Green Arrow #38

Another cover with Ollie way up in the sky with his bow cocked.

At the end of last issue, Hal Jordan managed to arrive on Earth just in the nick of time to catch Ollie, Diggle, and Felicity as they were thrown out of John King's Party Blimp. But Hal is attacked by a flying chess piece with shoulder mounted rockets, so he drops everybody and has to catch them again. He caught them with a net last time instead of a gigantic catcher's mitt. This time he catches them with...hands. Just giant green hands. What does Hal suddenly have against gigantic green catcher's mitts?

Here's a short synopsis of Hal Jordan's trip to Earth to save his buddy and his buddy's bodyguard and his buddy's sex kitten:

Notice anything wrong with it? Where's Guy Gardner whining about Earth being off limits to Green Lanterns?!

Arrow asks Hal to "suit him up" and Green Lantern uses his immensely powerful ring to make clothing and a bow and a quiver of arrows for Oliver. Jesus Christ. Can the Guardians just take his ring away from him already? Why does he keep proving Sinestro right that he has no idea how to use the ring? At least he didn't give Oliver a mace. Granted, Oliver now gets to shoot the most powerful arrows he's ever shot before, so I guess that's a plus in the Hal Jordan sort of knows what he's doing column.

So they beat up the guy in the armor just in time for a commercial break.

This is where I'd write a fake commercial if I gave a shit about what I'm doing. Oh wait! Here's an advertisement: The Art of Tacoman and Them Others!

Back from the commercial, some guy named Dr. Cross finds out that Seattle General Hospital has come under the control of a Dr. Steve Reynolds that apparently doesn't like collecting insurance money from patients on indefinite life support. Dr. Reynolds threatens to kill Dr. Cross as well as the terminally ill patients because Dr. Cross does like taking money from insurance companies. Luckily for one of them, Katana arrives to save the day and kill orderlies.

And she's all out of orderlies!

Hal and Oliver wind up at the hospital to help out because...well, I have to admit, I don't know why they end up there. Ollie gets a message from Dr. Cross about the psychotic Dr. Reynolds killing patients but I don't know how Oliver knows Cross. I suppose I haven't been paying close enough attention to some of the comic books I've been reading lately. Just chalk it up to that thing I said about not giving a shit about what I'm doing.

Was Ollie going to pierce that guy's throat with an arrow? Or do these guys practice this routine?

Hal and Ollie save the hospital or something from whatever Reynolds was up to. I don't know what this whole diversion was about. Does Kriesberg know that you can't pad a comic book like you pad a television season? Every fucking story needs to count since they only come out once a month! I don't need this bullshit story where some doctor goes crazy and every orderly in the building decides to back him on his murder plans. Are we suddenly in fucking Gotham? No, no. If this were Gotham, at least Dr. Reynolds would have an interesting personality, a scary mask, and a psychotic pet peeve.

We are characters interacting and growing from experiences!

Hal leaves after helping out at the hospital because he's not supposed to be using his ring on Earth or else he's going to have to have a conversation with Guy Gardner. And he'd like to avoid that if possible. So instead of giving Oliver Simon Baz's number, he just flies away. But first Hal calls Ollie an ass and then Ollie calls Hal an ass and...wait...why the fuck did Hal fly across the galaxy to save Oliver from falling out of a blimp and then point out that he's not allowed on Earth? Was it easier for Ollie to get in contact with Hal Jordan than to contact Stargirl or Animal Man or Martian Manhunter? This comic book is really testing my patience right now! Especially after these two exchanges separated by a mere six pages:

"Ready for another round?" "Always!"

"Ready for another round?" "Can't! Shouldn't be here! Bye!"

Immediately after Green Lantern leaves, the police chief declares Green Arrow a menace and a madman, stating that he attacked John King. King puts a five million dollar bounty on Arrow's head which the police chief passes along because that's responsible policing. I know he's being manipulated by John King but nobody watching the news thinks this is odd that the cops are announcing a hit on somebody on television? I guess people watching local news for actual news aren't really much for thinking for themselves, so I guess it makes sense. What doesn't make sense is that Green Arrow is on the street watching this in a crowd and the sound is blaring out across the neighborhood for some reason. Who would live in that neighborhood? Turn that shit down, motherfuckers!

Anyway, the crowd goes wild and decides that five million dollars is worth throwing a beer can at a dangerous man with a bow and arrow. Why are all the common people in comic books just stupid fucking sheep constantly manipulated by the powers tha...fuck. You know what. Never mind. I just got super depressed thinking about how accurate comic books can sometimes be.

And finally, John King is threatening Oliver's current girlfriend. He wants her to get one of those tattoos of a crown that shows she's owned by King. I guess. Whatever.

Green Arrow #38 Rating: -1 Ranking. Oh Green Arrow! You thought the days of J.T. Krul and Ann Nocenti were far behind you, didn't you?! Well how do you feel now that Jeff Lemire abandoned you, hunh? Not feeling too good, are you?! Plots are getting a little ridiculous, characters are acting a little crazy, dialogue is once again feeling forced and unbelievable! Things aren't as bad as they've been, Ollie, but so far this is definitely a huge step down from the Lemire plots.