Green Arrow #37

Must the cover of this comic book always depict Green Arrow ninety feet in the air with his bow cocked?

Last issue, Felicity Smoaks joined Green Arrow's team because she knew his secret identity and pointed out how she was hired to kill him. I bet the real reason Oliver allowed her to join was that he's already fallen in love with her. And by "fallen in love with her," of course I mean "physically attracted to her to the point of distraction that will constantly eat away at his mind until the relationship is finally consummated and then the magic will suddenly have fled from the relationship." And by "magic" I mean "the need to have sex with a person that you have yet to have sex with." All Disney movies end before the relationship can be consummated not because Disney movies are rated "G" but because that's the moment "true love" becomes "That's it?"

This issue begins with the Seattle Police being told by "The King" to stand down and not help Green Arrow battle Merlyn. What could the cops do to help anyway? They're not armed with bows! You don't bring an inferior weapon like a gun to a bow and arrow pony show.

Nice. Make fun of the burn victim's scars, you ableist cunt!

Do you see all of that traffic Merlyn and Mia are running over? Or flying over? Or arrowing over? Well, that shit won't stop Diggle as he drives up to pick up Oliver and chase them down. Two blocks past the bridge, Arrow finds Merlyn and Mia on top of Seattle's monorail (which has really revitalized the city, if you ask me!).

Heh. I mentioned the monorail before actually reading this part where Felicity mentions the monorail. It's just such a fantastic boon for the city and for people that hate walking five blocks!

Green Arrow and Merlyn have begin an exciting battle atop the monorail which will take them to the Great Wheel and hopefully culminate atop the Space Needle! And then Merlyn can fall to his death and land on top of the Experience Music Project Museum where nobody will be able to tell that his corpse wasn't part of the architecture.

As they battle, Merlyn recognizes Oliver even though Oliver is wearing a hood and goggles. But Merlyn's face is so scarred that Oliver probably won't recognize him. Plus Oliver is probably drunk.

Merlyn gets away and Oliver saves Mia who proves that she's going to be a feisty sidekick when she mouths off to him at every opportunity.

Meanwhile, Katana is chasing down The King and beating down priests. I almost didn't recognize Katana due to her coherent dialogue. I am disappointed that she didn't give me some Wikipedia facts about priests or the church though.

Katana: "Maybe now you'll reconsider my question. Whose orders are you following?"
Priest: "I devote my life to him. Not you."
Katana: "Your God won't save you now."
Priest: "Not the Lord. The King."
Katana: "So you must be a member of the Church of England which King Henry VIII, in 1534, declared himself the head of?"
Priest: "No, but even if I was, the Church of England was reunited with Rome in 1555 under Queen Mary I and King Philip!"
Katana: "Yes, but then Queen Elizabeth I rejected the Pope's authority with the Act of Supremacy of 1558!"
Priest: "Which, once again, was turned about some months later with the...."
Katana: *STAB STAB CUT STAB STAB KILL*

Mia's dad turns out to be a guy named John King. I wonder if he has any connection to this King guy everybody is following! What a coincidence! John King just happens to be the third richest man in the country behind Luthor and Wayne. Poor Ollie! He could have been one of the top three if he hadn't lost his business to that guy in Hong Kong. Unless he lost the business to his dad's partner when everybody thought he was dead. Unless he lost his business for one of the other half dozen reasons I can't remember right now and might possibly be making up to make it seem like there were more than two reasons for his losing his business. And what about the Kords? They've got to be in the top five richest assholes in the United States, right?

Wait. Why did Ollie take his hood and goggles off? Do cute blonde girls get a pass on the whole secret identity thing?

John King is also an incredibly bad person who murdered his wife in front of Mia, his daughter. I'm correct in assuming that makes him incredibly bad, right?

Oliver, Diggle, and Felicity wind up at one of King's fundraisers later that night. It's aboard a blimp! Why fight on top of a monorail or a Ferris wheel or the Space Needle when you can fight on top of a blimp. With sharp, pointy arrows!

Hey! "Prodigal" is actually being used in its definitive sense of "wastefully extravagant" here! Probably on accident though since it's also working in its generally accepted usage of "long absent" which is due to the adjective being misapplied to the wrong aspect of the son in that Bible story.

King lets Oliver know immediately that he knows Ollie is Green Arrow. Oliver is not very happy being that John King is not a cute blonde girl. Well, that's what he gets when he recklessly gives away his secret identity to people he's working with and then allows them to leave his organization. I bet Naomi and Henry are selling all of his details to underworld organizations to fund their tropical retirement.

Kreisberg really likes the idea of Green Arrow battling other people that also think they're saving the city. So Oliver isn't just battling thugs to keep the city safe; he's generally battling other powerful people that want to control the city and keep it "safe" in their own way. So in the television show, he's battled Merlyn and Brother Blood. Now in the comic book, he's battling John King who is really just another aspect of his television show rivals.

Everybody just wants to be the one in control.

Oliver, Felicity, and Diggle get thrown off the blimp by King and his peasants. Luckily Oliver called in a favor earlier and Hal Jordan has arrived to save their lives. I guess that's why Ollie looked so calm as they were falling to their deaths. I'm disappointed Hal catches them in a net instead of a catcher's mitt though. Who knew Hal Jordan could receive text messages while in deep space? That's a great provider he's got.

Green Arrow #37 Rating: No change. Are Ollie and Hal about to go on a road trip to discover the real America and its real problems that can't be solved with a simple punch in the mouth?! I think this is the closest we'll get to those days. Well, this and a mention of a mugging on the corner of Adams and O'Neil.