black Canary character are (as comics characters go) that make them so difficult to write. Arrow is a militant left-wing liberal, a hook that's easy to grab, but that ignores the charming conservative side he shows regarding his own family. Similarly, Ollie's womanizing is an easy plot twist, but using it ignores his growth before proposing to Black Canary. Canary herself is both romantic interest and superhero, a seemingly tough combination to write when most romantic comics interests are the ones who need saving, like Lois and Mary Jane Watson. And having two superheroes date requires extra amount of finesse; as physical heroes both, is it more or less OK when Arrow tasers Canary into unconsciousness (as he does here, far too superficially) than if a writer would represent the same thing between a "normal" couple?

It's all of these issues that make a Green Arrow/Black Canary marriage and title more complicated than it might first appear. Maybe Kreisberg's work on Green Arrow/Black Canary will get better as it goes, but for me a lackluster story and poor character choices combine to make me very wary of picking up the next volume.

[Contains full covers, including "Faces of Evil" cover; "Origins and Omens" story]

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Review: Green Arrow/Black Canary: A League of Their Own trade paperback (DC Comics)

Four trade paperbacks ago (roughly fourteen issues of collected comics), Judd Winick ended Green Arrow and began Green Arrow/Black Canary. Since then, Winick has essentially told just one story, that of Green Arrow Oliver Queen's globe-spanning search to find his missing son Connor Hawke, also known as Green Arrow. That story ends in Green Arrow/Black Canary: A League of Their Own, which includes some pleasing ties to the Green Arrow mythos; more controversial I imagine is what seems to have been the intent of this long story, to remove Connor Hawke as Green Arrow and leave only Oliver Queen with the title.

Throughout Winick's run on Green Arrow/Black Canary, I've praised his use of the characters and settings of the DC Universe in demonstrating Green Arrow and Black Canary's central place among those characters. This continues in League of Their Own, with appearances by Batman and Plastic Man as well as a villain recently featured in Winick's Outsiders. Even better in this volume, however, is Winick's inclusion of longtime Green Arrow villain Shado. I hadn't considered that while Green Arrow/Black Canary has been a good DCU story, it hasn't been a terribly Green Arrow-centric story--but using Shado, even if her role could have been played by any of a number of other villains, at least gives the story a bit more relevance.

Ever since Green Arrow Oliver Queen's resurrection a few years back, there's been a surplus of Green Arrows with Connor Hawke. Winick wrote Hawke to great effect in the previous Green Arrow series, but "Team Arrow" never quite had the cache of the Green Lantern Corps. For a while -- per the DC Comics hype machine in full force during the early days of Countdown to Final Crisis -- there was every reason to believe Judd Winick might let Connor Hawke die during the initial events Green Arrow/Black Canary; I don't believe Winick disliked Hawke (in fact, quite the opposite), but I can see how two Green Arrows might not fit with DC's current trend toward having a one, true, iconic version of their heroes.

Instead, what we find at the end of League of Their Own is a Connor Hawke who's still alive, still a hero, still a martial artist -- in fact, even has some enhanced strength and healing factor these days -- but can't hit a target with an arrow even if it's standing right in front of him. In a move that's on one hand ingenious and on the other smacks of such silly weaknesses as vulnerability to yellow or wood, fans can still enjoy the adventures of Connor Hawke, but he'll never again be named Green Arrow because of said aversion to pointy things.

This is good, I think, if you were never all that crazy about Team Arrow, though likely a troubling trend. Whereas the writers didn't make the mistake of also calling Nightwing "Batman" when he first went out on his own, and the nature of the Corps allows Kyle Rayner to be called Green Lantern alongside Hal Jordan, Flash Wally West best be a bit concerned now that there are additional contenders for the Flash name.

I was concerned that Oliver Queen didn't have a place in the DC Universe when he was first resurrected; since that time I've grown to like the character very much. He's now in essence the One True Green Arrow, but with Judd Winick leaving the title, I wonder about the future of the character. I like Green Arrow, but how does the Green Arrow title differentiate itself from Batman or Manhunter, and how does it avoid the that lead to the former series' cancellation? These'll be things I'm watching when the new creative team comes along.

[Contains full covers.]

On now to finish Jim Shooter's run on Legion of Super-Heroes. Don't miss it!

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Review: Green Arrow/Black Canary: Family Business trade paperback (DC Comics)

I very much like the concept of what writer Judd Winick's trying to do on Green Arrow/Black Canary, shown in the first volume and reiterated in the second, Family Business. In practice, however, I wish what I found to be an interesting idea developed in a story that had a bit more content to it.

Judd Winick positions the Green Arrow/Black Canary team firmly in the midst of the DC Universe, in a way that's only logical for two married heroes whose friends and family are all superheroes. In the first volume, Green Arrow shouts to Superman for help (he shouts "Clark," for that matter), escapes from captivity in a boat tricked out by Batman, and encounters nearly the entire Justice League at the hospital bed of his injured son Connor. In Family Business, Batman and Green Lantern appear as a matter of course; Green Arrow and Black Canary barely blink when a surprise DCU guest star emerges from a cryogenic capsule half-way through.

In this way, Winick illustrates how Arrow and Canary are true citizens of the DC Universe. This is a concept I like quite a bit, one that I think is more meaningful in the new post-Infinite Crisis kinder, gentler era where all the superheroes get along and regularly work together without much fuss. That Green Arrow and Green Lantern are friends is long-established, and so it makes sense that Green Arrow would call Green Lantern when he encounters a group of renegade aliens; ditto that they'd consult Batman for a case involving Ra's al Ghul's League of Assassins. It gives the book variety, color (benefitted by Cliff Chiang and Mike Norton's art), and joy that makes the book a fun read.

Unfortunately, Winick doesn't move this volume of Green Arrow/Black Canary past the benchmark of a "fun read." The story starts out intriguingly enough, with the comatose body of former Green Arrow Connor Hawke stolen by forces unknown, but the intrigue very quickly peters out. Arrow and Canary engage in some minor espionage, but the story quickly becomes about them fighting-then-teaming-up-with a generic upstart teenage hero, and then against a generic team of super-villains purporting to be the League of Assassins. There's a lot of just plain fighting here, on big colorful pages with wide open panels and brief dialogue -- in short, a bunch to look at, but not a lot to read. That the whole thing, in the end, turns out to be a misunderstanding doesn't help matters; I'd rather skip the misunderstanding and jump to the plot.

To his credit, Winick appears to try to explore the conceit of Green Arrow/Black Canary as a story of married superheroes. On paper, this essentially involves Green Arrow yelling at people and Black Canary trying to teach him to control his temper, but at least Winick is going there. I'd like to see more of this in this title, making it greater than just a Green Arrow title with Black Canary joining in; this might involve giving Canary a bigger role, ultimately, than just being the one who reins Green Arrow in when he gets too belligerent.

Special credit goes out to DC Comics Collected Editions editor Bob Joy (we at the Collected Editions blog don't recognize these people often enough, who work DC's collections). I don't know for sure if this was Bob's decision or not, but the previous Green Arrow/Black Canary volume, The Wedding Album, ends it seems in the middle of an issue -- you can't tell from reading it, but the happy ending at the end of The Wedding Album actually becomes a cliffhanger a few pages later, and those few pages are instead reprinted in Family Business. This makes The Wedding Album and Family Business both feel like complete stories, whereas letting the issues run as is would have interrupted the flow. Whether this was Bob Joy's decision or someone else, it's that kind of foresight that makes the trade paperback-reading process so much fun.

[Contains full covers.]

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Review: Green Arrow: Year One trade paperback (DC Comics)

[This review comes from guest blogger Jonathan Atkins:]

Green Arrow: Year One is a re-telling of the origin of Green Arrow by writer Andy Diggle and artist Jock (real name Mark Simpson) that tries to do what Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli did for Batman to its title character. Although it might not be quite up to the standard of the sublime Batman: Year One, this is still a fresh and convincing new start for a long-running superhero that serves as an excellent way for readers unfamiliar with Oliver Queen, the man underneath the Robin Hood outfit, to get a good grasp of where he comes from and what he’s all about.

Like Mike Grell before him, Diggle seeks to ground Green Arrow in a world more like our own, but does so in a way that does not completely jettison previous interpretations of the character. Frank Miller did the same with his origin story for Batman, and it is an effective technique as it helps to humanize a superheroic protagonist and makes them more accessible for a new reader. Daringly, however, Diggle makes the decision to eschew Green Arrow’s future stomping ground, Star City, in favor of basing the entire narrative around Oliver Queen’s time spent marooned on a remote island in the Pacific Ocean. It’s a brave move and one that pays off in spades by focusing the action and allowing the title character to really take center stage – and when a protagonist undergoes a change as radical as Queen’s, it’s character development that you want to see.

From the very clever first page, which shows the green arrow of a compass spinning without a true direction at magnetic north, we see a future Green Arrow ultimately find his own direction over the course of a convincing narrative that never once strays off the introspective path set for it. Diggle doesn’t let the character stuff get in the way of telling a rollicking story, however, and fits in some twists and turns and explosive scenes to stop the plot’s pulse from getting too relaxed. Some slight social relevancy is unobtrusively worked in as well, foreshadowing the politicization of the character by Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams in the seventies and providing some brains with the ballistics. A slightly silly villain, the oddly named and appropriately dressed China White, seems a little out of place amongst the cast of the collection. Although she might be essential for the sake of the story, contrasted with the real villain of the piece – a treacherous employee of Queen’s – she pales in comparison.

With a mixed medium, it’s no surprise that comics can only get so far with strong writing before the quality of the artwork becomes an important factor in the overall quality of the finished product, but fortunately the art team of Jock and David Baron shoot straight and true throughout this collection. Jock’s jagged pencils are stripped of any unnecessary clutter, lending the numerous action sequences a truly kinetic quality and perfectly conveying the speed of the obligatory storm of flying projectiles that are always accompany of a Green Arrow adventure. David Baron, the colorist, does a great job of establishing the backdrops for the story with lush but instantly distinguishable environmental tones that do not take anything away from Jock’s work.

My only other real issue with Green Arrow: Year One not previously mentioned is that some parts of the plot are stormed through with an unsatisfactory swiftness in order to reach the keynotes in the tune Diggle wants to play. In particular, it would have been nice to see a little more of Queen’s transformation from playboy to master archer; as the one issue used to cover this never really conveys the desperation of his plight or the time that passes, although this was probably because Diggle didn’t want to lose his readership in the story’s original, serialized form. That sort of efficiency sums up Green Arrow: Year One really: as a story it’s utterly fat-free and does everything it needs to do without any unnecessary grandstanding or complication. And, although a reader might sometimes crave a little fat to pad a good story out, too much is ultimately a bad thing (especially for a monthly title) and this is competitive collection for the reintroduction and revitalization of a typically B-list character.

[Contains full covers. If you'd like to write a review for Collected Editions, send an email to the address on the sidebar.]

More reviews on the way! Everyone have a safe holiday and a happy new year!

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Review: Green Arrow/Black Canary: The Wedding Album collected hardcover (DC Comics)

[Contains spoilers for Green Arrow/Black Canary: The Wedding Album.]

I admit, I wondered if the DC Universe really needed a Green Arrow/Black Canary series, and Road to the Altar, while enjoyable overall, really didn't put the value of this series over the top for me. In Green Arrow/Black Canary: The Wedding Album, however, regular writer Judd Winick returns, and he writes a story that's so sharp, so easily moving, that this series is now on my must-buy list.

Winick writes a Green Arrow/Black Canary story here that, with it's exotic locales and daring escapes, seems almost more suited for the bride's family, Birds of Prey, than the groom's. The main story is helped tremendously by Cliff Chiang's art, with wide open lines that give equal majesty to urban rooftops and tropical islands. The Arrow family must free the kidnapped Oliver Queen in a heist operation that's far more Indiana Jones than Ocean's Eleven, but just the big-screen nature of it is a joy to behold.

This story also contains an amazing amount of emotion, perhaps far more crying and bemoaning of past bad choices than the Green Arrow title's ever seen before. It's to Winick's credit that he makes this work, in part by portraying Ollie as the next step in his evolution as a fighting liberal hippie; as tough as Ollie is, he's not afraid to express his emotions (even, as his family teases, to the annoyance of the people around him). This makes for a story that gets surprisingly sappy quickly, but also that contains far more depth than just a smart-talking slugfest.

I was additionally impressed with how Winick used the rest of the DC Universe in this story. The Green Arrow/Black Canary wedding featured a who's who of heroes, of course (though at times Amanda Conner's art became so cartoony I had trouble telling some heroes from others), but Winick also remained aware throughout the issues of Green Arrow's long history as a hero, and Black Canary's place in the Justice League. Hal Jordan appears to be a regular fixture in this title, as well he should be, along with Batman; it was also quite moving when, in a fit of desperation late in the story, Ollie cries out to Superman for help.

Oliver decides to retire his Green Arrow persona toward the end of this story, a move that I doubt any reader believes will actually remain the case. Having Ollie retire, however, opens Winick to hold a real wedding in the end, that of Oliver Queen and Dinah Lance rather than Green Arrow and Black Canary. I felt at the beginning of this book that the wedding ceremony passed too quick; we learn at the end that it's because Winick saves the best for last. It's not just the first chapter, but this entire book that's a wedding album, and Winick exceeded my expectations for this tale.

[Contains full covers.]

The Green Arrow/Black Canary wedding action doesn't stop, as we check in next with the Justice League ... or, that is, the Injustice League. See you soon!

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Review: Green Arrow/Black Canary: Road to the Altar trade paperback (DC Comics)

It's amazing, or perhaps a little sad, that a single book can demonstrate both the comics industry's increasingly progressive attitudes toward women, and also the juvenile mindsets that reinforce comic books as a boy's club instead of a medium open to everyone.

Yes, Green Arrow/Black Canary: Road to the Altar on one hand spotlights the mature, rocky relationship between Oliver Queen and Dinah Lance that remains one of the most interesting corners of the DC Universe. On the other hand, it devolves in the end into some pre-wedding silliness that defeats any efforts this book might otherwise make to have itself taken seriously.

Tony Bedard writes the first two parts of Road to the Altar, both an excerpt from Birds of Prey #109 and a four-part Black Canary miniseries. In the Birds of Prey pages, Bedard has Barbara Gordon play the voice of the reader, recounting every bad thing Ollie's ever done to Dinah, so as to get it all out in the open. Remarkably, it all boils down to only one true act of cheating -- and ultimately, Bedbard falls back on the "changed man" theory that I discussed alongside Green Arrow: The Road to Jericho.

Though Barbara comes off as a little shrill, the reader knows deep down that Black Canary marrying Green Arrow is borderline nonsensical, and it's nice that at least one character points it out. Black Canary invariably falls back on the argument "I love him anyway," because of course, love is inexplicable -- much like this turn of events. Still, the reader roots for Ollie and Dinah to get hitched (hoping all the while that another writer won't come along and ruin it), so the paltry explanations don't needle as much as they could.

Not to mention, the second part of this trade, the Black Canary miniseries, read like a classic Chuck Dixon Birds of Prey story -- and if Ollie and Dinah marrying means more stories like this, I'm all for it. Bedard (not, unfortunately, the regular writer on Green Arrow/Black Canary) takes on the unenviable job of writing Black Canary's adopted daughter Sin into limbo, and even though we all know what's coming, Bedard held my interest throughout. Canary goes up against perennial Green Arrow-villain Merlyn, offering a nice contrast to Ollie's battles with him; there's also a great "heist story" tone to Sin's kidnapping and Team Arrow's resolution. The final scene where Dinah accepts Ollie's proposal is, again, a little nonsensical, but it has sweet moments and stays true to the characters overall (with nice art by Paulo Siqueira, too).

And then we get to the Black Canary Wedding Planner.

I do understand that I'm taking this final chapter too seriously, and DC Comics, with writer J. Torres, meant the story to be all in fun. But where Tony Bedard's dialogue between Green Arrow and Black Canary felt serious and meaningful, Torres writes the characters as whiny and silly. I can't help but think that if, say, a Brad Meltzer fan who liked Identity Crisis heard about Green Arrow's wedding, liked how Meltzer wrote Ollie and checked out this story, they'd be flabbergasted by Torres's Wedding Planner. The jokes are repetitive and barely groan-worthy; Ollie and Dinah come off as people you'd barely want to know, let alone attend their wedding.

Not to mention, Torres ends the story with Black Canary taking her super-hero friends to try on lingerie (as if), including the most awkward, un-sexy-looking Wonder Woman panel ever. It's hard to know if Torres meant this sequence to be titillating or humorous, but it's neither; instead, it smacks of self-impressed adolescents drawing pornographic stick figures and giggling about it. I believe, ultimately, that's the impression the wider non-comics reading world has of comic books, and Torres's sequence just proves the stereotype. In a book that demonstrates the complex relationship between two long-established comics characters, the Wedding Planner sticks out at the end like a sore thumb.

Overall, however, Green Arrow/Black Canary: Road to the Altar is an exciting read, better than I was expecting, and it leaves me eager for the first issue of their new series.

[Includes full covers]

On now to a bit of Supergirl, and then maybe to Teen Titans. Come join!

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