Green Arrow #21

I knew it! He's a Hentai Rapetopus!

Sheesh! I get it, Green Arrow! You have secrets! They're probably not even very interesting secrets! I bet the secret is your dad stranded you on that island on purpose to make you grow up. Also, your dad probably didn't say he loved you enough and was always away on business trips and never played catch with you and was drunk all the time and moved to Japan and then to Oregon and then to Arizona and he never kept a stable living environment and he tucked a number of new marriages under his belt and he became paranoid about the government and technology and then he was killed by Komodo! Or maybe your dad is Magus! You know what? I don't even care anymore. Keep your stupid secrets secret!

I hope we learn Green Arrow's secrets this issue! I'm only pretending I don't want to know them in front of Green Arrow because he's been teasing us with his stupid secrets for four issues now. Maybe more! And, um, maybe less. You know what? I didn't bring this up so we could discuss my mediocre math skills.

Last issue, Green Arrow had finally found his way through the desert to a teepee with Magus inside. After a few S'mores and an agonizingly long pillow fight scene, Magus and Oliver begin a game of truth or dare. Even though I really wanted to see the kind of nipple stiffening dares these guys would get up to (especially after the long tease of a pillow fight where most of their clothes remained on), they skip the dares and get right down to the truths.

Oh! Here they come! All the deadly secrets!

Of course no secrets spill out of Magus's face because he's an asshole mystic and they always have to do everything in some half-assed drug-induced magical blah de blah ritual. Green Arrow hallucinates that he's back on the island. I hope he figures out who Jacob really was and why the smoke monster enjoyed kidnapping people and what Dharma was ultimately trying to do and how Locke's father ended up on the island and why the Man in Black wanted to kill Jacob and why Claire's son Aaron was supposed to be so important and why the idiot writers decided the island wasn't purgatory when it so obviously was for the first couple of seasons.

Ollie doesn't hallucinate his time on the island but the time that his father, Richard, was on it searching for some mythical treasure of The Arrow Clan. He's there with Emerson and a guy named Simon that could possibly be Komodo but I'm really hoping it's Simon Stagg! He'd be a great rival for Queen Industries and Richard also mentions that the Outsiders have recently been exploring this island as well. New 52 Metamorpho would be perfect working for a bad guy group of heroes under the auspices of Stagg Industries because Rex wants to marry Sapphire. Look at me! I'm still living in the Preboot world! But the Preboot world is all that makes the Reboot world exciting! Elsewhere tales are always fun because of the changes and games they play with the original universe. And what is The New 52 but an Elsewhere tale out of control?

So the guy with the Totem Fist? Is it mummified? Does he have to cut off his own hand and attach it at the wrist? Is it just a symbolic carving that gives power? I hope it's the mummified fist of the Buddha.

The Simon is simply Simon Lacroix, Komodo. Maybe he'll change his name to Stagg when he markets a Robot Vampire that turns a bunch of people into vampires and they all sue and he loses his business and reputation! And the main plaintiff against him will be Tim Drake!

Simon was a poor kid with drive and determination. He was the son Dick Queen really wanted. So he brought Simon into the secret quest for the Arrow Clan's Magic Arrow. When did Green Arrow become a Young Adult Fantasy Novel? As you probably guessed from having read so many Young Adult Fantasy Novels, Simon winds up killing Dick Queen. It was inevitable. It's exactly what happened to Daddy Warbucks when he took in Little Orphan Annie.

After hearing this story from Magus the man of mystery, Oliver Queen believes it because why not. Emerson did try to tell Oliver something about the island just before he died and it could have been all this fantastic bullshit! And Komodo is pretty good with arrows! And Dick Queen did have a room full of artifacts and maps. Actually, Ollie simply wants to kill Komodo so he figures he might as well buy into the whole story since it'll give him the best chance to find the Outsiders and find Komodo and kill him for being a huge dick.

After the scary story part of the slumber party concludes, Magus introduces Green Arrow to his friend, Butcher of the Axe Clan.

If the Axe is a real weapon, I think I might need a vomit bag when he meets the leader of the Fist Clan.

Ollie heads back to Seattle to gather up Team Green Arrow (that would be Naomi and Fyff) for a trip to Vlatava to meet up with some "dragon" that may be able to lead him to The Outsiders. But more importantly, Green Arrow answers the question I've been asking about the Justice League for some time now. Well, he answers it for the Justice League of America anyway.

I suppose the government would want to pay their employees so they can feel like they have some kind of ownership of them. The normal Justice League is probably more pure and would see paychecks as tainting the entire thing. Maybe Batman just keeps a few hundred thousand dollars of petty cash on the Watchtower for whenever anybody needs a little help in their secret lives.

Green Arrow #21 Rating: +1 Ranking. I'm glad that Queen Industries is done. It was just a distraction and an obligation with which Oliver Queen should not have had to deal. Now he can be a true hero to the disenfranchised! But back to the JLA paying its members! How do they pay Martian Manhunter? I guess they could make a check out to John Jones. Hell, they could make a check out to anybody and J'onn could probably cash it.

Green Arrow #19

I don't even know what the shocking lie about his death was!

Green Arrow is somehow still alive and somehow not cancelled. I think Jeff Lemire is doing a much better job than the previous four writers did with him but too slowly. Stop building a long, convoluted story and just make Green Arrow interesting already! Isn't there a magic short cut to erase the previous horrible issues and then make Green Arrow fun and interesting in a single issue? Use Jim Starlin's fire-headed, reality-bending aliens if you want! Anything goes now in the New 52 thanks to good old Jim! Every book has been freed from the editorial yoke! They can all exist in their own precious timeline within Earth Prime's dimension! So make Green Arrow interesting already, dammit!

Or you could do the Palmiotti and Gray Batwing thing and just start over with a new Green Arrow! I would accept that as well.

Once again, Lemire begins an issue with Ollie wandering through the desert of Black Mesa, Arizona. But now he's not nearly dead from dehydration and fatigue because he had a memory that allowed him to forget about the physical limitations of his body and carry on as if nothing were wrong. And now he's made it to some sheltering rocks where he begins following a trail of green arrows. And he suspects he knows who left them for him.

I wonder if the Baton Twirling Stalker followed him to Arizona? Maybe she'll save him.

I guess I forgot to mention that last issue ended with Green Arrow falling to his death in Seattle. Obviously he doesn't die because he has to live to end up dying in Black Mesa, Arizona. I suppose it's time to break out a trick arrow designed just for this occasion!

Except that would have been more believable than what really happens. He falls a whole bunch of stories and then casually grabs onto a ledge and pulls himself to safety. Lemire must have written that as an homage to all the old serialized adventure cliffhangers they showed in movie theaters in the 1800s.

You know, I can't even make a stupid facetious statement like that "1800s" line above without feeling the need to clarify that I wasn't serious lest everybody think it was a typo or just my constant stupidity. I assure you that this time it wasn't me being stupid. Just me being hyperbolic about how old those serialized things were and also being lazy because I didn't want to check on the decades that they actually ran.

Let's recap! Green Arrow finds out his father was a liar. SWAT helicopters come to kill Green Arrow. Green Arrow slides down a grapple line to safety. But before the safety happens, Komodo shoots the line with an arrow. Green Arrow falls to his death. No, wait! He grabs a ledge! And that ledge just happens to be the one Komodo is standing on a few feet away. And the helicopters are still after him! What a mess! But Green Arrow still has a way to save the day for everyone (as long as everyone does not include himself or Komodo).

If Komodo were to die here (he won't!), would Green Arrow accept responsibility for killing him? Or is this one of those super hero ethical gray areas? "I just stabbed him in the ankle. Totally survivable. Not my fault he couldn't keep his balance and fell to his death. Klutz."

Komodo grabs Ollie and they plummet to the ground. But this time (THIS TIME!), Green Arrow uses his trick arrow to save their lives. It's the Explodes Into Green Jello Arrow and they tumble squishily to safety. At this point, the SWAT helicopter loses them and I flip through and scan a few pages to see if it ever comes back or is completely forgotten like Nocenti or J.T. Cruel would have written it. Spoiler: it comes back to save the day!

I called that a spoiler because the helicopter doesn't come back for six pages. But now that I'm done reading up until the helicopter comes back, there wasn't much more to say besides "some arrows are shot and Ollie loses and then the helicopter comes back." Oh, and one other SHOCKING TRUTH!

Dun dun DUN!

The SWAT helicopter distracts Komodo long enough for Green Arrow to grab Komodo's bow and shoot Komodo in the shoulder. Then the SWAT helicopter flies off to ignore the action once more, giving Green Arrow some time to interrogate Komodo. But the interrogation doesn't last long as one of Komodo's boomerang arrows finally returns to shoot Ollie in the back.

Unless it was something more believable like Komodo's daughter coming to rescue her father after having a conversation with Naomi that caused the deadly girl to worry about dear old dad.

Yeah, that makes more sense. Only Green Arrow would use something as dumb as a Boomerang Arrow!

Green Arrow just got done Narration Boxing about how he beat Komodo because Komodo underestimated him and treated him like a child. So what happens when Ollie goes against Komodo's daughter? Ollie underestimates her and treats her like a child. And, of course, he loses. Ollie escapes by sliding ten stories down a construction waste tube. He lands on the nice, soft waste at the bottom and lies their bleeding and broken waiting for Fyff to pick him up. Meanwhile, Komodo begins killing SWAT Helicopter pilots because the helicopters finally decided it was time to start shooting. That's some serious patience! They actually gave three or four warnings to drop weapons that were ignored and they resisted firing! I know the weapons were only bows and arrows but most police in big cities don't even need the supposed perp to have a weapon to shoot to kill! As long as the person has something in his hand (wallet, skittles, penis), they'll open fire. Heck, a person doesn't even need to have something in his or her hand to get shot lately. Just pull into the wrong person's driveway and you're asking to take one in the brain.

Uh oh. Is there a chink in someone's daughter's trust?

Meanwhile Fyff picks up Arrow before he completely bleeds to death. But Arrow won't let this little girl's arrow shot through his leg kill him! No, he'd rather die by pulling the arrow out of his leg like an idiot and causing a shit-ton more damage!

This is how it went through.

And this is how he pulls it out before losing consciousness and ending the issue. Idiot.

Green Arrow #19 Rating: +1 Ranking. This comic book moves up the ranks because of one panel that sums up Green Arrow's DCnU career: