Green Arrow #23

Where are her nipples? Not that I'm a pervert or anything. I just like my comic book art to be realistic. Especially around the booby area.

Over in the Super Secret Clubhouse of Secret Super Secrets, Watsonian asked this:

Serious question, [Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea!] How do you not have Green Arrow in your top 10? I don't care how terrible the first 16 issues were. Since Lemire & Sorrentino took over, it's been the best thing DC has going.

Well, let me answer that question for you, Watsonian: Green Arrow is a doody head that doesn't deserve to be in the Top Ten. It has not been the best thing DC has going or even close to the best thing. It's better than it was. That's a true statement! But I don't forget history easily and the ability to forgive the first twenty issues just isn't in me. Although Watsonian's statement has a lot more truth in it than this statement from Tiger OA1:

Actually Batwing took a turn for the better. I like David I just didn't care much for the backdrop. luke is a good choice for Batwing even if he really does need a new name. And out of this nu52 bunch it's not a lot of books that's better than this one.

Batwing is an even bigger doody head than Green Arrow! Not a lot of books better than the mediocre bullshit coming out of Batwing? Maybe if Batwing didn't put me to sleep every month, I might know what you're talking about, Tiger. It's not a bad comic book in the way that Katana or Superman or The Teen Titans are bad comic books. It's just not interesting. But I don't want to get sidetracked by Batwing's inability to hold my interest (and I really am hoping that he eventually does! It's now being written by Gray and Palmiotti and I love their All Star Western. So my hope is an extremely erect phallus) because I was trying to discuss Green Arrow's inability to hold my interest!

Last issue was enjoyable and I even gave Green Arrow +5 ranks. What more do you want from me? Putting it in the Top Ten? That's just silly! Green Arrow may have you fooled but I'm more cautious! I've been dealing with years of disappointment from Aquaman, so I've developed a thick, Aquaman-like skin. Nobody is winning this heart with just one decent issue! Unless that one decent issue is written by kittens and is full of kittens and maybe guest stars a raccoon. Sorrentino even tried to win me over by drawing Naomi like Tig without band-aids and vampire teeth but I know the difference! That isn't my Tig and I won't be deluded so easily, Mr. Why Do Italians Have Such Androgynous Names?! Why can't you be named something like Madison or Alex or Blair!

But the most important reason why Green Arrow isn't in the Top Ten is because my ranks are based on my whims and don't actually fucking mean much of anything. Green Arrow sucked for a very long time so it's going to have to work its way up the ranks. Although I could probably just switch it with Action Comics right now and just save everybody some time.

Last issue Green Arrow learned he had a half-sister and he had just met his sister's mom, Shado!

Oh look! The comic decided to repeat that information because it was so important! The Trade Paperback is going to sound like it's stuttering!

A snowmobile carrying four guards with automatic rifles runs them down. They aim their guns at Green Arrow and Shado and tell them not to move a muscle. But they're still fucking out drawn by Shado pulling Ollie's bow off of his back and three arrows out of the quiver and nocking the bow and firing the arrows and being hit by the arrows before they can pull a fucking trigger. Here's another reason why Green Arrow isn't going to be in my top ten any time soon! He uses a fucking bow against guns and always wins! Well, technically Shado beat them this time.

I think I hate guns more than Batman does. Not real life guns but comic book and movie guns. It's understandable to me that a guy with an automatic can spray a bunch of bullets and miss his target because those things can be wild. So Ollie beating one guy with an automatic with his bow is fine. But four guys with no cover is another story entirely. And in movies when twenty guys are spraying bullets all over the place and the protagonist is able to run across the room and dive behind something as bullets are bouncing off the floor and the ceiling and shit just pulls me right out of my suspension of disbelief. I suppose when I was five and I was watching Star Wars, it was okay that a battalion of Stormtroopers couldn't hit shit. But I just can't buy into that anymore.

Now these guys may have been under orders not to shoot them because Count Vertigo wants to be the man to punish Green Arrow. But I'm pretty sure I'd at least try to shoot somebody in the leg if they made movements to shoot me in the face with an arrow.

This guy's not even trying now. I think maybe Count Vertigo doesn't pay these guards too well.

Meanwhile Fyff and Naomi are trying to turn the comic into a romantic comedy. Fyff has a crush on Naomi because she's the only non-related female he's ever really interacted with. But Naomi is falling for Oliver Queen because he did a manly thing in front of her. Obviously if this were Hollywood, Naomi's feelings wouldn't really matter and it would be Fyff's feelings that were important, so Fyff would eventually, through persistence and even more persistence, win Naomi's love and affection. She'd see that Oliver Queen is shallow or abusive or gay while Fyff is a nice nerd that truly loves her and what more could a woman want than a truly devoted nerd that provides superior oral sex in the Bouncy Moon Room at the college Olympics? But this is a comic book so I have a feeling Fyff is going to die trying to prove himself to Naomi and then she'll be weepy for an issue before forgetting all about him because she'll be fucking Green Arrow on Fyff's grave.

Back in Vlatava, Green Arrow convinces Shado to tell him about his father and why his father would have put his dick in her when he totally loved putting his dick in Ollie's mother.

Robert Queen found Shado because he wanted to learn archery from the best as he searched for the legendary Green Arrow of the Arrow Outsider's Clan.

So the Outsiders are like the Court of Owls, maintaining balance while not being necessarily good or evil. Which means the Seventh Clan is the Owl Clan which use the ancient weapon of The Owl!

Shado tells Ollie that she and his father didn't plan for the child that came out of their unexpected love. Shado, you're a fucking moron. If you're not planning to not have a child, you're planning to have a child. So you planned to have a child by not planning to not have a child! That's such an important sex education lesson that it needed to be said twice in a row!

Even though Komodo wasn't Robert Queen's actual son, that didn't stop him from going Full Oedipus on his ass. He killed him and took his wife and his wife's child. Although he didn't really want the wife; he just wanted the Green Arrow Relic. But she wasn't giving up the location of it, so he handed her over to Count Vertigo because making people dizzy is the best torture in the world. And everybody knows that torture gets people to tell the truth! Every time! People don't make shit up just to stop being tortured. That's silly! They can only manage to say the truth when they're in so much pain!

Luckily Shado finishes telling her story because Count Vertigo finally shows up!

I know, right?

Green Arrow shoots off Vertigo's left ear while Vertigo blows out Oliver's left eardrum. It's probably a good thing because then Shado can pick up the bow and begin killing people instead of pinning them to walls. Shado lets Vertigo live so he can tell Komodo to suck it. Then she escapes with Oliver in a snow mobile.

Back in Seattle, the man destroying the crime families and taking over Seattle's underground is revealed: Richard Dragon, Kung-fu Fighter! Maybe The Dragon's Claw is the seventh Weapon Clan! I wonder if he keeps in touch with his buddy, Ben Turner? The Bronze Tiger was recently seen in the Pacific Northwest too, so maybe!

Green Arrow #23 Rating: +2 Ranking. Why is Richard Dragon being such a dick? Is he trying to take over control of Seattle or just clean it up a bit? Seattle's gangs suck if they can be defeated by a guy who only uses his fists and a guy with a bow and arrow.