Green Arrow #11

Uh oh! Old school Ollie fighting new school Ollie! And, um, some gal with a flamethrower.

After rereading the summary of the last issue, I'm even more convinced than I was after reading it that the story could have worked really well had it been given the proper attention. I like the idea of examining the choices people in despair have left to them. What do you do when life feels like it has nothing left to give? Suicide? But the fear of death will keep many people from taking that route and so they drag themselves along, going through the motions, slogging through life miserable.

One of my best friends from elementary school killed himself a few years ago. We drifted apart during high school and I completely lost touch with him after graduation. The reason I know he killed himself is because he became an actor and I was looking at his IMDB where I noticed the death date listed. I was looking on his IMDB because I'd just recently noticed him in It's Only Sunny in Philadelphia. This is one of my favorite performances of his I've found (plus he wrote this):

I'd like to think of suicide as a proper personal choice to dealing with the slings and arrows of life and that Phil just needed to be done. But since chemical imbalances and prescription drugs can do so much to fuck with our thought processes at any given moment, I know that if he could have weathered whatever was tormenting him at the time, the feeling of suicide as an answer would have passed.

This is what he wrote in my Ninth Grade Yearbook.

That entry always makes me smile. Possibly the best note in a yearbook ever. Except for maybe the one from the girl I had a serious crush on all through junior high in this same year book. But that's a story for another time.

Now I'm hoping that Ann Nocenti will treat her next story idea with the care and time it deserves! I should probably start reading it now.

Oliver Queen has found himself at the final table of a Charity Poker event. And Ann Nocenti proves that she can watch a few hours of professional poker to get all the lingo down!

No, seriously. That's Ollie Queen. See the blond hair? And the other, um, recognizable features?

The guy Ollie just bankrupted yells, "Talk about bad beats." Now, I'm not a professional poker player and I've only watched a few hours of professional poker as well, but I'm pretty sure that you can't blame a bad beat when you're bluffing and the cards on the table don't even help the other guy to win! I think a bad beat would have to be if you had two aces and the other guy had two kings and then a king came up on the river. That's a bad beat. This was just a guy calling your bluff on an all in. Sure, maybe it was a donkey move to call that bluff when Ollie only had two deuces in the hole. But it wasn't a bad beat.

Everyone in the party seems to be overly concerned about Oliver Queen and his recent problems. It's as if his name is on the cover of the book and he's the only thing anybody cares about. Fuck, he's barely even recognizable! And then the action begins as The Brown Stinger and Goofballs drop through the skylight. Can't anybody use a door?

I'm just guessing about their code names.

Actually, I think their vigilante super hero criminal names are Talks Too Much and Shut the Fuck Up. Just steal everything for whatever reason you want and stop trying to debate your victims. They'd probably respect you more for it!

Just grab the money and get the fuck out of there, Bunny.

What's most annoying about these first few pages is the way Nocenti drops as many bullet points as she possibly can. I doubt the first page of poker talk has anything original written by Nocenti. Every speech bubble sounds as if it came straight from watching poker on television. Which would be fine if it sounded natural or was used correctly. The bad beats thing I mentioned earlier doesn't fit. And when Ollie's opponent calls him a donkey and says, "You can't call that bet!", it really should be said the panel before he says it to fit the narrative flow.

I only mention the poker stuff because after the criminals appear, they do nearly the same thing by vomiting forth as many Occupy Wall Street talking points as they can. "Takin' it from the one percent--and givin' it to the 99." "We know about your Cayman Island post office boxes so we're taking a wealth tax and giving it to those in need." "Why is there always money for war and never any for education?" "Affordable health care? Ha. Put a Band-aid on cancer." "Own your own home? Forget about it, dude. Pitch a tent." "Remember Robin Hood?" Sheesh, I might as well have just scanned in the panels since that's exactly what they say, speech bubble for speech bubble, one after the other. They sound like conservatives writing liberals to make the liberals sound annoying and retarded.

But maybe they'll spur Ollie into being an actual hero for the middle class and not sound retarded as he does it. Since Ollie has just lost his job because everybody decided he was dead for some reason just because they found his plane crashed in the ocean or something (I forget the particulars!), he now needs a new purpose and some way to pass all the free time he now has. Although since he's back playing charity events, it's obvious he isn't dead so why can't he get his job back? I don't know. Lawyers and corporations or something!

After the "Dark Arrows" escape with the loot, they run through the alleys fighting amongst themselves now. Now Bunny is yelling at Goofballs for kicking an old man and robbing a charity event. I guess these two don't know each other that well. Probably met up at an Occupy Rally and liked how they could both spout one line slogans that sounded revolutionary, so they teamed up to start the Dark Arrows. But Green Arrow has a problem with their stupid gimmick.

Thanks, random children on BMX bikes out riding around downtown Seattle way too late for your own good.

Now Green Arrow is sounding like me. What an asshole! Nobody cares what Robin Hood really was! It's his legend and the myth that everyone thinks he was that matters. Just like everyone believing that the Founding Fathers of the United States were freedom loving teddy bears throwing off the tyrannical shackles of England when they were really just more rich white guys trying to avoid paying taxes on their fucking tea.

Why can't I just read a comic book and enjoy it like everyone else? I should be flipping the pages going, "Right on, Green Arrow! You tell them stupid Dark Arrow jerks!" and pumping my fist in the air as he gives them what for! Where did my innocence and wonder go? Now I'm just a grumpy old man whose eyes sting from the glaring faults of everyone around me.

Yes, the two ten year olds are actually leading it.

Green Arrow ties up the Dark Arrows and leaves them for the police as the young boy (who's probably supposed to be a young man on a BMX but just looks ten) lays the guilt trip down on Green Arrow by asking him what he's doing for the people of the city. Well, he was providing jobs and new technology as his secret identity, but I guess he can't defend himself with that. And he hasn't been doing shit as Green Arrow except protecting himself against Midas, having sex with triplets, chasing polar bears, and busting internet and reality show celebrities. But that's not much different than most of The New 52. Most of the super heroes aren't actually saving the world or helping people at all. They're all just busy saving their own asses. Who needs 'em?!

Later, Oliver Queen ends up at a bar drinking his troubles away and talking about the Occupy Movement with some random woman. I was just going to scan one panel but I think I'll scan one page. This is the kind of dialogue found throughout this issue and last issue. Is it just me? Am I the only one annoyed by this kind of pseudo-debate interaction?

"Normally I'd be all up in that." My bile has risen and won't go down.

I also can't stand Harvey Tolibao's art. I think there is a big reveal at one point that the male Dark Arrow is actually Ollie's weapon creator, Jax, but since every male Tolibao draws has pretty eyes and a sketchy face, it's kind of hard to tell. And, of course, the female Dark Arrow is a rich young debutante just out causing trouble to make her daddy angry so he'll notice her.

Oliver Green needs to straighten out his business problems by flying to China to meet with a man who has bought out nearly controlling interest in Q-Core. But the guy want's Ollie's facial recognition software in exchange for the shares. Ollie says no way and insults the fuck out of him. So Jin Fang sicks his muscle on Ollie and the comic ends with Ollie Narration Boxing this:

Why would he think this unless he had specific knowledge of a time delay between the outbreak of this fight and its conclusion?

Green Arrow #11 Rating: -1 Ranking. Every conversation in this issue is overloaded and unnatural. It's as if the conversations are more about showing that the characters have an abundance of information on the subject instead of allowing the characters to have a natural conversation. It's dialogue by way of wikipedia. It's annoying and off putting and I didn't like the art either. Now get the fuck off of my lawn.