Green Arrow #7

Does Green Arrow just have bird groupies?

I mentioned in the commentary of some other comic (possibly Catwoman?) that I would like to see more male super hero comics written by females. Because female writers seem to always get the female hero gigs. And men write whatever is available. When a male writes a female super hero comic, the criticism that a woman should be writing it usually follows. So Winick is writing Catwoman and Azzarello is writing Wonder Woman. But where are the women writing the male super hero stories? Well, here's one now! And I can't wait!

Unless Annie can also be a guy's name! I've been burned by that before!

Issue #7 begins with Green Arrow reading memos from Queen Industries on top of a roof in Seattle. After a bit, he becomes frustrated with the task and throws the memos up in the air. Is he really this careless about his secret identity? Does Batman leave Waynetech corporate memos at crime scenes along with a batarang? And I'm also not so sure I like the new artist, Harvey Tolibao.

Looking a bit goofy in the first panel.

My first thought while reading the first page was that Green Arrow was reciting poetry he had written. Let me change the format a bit and give you the text of the first page:

Green Arrow as a Teenaged Girl

I hate my life.
Split in two, neither half free.
The maddening thing
About a double life
Is that you end up with no one
To talk to but yourself.
And that guy ain't listening.
Queen's made us a slave
To narcoleptic meetings
And pointless reports.
Surely man was happier
Before the invention
Of the memo.

What's that line from King Lear?
"Nothing will come of nothing."
[Sometimes.]
Sometimes I wonder...
Why not jettison Queen
And live just as
Green Arrow?

So I guess Green Arrow is now an angsty 15 year old girl! Which is cool. Seven issues in and he has a third personality! But that's okay. This is a comic book universe! As long as the costume and the super powers remain the same, it's still the same character!

That's all just the first page, though. So I'm jumping to conclusions already! But even if he does act like a teenaged girl throughout, it'll be better than his macho bullshit in J.T. Krul's run. Much, much better. Profoundly better! SO MUCH BETTER!

Is that a little strong? Okay, okay. Back to the story.

As Green Arrow is reading his poem on the roof, a rain of hundreds of tiny arrows suddenly falls on him! He shoots some kind of parachute arrow to block the little arrows as he says, "Awww! So cute!"

"OMG! Kawaii! Want!"

The arrows seem to have come from three women jump from another roof to attack him. He disables two of them with an Cat of Electric Nine Tails Arrow and engages the other in hand to hand combat. And since he's fighting a girl, it looks like some of his old chauvinist ways have returned.

How would you know what a sensei teaches girls, hmm Green Arrow? Teenaged girl much?

This is a good sign. Green Arrow is a chauvinist. But J.T. Krul had him really crossing the line into downright misogynist asshole. Green Arrow reverses the hold and gets the woman in a tight grip. She instantly gives up and claims she adores Green Arrow. As do her sisters!

Hubba hubba! Oh, wait. It's probably a trap, right? A sexy, sexy trap!

It turns out they want to work for Green Arrow and have designed a new quiver for him. Perhaps the rain of tiny arrows was really just their version of Green Arrow confetti to celebrate the day.

You're not helping dispel the 'teenaged girl' rumour, GA! Although, to be fair, I think Kitlers are the cutest widdle tings!

Green Arrow likes Kitlers? So that means Green Arrow probably wastes a lot of time on the internet, right? So why was he lecturing all the losers about spending so much time on the internet a few issues ago? He told everyone to turn it off so they don't encourage criminals by giving their Youtube videos tons of hits! And now Green Arrow is encouraging Kitlers? Come on! These cats are dangerous fascist dictators! Who cares if they're cute! Turn it off, GA! TURN IT OFF!

These girls have made a whole slew of new arrows for Green Arrow to use. But they want him to come with them to Canada to check out their lab. I knew they were trouble! CANADA!

They're so adorable! How much trouble can they be?

In the next three pages, Nocenti (the writer! Keep up!) manages to make Oliver's work life much more real than J.T. Krul ever did. Giffen also did the Queen in the office stuff well. So how come Krul had such a hard time with it? Nocenti has Oliver telling everybody that he's done coming into the office. From here on out, he's going to telecommute. He asks Naomi to write up an initiative that makes it sound like he's doing it for environment friendly reasons. I think he should be asking Adrienne to do that but I won't quibble with that detail when this issue is going so well. Ollie tells Naomi he's taking the jet as Green Arrow so she'll have to fudge the manifest. And then he tells Jax to get to work on some miniature arrows before walking out and flying to Canada with Skylark. They apparently all share the one name.

On the way to Canada, Skylark seduces Green Arrow. As they're removing clothing and hopping into bed, Skylark says, "We have six of these." Okay, boobies, right? Yeah, yeah, lots of other things. But boobies probably! Skylark says, "Three of these." Mouths? Tongues? Vaginas? Belly buttons? And then Skylark says, "Twelve of these." Um. Fuck. What? Oh my God. Twelve of what?! Maybe they only have 12 toes between them? WHAT COULD THEY POSSIBLY HAVE TWELVE OF? Teeth?!
Then they land and walk into Skylark's father's mansion. It's huge! It's got everything! And then they turn on him and knock him out with a drugged miniature arrow!

Oh no. You mean it was all a trap?! Who could have guessed?!

Skylark tells Green Arrow how they did it. How they left so many little clues for him to keep him interested. How they used pheromones and drugs to keep him interested. And Green Arrow responds, "You glance in a mirror lately, dollface? You could have skipped the juju juice." Yeah, even without all the extra love shit, even Batman would have fallen into this trap! Only prudish Superman could have withstood this one!

The three girls tell Green Arrow that they're playing Daddy's game. "Whichever one of us loves him the best inherits the kingdom. He knows his Shakespeare." So the King Lear quote on the first page was fitting for the ending here. As one Skylark mentions this, one of the others storms off and Skylark says, "She's the rebel. Can't stick with the triplicate." So let me guess. The one that just stormed off is Cordelia. The other two are Regan and Goneril. Hee hee. Goneril. That name always makes me chuckle.

Meanwhile, Skylark had remotely sent Green Arrows jet away and crashed it into the Pacific. Naomi and Jax are trying to stall reports of Oliver Queen being dead (even though they don't actually know if he died or not) because if it gets out, Emerson will take over Queen Industries. But they're not very successful.

Maybe he just crashed on a desert island where he'll learn to fire his bow even betterer!

Green Arrow has quickly turned into a good comic book. Now, it's currently not going to become a legendary title like Sandman or Watchmen! But it's a fun read and that's really the most important thing when it comes to super hero comics. Very rarely you'll get that fun read that is actually really good literature as well. And since I'm not actually holding out any hope for something like that in the New 52, I'm just hoping for fun comic books that remind me what I liked about reading comics. And Green Arrow is back to doing that. Good job, Annie Nocenti.

The art is a little goofy and not to my tastes at all. But I can always look past the art if I'm enjoying the book. I think this issue is worth moving Green Arrow up two ranks. I won't normally give comics two rung jumps but if they're at the bottom of the heap, sometimes it's necessary to move them ahead of the other crap quicker.