Green Arrow #39

Has Ollie suddenly forgotten how to use a bow?

Last issue ended on the most original cliffhanger ever devised in comic book history! The bad guy had put a bounty on Green Arrow's head and turned the local authorities against him! Holy shit! Why has nobody ever thought of that before?! And get this twist: the bad guy has everybody thinking he's the good guy and he's helping the city when really he's hurting the city and Green Arrow, who everybody now thinks is hurting the city, is actually trying to help the city! Oh, it's so clever it makes my butt hurt.

What's more, Oliver Queen, once a billionaire, has lost all of his money! Um, again! And now to top off all of his troubles and tribulations, Felicity Smoak is being arrested for trademark infringement due to speaking like a Joss Whedon character without express written consent of the NFL.

And to top off the top off, Oliver's current penis cozy, Zehra, is behind his bankrupture!

Speaking of Oliver Queen Penis Cozies, can just one woman in the Arrow television show keep him out of her vagina? I think his sister Thea is the only vagina he hasn't been in and I'm including his mother because, you know! I have a feeling Oliver is eventually going to find out that Thea isn't a blood relation and they're going to fuck up against the glass window of her apartment as Felicity watches from the street with one lone tear rolling down her cheek.

Oh! I've forgotten to mention the name of the bad guy: King! Get it! It's King against Queen! Ah ha ha ha! Ow! My butt!

"I am the bad guy! Argh! I love being bad! Being good is dumb!"

"I am the good guy! I say clever rejoinders! I wear a good sweater! Being bad is stupid and bad!"

Oliver asks Zehra how she could do this to him and she points out that she's into winners and not losers. Ollie gets the hint and walks out on her before she also calls him a broomhead. The "L" on the forehead with her finger and thumb was harsh enough.

Felicity is arrested and thrown directly into jail because she rolled doubles three times in a row. She's really enjoying her time in prison because she gets to wear an orange jumpsuit that is definitely orange no matter how much Felicity insists that it isn't. And I know orange because I successfully navigated kindergarten. Barely.

Felicity's cellmate is a huge Guns N' Roses fan. She's also Cheetah the Cheetah Lady. How come when Cheetah turned into a Cheetah Goddess, she grew a tail but not four more breasts?

"We are the stupid sheep citizens! We need saving but we'll be ungrateful when we get saved because duh! Duh! Der!"

Diggle thinks the populace is dumb, does he? Well what about how dumb he is!

"Impermeable"! Who does he think he's talking to? Aquaman?

Some guy helps Oliver break into prison to save Felicity. Should I know who he is? Is he that Manhunter guy, Mark Shaw? He did get his New 52 secret origin in Cheetah #1! And he also appeared in the television show Arrow. But he didn't have blond hair in Cheetah #1, so maybe it's just some guy that I'm not supposed to know. Or I'm supposed to know and I just haven't been paying close enough attention. Whoever he is, he knows Green Arrow is Oliver Queen (it seems almost everybody does at this point).

And thus the day is saved and Felicity gets to say one of those awkward double entendre things she loves to say.

Later, Diggle, Ollie, and Felicity go to meet their chess pieces so they can battle King's chess pieces.

I get why Lex and Bruce are here because they're part of the Billionaire Boys Club. And Katana and Emiko are Outsiders, so they have to help out as well. And I guess that's Naomi making her return? Maybe? And I guess Cupid is here because she thinks she loves Green Arrow. But why the fuck would Roy come back? Isn't he still pissed at Oliver for stealing his ideas?!

Green Arrow #39 Rating: No change. It's good to know that in a DC Supermax prison, nobody fucking cares about the prisoners. Don't worry about isolating Cheetah even though she's got the powers of a Cheetah God and dangerous claws and hungers for flesh and is completely angry at everything all of the time. I'm sure a roommate will do her good! And hey, why not let the inmates of a Supermax prison wander around outside of their cells and eat their meals in a cafeteria like normal people because they aren't hardly super dangerous at all! I guess everybody at the Supermax has crown tattoos on their wrists. At least the art is on par with the writing! (That means it's crappy too!)

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.

Green Arrow #36

Does Green Arrow always have to be in the act of shooting an arrow on the cover? I get it! He's an archer!

The last issue ended with Felicity Smoak telling Green Arrow that she had been hired to kill him. We know from the television show that she's the best hacker in the entire universe and would never be caught hacking into whatever she's hacking into. So as soon as Diggle says he's found traces of a hacker, we (the readers! Not the Royal 'We'!) know it's all a setup. Felicity obviously just wanted to meet Green Arrow and get his cock all up in her. That's sexy romance literature language for making love. The only other option is that Felicity is a huge badass mercenary death monster and she's about to kill Oliver Queen!

This issue begins with Mia Deardon pickpocketing people on the streets of Seattle. She's the person some person named Mr. King is trying to hunt down. So I guess she's important somehow. Maybe she has diamonds in her stomach. Her friend Trevor calls her "Speedy" so we know where this is going! Right? Maybe you should tell me.

Anyway, Mia's pursued by some business suited thugs but is saved when some guy who knows her mother murders them all. It's practically a coming of age story by Charles Dickens or maybe Edgar Allen Poe.

Oh look! It really is Felicity! Because Oliver points out she talks a lot! Just like on the television show!

Felicity casually mentions that she knows Green Arrow's secret identity because Kreisberg has to get her onto the team as quickly as possible! We've already watched how she joined the team on the television show and we don't want to rehash all of that! Especially since it took so long. And hopefully Kreisberg will avoid the huge mistake he and his writers made on the television show by making Felicity a love interest of Oliver's. Jesus Christ, television writers. Does Oliver need to have a relationship with every woman on the show that he isn't related to? And that might not even be a limit! I bet Thea puts the moves on him at some point since she's only half related to him!

Felicity tells Oliver that only she and some street girl can help Ollie catch whoever hired her to kill him. And that's that! She's on the team! And I don't mind that they trust her so easily since who wants to read three months worth of comic book stories where they dance around that fact that she's inevitably going to be on the team anyway? I'm sure Diggle or Ollie will eventually whisper to the other one, "Are you sure we can trust her?" And the other will say, "What choice do we have?" And that will be the end of that!

Meanwhile the man that wants Ollie dead is playing John Lithgow's character from Dexter.

Mixed with a little bit of the "Brother" Blood character from the television show. I guess Oliver always has to battle other people that have a vision to save the city. But in the wrong way!

Mister King mentions Bethany Snow and Channel 52 News, so I guess that puts Ambush Bug in current continuity! Ha ha! In your face, DC Comics! Now I know he's out there somewhere!

Mister King tells his henchmen to hire some guy that will be able to kill Ollie and Mia and the guy she was saved by, Mack Morgan. Who will the assassin be?! I doubt Deathstroke will be headed over to this comic book for this job. Maybe it'll be that guy Stillborn that tried to kill Deathstroke when Rob Liefeld was "writing" that series.

See? Talks like she's from Sunnydale! Oh, I, um, mentioned that last commentary, didn't I?

Judging by the arrow, the killer must be Merlyn. Notice how nobody is shocked that this guy was assassinated by an arrow? The whole archer schtick is way overdone in Starling City Seattle.

With Felcity's help, Diggle and Green Arrow track down Mia and rescue her from King's men. But just when they think they're going to get away and gather up the evidence to convict King of whatever horrible things he's been up to, King's assassin arrives so that they have to have another think.

Merlyn's face is probably messed up from that time the oil rig exploderated all over Ollie's wild oil rig party.

Green Arrow #36 Rating: No change. I guess Merlyn wound up on an island adjacent to the island that Oliver washed up on where he learned how to use a bow and arrow but just a little bit better than Oliver did. I don't think Seattle should be full of archers. Its heroes should be fire dancers and Burning Man refugees.

Green Arrow #25

I hope this issue finally reveals why such enmity exists between Green Arrow and Aquaman! Which has probably been forgotten by everybody except me.

I think Aquaman and Green Arrow dislike each other because they're the two heroes at the bottom of the totem pole. Aquaman probably defends his abilities by saying, "You think I'm worse than a jerk running around with a bow and arrow?! I have actual super-powers! I'm nigh invulnerable! Super strength! Nine inch cock! Come on!" And Green Arrow just has to point out that some guy is running around calling himself "Aquaman" when defending against the ridiculousness of his own career.

Although, if you want to get technical and be an Actually Nerd, Aquaman doesn't think of himself as Aquaman. But he's so stoic, you'd never know! If you call him Aquaman, he simply grunts and rolls his eyes and answers anyway. But if Mera is in the room, you'll never hear the end of it. "You better not fucking call my man "Aquaman!" You better show him some Goddamn respect! He's the fucking king of the seven seas, bitch. What are you the fucking king of? That's what I thought."

As you might expect, this issue begins six years ago during Zero Year. It's what I expected but then I rarely miss subtle clues by writers, artists, and graphic design elements on the covers of comic books. What I don't expect is for everybody else in the world to be as perceptive as I am. You might have missed it, but if you look at the cover again, you'll see it costs $3.99. That's the first clue that something is different about this month. That might cause you to examine the cover a bit more closely where you'll see a flock of bats fluttering above Green Arrow's head. And just above those bats in small print that you might have missed if you were paying as much attention as I'd expect the average person to pay a Green Arrow comic book cover, the words "Zero Year." What does it all mean? It means you're paying an extra dollar this month to learn what Oliver was up to six years ago.

As long as J.T. Krul wasn't writing him back then, I think this could be interesting.

I see Judd Winick's Zero Issue is still in Green Arrow's New 52 continuity. I guess some story elements had to be retained from the first four writer's attempts at this hero's reboot.

Oliver Green has just returned from a three year stint stranded on an island. It just happens that he reveals himself to Emerson the same weekend that The Riddler has shut down Gotham. Ollie mentions he was rescued by a Thai fishing boat. Or was he? My original theory was that he was rescued by Aquaman and their animosity toward each other stemmed from that somehow. And once I believe something, I never don't not believe it afterward! Unless that means I stop believing it which isn't what I meant. Perhaps I shouldn't use so many negatives next time I'm trying to not unexplain some non-inexplicable fact.

Another thing I stubbornly still believe: Harvest is Vampire Tim Drake from the future! I'm never letting that one go. I'm so right about that one.

Anyway, ignore those last few paragraphs. I probably should have deleted them but I'm a firm believer in transparency so I think anybody reading this should know that I suck at what I'm doing. I also firmly believe in padding out my commentaries with bullshit so that most responses to my work, at least from the internet, amounts to "TL;DR." Fucking internet. The next time you're having a conversation with somebody, respond to them with, "Too Verbose; Didn't Listen." Although I think most people passively respond this way anyway as they sit there mumbling "mmm hmm" to whoever is speaking while their attention is firmly on the phone in their hands. Sort of like what I'm doing to Green Arrow right now! I'm just ignoring the book so that I can ramble about bullshit I'm not even interested in rambling about! I'm simply avoiding having to listen to Green Arrow.

What I really wanted to talk about was Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I think about this book often because some people's reaction to it drives me nuts. For the life of me, I can't understand how people can be offended by this book. Sure, there are the supposed adults who act completely childlike in their inability to even look at the word "nigger" no matter what the context because it just upsets their delicate sensibilities which proves beyond a shadow of a doubt how not racist they are because that word just turns their stomach and they can't even begin to even think about it at all ever even in intellectual discussions. What I don't get is people's condemnation and dislike of the character of Huck Finn. Do they expect him to be full of our own modern sensibilities about slavery and equality and human rights? Because Huck Finn is not a smart character. He is not an abolitionist. He is not a free thinker. He generally believes that society is trying to teach him the "moral" and "just" way to live life. He finds it a flaw within himself that he can't be "virtuous" and an "upstanding citizen." So what you have is a kid that escapes with a slave because it's a game to him. He eventually realizes Jim has feelings just as he does when Jim is hurt by Huck playing tricks on him. He becomes friends with this man while still believing that slavery is an acceptable institution because that's what he's been taught. So by the end of the novel when Huck has to trick Tom into helping Jim escape once again by turning it, once again, into a game, Huck isn't doing it because he believes slavery is wrong. He absolutely buys into what society has taught him and that it's wrong to help a slave escape. So where does that leave us? What are we to learn from that, if this kid isn't some great liberal forward-thinking abolitionist? Well, what we wind up with is a kid that is willing to condemn his soul to Hell for his friend. And that ending, that thought above all else, almost always brings me to tears when I think about this book. It's Huck's belief that he's going to Hell, that he's going against what is "right," that he's breaking the law and acting immoral that makes Huck's action so powerful. He cares about his friend's happiness and freedom more than his own soul at the end of the book. It would lose all of its power if Huck believed he were fighting a noble fight against the tyranny of the civilization that surrounded him. Huck must be a truly flawed character to make his decision mean so fucking much.

Another thing I was thinking was, "Where is the Age of Innocence fandom on Tumblr? Where are the Team Mays and Team Ellens? Why aren't people shipping Newland Archer with, well, I don't know with who! Gatsby?"

At this point, you might suspect I don't give a shit about Green Arrow. But you'd be wrong! I'm just distracted and hungry. I'll get back to the comic book now.

Oh yeah. Ollie's mom is in Gotham fighting vampires during a horrible earthquake while The Riddler shuts down the city and a storm blows in and Bane has taken over and everybody has escaped from Arkham and Batman is missing and whatever other tragedies constantly bubble to Gotham's surface.

Bodyguard Diggle is trying to keep Moira Queen safe but it's pretty much an impossible job since they're in Gotham. Especially since they're in Gotham before it was full of Batfamily vigilantes. Anyway, she's nabbed by some jerko (not Joker) in a gas mask. At least I think she is. I'm jumping to the conclusion that Diggle failed to protect her and she's going to wind up dying because I haven't seen any evidence of Moira in previous comics. Although I might have zoned out while reading previous references to her character.

Ollie sneaks into Gotham City through the sewers after taking a limo ride from the private airport where he arrived via the Queen Industries private jet. He doesn't want anybody to know he's alive yet because he hasn't had a chance to shave and who needs publicity photos of your mangy three years on an island face gracing the covers of every magazine in existence. He sure thinks a lot of himself, doesn't he? He's been gone for three years! I don't think anybody even remembers him.

I don't get the moth theme. Is it because he's annoying as fuck?

The arrow, surprisingly, isn't from Green Arrow. It's hard to tell since Sorrentino's panels generally have a limited color palette so that arrow could have been green. Instead, it's bat and was fired from a Batbow. Killer Mothman the Moth declares that Batman was his inspiration so right from Zero Year, we have evidence that Batman's existence has hurt Gotham more than it's helped. He inspired all of the wrong kinds of people! I think that's why Bruce Wayne had to get more involved with his city so that people who wore normal business suits could also be inspired to do normal, legal business things instead of taking shortcuts by wearing funny costumes and doing abnormal, illegal business things.

That arrow probably is from Green Arrow because we've run out of heroes that it possibly could be. Also it's, you know, green.

Batman and Green Arrow don't act civilly because why should they? Fuck acknowledging help from another person. That would be weak! Instead they bicker about territory and about saving asses and all the usual shit. At least they don't wind up fighting each other. Moira chooses to remain with Green Arrow as Batman carts off Killer Moth (who really needs to go back to the drawing board with his theme). She recognizes Green Arrow as her son probably because he began by calling her "Mo--". Also because why wouldn't she recognize her baby boy? Even with that disgusting beard full of island lice.

The story ends with Moira asking Ollie how he's alive and he says, "I don't know where to start." Then there's an image of him being kicked off of a cliff with lots and lots of red ink. I guess Andrea Sorrentino finally restocked on red ink after using it all up during his I, Vampire run. And the Next Blurb states that the secrets of the island will finally be revealed next issue! I bet it's Purgatory!

That story was short so there's a back-up story about Diggle and how he wound up helping Green Arrow. But he only helped Ollie for a year before Ollie brought in Roy Harper and everything fell apart because Roy Harper is fucking annoying. He's actually gotten a bit better and had one or two nice moments since Tynion took over Red Hood and the Outlaws. But he's really not been a very sympathetic or likable character at the hands of Scott Lobdell. So I can understand why Diggle left Team Arrow when that jerk was brought in. Anyway, Diggle gets this brief history since he was brought in at the end of last issue trying to get Clock King to help him take back Seattle from Richard Dragon, Master of Kung Fu, and whoever else is fucking up the city.

Green Arrow #25 Rating: No ranking. This felt too much like an annual to get any kind of rating assigned to it. An interlude. A way to pass the time. A month off to introduce Diggle. But at least Batman was in it for a couple of pages! Although I will rate my commentary: -5 Rankings! What was that shit? Where's the care? It's like the mind of whoever wrote it was somewhere else. Perhaps dick deep in the burrito they're dreaming of eating!