Green Arrow #1

This cover has a lot going on but I really like the zipper down the front of Ollie's Kevlar suit.

The Review!
You know what? You'll probably read the commentary after this (unless you don't read that part because you hate good things) and think, "Wait. Didn't he say he liked this issue?" But I did like this issue. I liked it so much better than all the previous issues of Green Arrow, even Lemire's run. I don't know why people had such a hard-on for Lemire's run. It was competent. And it was trying to tell a story about Oliver Queen being the Green Arrow. But I think it had too many ties to the Arrow television show for me to ever fully trust it. And maybe I shouldn't say I like this issue better than that run because this issue has many flaws as well (most of those Percy's agenda to be the best ally ever! But he's handling it much better this issue! I know it'll seem like I don't think that when you read the commentary! But he is! It's just not as entertaining to me to be nice about it!). But fuck if this wasn't a good Green Arrow comic book. It's setting up the world of Oliver Queen and the way Green Arrow awkwardly tries to fit into it. It's set up the cast of characters that all make sense in Green Arrow's Seattle. We have an Oliver trying to do what good he can with the money he's making while also seeing how much evil that same money is causing. And, of course, it ends with a good old comic book betrayal! Plus people fucked. People fucking goes a long way for me. I haven't been this hopeful for a Green Arrow book since Percy's Sneak Peek in Conversion! Or Conversation? Converse? Whatever!

The Commentary!
Green Arrow is a privileged rich white cis dude so everything he does as a hero should be greeted with the mocking reply of, "Oh! Look at me! It's all about me! Give me a cupcake for helping!" He should really consider changing his name to the Green Ally. But seriously, the main issue Green Ally has to get over is his failure of being born a privileged rich white cis dude. It's such a burden to care about social issues and not have any means at his disposal to help make the world a better place because his stupid parents didn't have the foresight to be different people. Poor Ollie! It must be such a burden to care so much but to know that nobody will ever take him seriously because of the way he looks or his social standing or his heteronormativity. It's so unfair that he fills the Sound with mantears crying himself to sleep every night on his mattress full of money. Quietly though so he doesn't wake the two women lying next to him in puddles of his drying semen. He wants to do so much good but how can a willingness to make things better and a whole bunch of money help in any way? I mean, he knows that they'll help but why won't people acknowledge everything he's done and cheer him on and raise him up on their shoulders? Why do they continue to mistrust his intentions and say all of those hurtful, hateful jokes about white cis dudes?! Being a privileged rich white cis hero is the hardest thing ever.

Currently Green Arrow and Black Canary are on the trail of Moloids operating a slave trade all over the country. This is the perfect job for Green Ally to prove that he cares about the least fortunate! Plus he has a woman tagging along to see all the good he does so maybe she can go back to her Safe Space and tell the other women, "Not all men are awful! Green Ally is just swoon-worthy!"

That's clever wordplay, Black Canary, but is the Northwest, just off the Sound, in the wee hours of the morning the best place to be wearing short shorts and fishnets? You must be freezing your outer labia off.

Green Ally has also brought along Emiko who has surprised me by not taking the sidekick name of Tumblr.

Emiko does know a weapon is an object, right? Is that her point? Should I not have butted in to put my punctuation on the point she was making? Should I have stuck with my original caption that read, "A sexy, under-aged weapon!"?

For some reason, Emiko and Oliver begin discussing how well they did in math in school. I really don't know why the subject came up. It's not like one of the bad guys screamed, "Hurry! If we catch the train traveling south at forty miles per hour with stops in Tukwila, Olympia, and Kelso, how many slaves of below average height and weight can we fit inside one packing container?!

Although if the Moloid had said that thing about volume, Green Ally apparently couldn't figure it out anyway, having failed calculus.

Emiko's first interaction with Green Ally leads to her calling him privileged. I told you she should have called herself Tumblr!

Green Ally and Black Canary stop the Moloids this time. Oliver discovers they were using a Queen Industries shipping container to move the slaves from port to port. Aha! That's why Oliver can't be a proper ally! Because no matter how much he tries to help, he's always going to be responsible for the oppression and subjugation of others simply because of who he is! He's The Man and there's nothing he can do about it! He's so The Man that Black Canary looks horrified as he pays off the Seattle Police to help loosen their tongues and keep them feeding him information. I'm not sure why she looks horrified but then I'm white and male and cis and a jerk! My first thought was that he was trying to use his money to do good! But I suppose he should be funding programs to help the homeless and needy with that money instead of giving it to more white male authority figures. He should probably be using all of his money to make everybody feel better rather than making himself feel better by spending it on thousands of boxing gloves and arrows. Although what fun would that be?! It would definitely be a boring comic book. So, you know, it wouldn't change this book at all. Burn!

Stop sexualizing their animosity, Tumblr!

Apparently Emiko's sexualizing of their petty bickering was spot on because the next morning, Ollie and Dinah wake up naked in drying puddles of semen together. Benjamin Percy needs to be careful if he's courting the Twitter Mob Crowd! One misstep or wrongly placed "Hail Hydra" word balloon could mean the end of his career! And I think having a man and woman's lust for each other portrayed as constant bickering and belittling of the other person might be one of those missteps! Although it also might be okay because a lot of fans will overlook stupid shit just to see their favorite romantic couplings. So however these two wind up fucking, it's probably okay for everybody who was just waiting to read a comic book where these two were fucking.

Anyway, just like that, Ollie and Dinah are cosmic lovers destined to share a fuckspace forever. It makes me go weak in the knees! No wait. I meant stomach. It makes me go weak in the stomach.

Later, Ollie and Dinah pretend to be able to hear each other as they have a conversation on a motorcycle. This is less believable than Batman safely landing an airplane while riding on top of it!

Oliver takes Dinah on a tour of all the good he's doing so that she'll tell him he's doing so much good that her vagina aches. He's all, "Look! I built a hospital and a homeless shelter and a baseball field for kids and a women's shelter and a brewery and a condom factory! Now you have to admit I'm the best ally ever! I'm Green Ally!" And Dinah is all, "Yeah but you're a privileged rich white cis dude so...no. But you can still put your cock inside of me."

Poor Ollie! He just can't shake the knowledge that he's responsible for all bad things ever due to things he can't change about himself. So many mantears!

If Dinah only knew that Ollie was once a Werewolf for like a week so he knows what it's like to be a victim! Doesn't he get any Victim Credits for that time?! He should point out that Dinah can't criticize him because he once had a label! He had a label, dammit! That makes you immune to criticism! DAAAAAMMMMMMMIIIIITTTTT!

Oh! Maybe Ollie should apologize! That always seems to work on Tumblr! If you say something innocuous but somebody misinterprets it through the prism of their own issues and sends you an anonymous message full of hate and vitriol, you're supposed to apologize! Then everybody replies to your apology with things like "Well done!" and "Way to apologize!" and "Allying! You're doing it right!" and "Way to succumb to the new abuse of power, you stupid apologizing fuck!" Oh wait. I don't think that last message is usually sent. My mistake!

Oliver decides to find out more about his company and learns that the books are so cooked they're burning. And burning books are bad because where there's smoke, there's fire! And that means it's time to jump into the frying pan to see whose goose is cooked! It looks like the goose is Queen Industries Chief Financial Officer, Cyrus Broderick.

Cyrus puts on his Seattle's Version of the Court of Owls Mask and heads out to chair a meeting about the downfall of Oliver Queen. Of course he can't just be killed because no villain in their right mind would ever kill a hero without ruining their reputation first. The Seattle Court of Owls has sent Shado to nearly kill Oliver instead, for some reason. And Emiko helps her mother take down Oliver because, in the end, he's just another fucking man.