Thursday, January 12, 2012

Green Arrow #4

Starting this issue, Keith Giffen takes over for J.T. Krul on the writing.


It's better already!

And it is better although still not a great comic.

Oliver Queen (Green Arrow for anybody who doesn't know his secret identity since he's no Bruce Wayne or Clark Smith!) is still being hassled by Emerson, the guy Queen's father picked to run the company until Queen showed he could be responsible. But now the hassling is Giffenesque. It's fun with some jokes thrown in. It's more Perry White or J. Jonah Jameson. Under J.T. Krul, Emerson was acting like a soon to be Super Villain.



He's still beating up women but now he's not calling them whores or skanks or sluts or bitches as he does it.



And he's still talking a lot while fighting but now it's repartee with Naomi, the computer whiz on the other end of the blue tooth. So it's far less annoying than that horrible playground shit talking he was doing in the last few issues.

The levity and play of the comic has gone up. In J.T. Krul's world, Green Arrow was just a pissed off bitch mad at technology and people who didn't seem to making anything of themselves. My critiquing his work probably puts me in a space that would make his head blow up.

"Who does that little fucking shit on the internet think he is?! What is he contributing to anything?! I'm going to write a fucking comic book and put him in his Goddamn place!"

One thing so far about Green Arrow: he's just a man. But he's dodging bullets, getting electrocuted, hit by an entire wooden loading dock in this issue and none of it fazes him. Not a single thing.

Apparently those months on the deserted island where he learned how to shoot a bow also made him incredibly tough and agile! Unless he learned how to shoot a bow differently in this new universe. Probably at prep school.


Even Blood Rose bleeds black blood.

2 comments:

  1. I don't know Blood Rose. Does she have super-strength or is that wall just gray spackle? Paper mache?

    I wonder how Giffen will hold up. He hasn't been very consistent since Justice League years. Then again, I haven't read anything by him in at least five years, so maybe he's upped his game?

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  2. She apparently has super strength since, at the end of the comic, she throws an entire loading dock at Green Arrow's head. But that doesn't really prove much since Green Arrow has no sort of invulnerability and he's just find after being hit with the loading dock.

    Giffen still writes like he used to write. Quick back and forth dialogue. Less weighty feel to the overall storyline. It feels more light-hearted. But then Krul's Green Arrow just felt bitter and judgmental.

    I don't remember the last time I read anything by Giffen either. Maybe he wrote the 2000 version of Suicide Squad that didn't last? I forget. So far it's only really better because Krul is gone. And any other writer would have accomplished that!

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