Green Arrow #8

When you're young, stories about romance and fucking make you feel alive. When you're old, you need stories of heartbreaking, unendurable sadness to feel the tiniest amount of anything through the heavy callous of world-weariness covering your heart.

The Commentary!
Here's how the newest season of the television show Arrow began:

Felicity: (to Arrow) "Nobody likes you because you lie about all sorts of stuff that doesn't really matter but they're lies anyway and you shouldn't lie about anything to anybody, jerk!"
Felicity: (to her current boyfriend) "Lies lies lies lies lies lies lies!"

Such a terrible show!

This issue begins with Ollie fighting a bear and then fucking an imaginary Dinah on the beach. Oh man, I hope he's fucking the bear. Please be fucking the bear! I will have a child simply so I can give Benjamin Percy my first born if he has Ollie fuck a bear!

So dreamy!

Later, the bear wanders off to fuck John Diggle. Diggle doesn't pretend the bear looks like Dinah Lance before fucking it. He's hard core.

I'm not making this shit up! This bear is one horny motherfucker!

Dinah turns out not to be a bear after all. Or maybe she's a werebear? That's probably it. And the bear Diggle gets disgusting with is actually a robot so that makes it worse. Or better. Or just different? It's owned by a half-faced woman who owns the island. She does not declare "You can call me No-Face!" because David Finch isn't writing this disaster. If he were writing it, it would have less talk about privilege and racism and more women in thongs and towels.

I guess everybody who didn't sink in Dante's Bank or escape the sinking bank by helicopter, wound up on Bear Fuck Island. Oliver decides to make a list of all of the things he's going to do. But since he doesn't have a pen and paper, he has to pee the words into the sand.

He's really accurate! Especially for a guy who recently ejaculated! That shit will mess up your flow!

Black Canary revises the list by squatting over the word "kill" and piss blasts it into oblivion. That's because she doesn't want to see Oliver kill! It's so much easier to keep Ollie from killing in the comic book. But in the television show, I think the directors of the episodes keep whining that it's hard to film a fight scenes that don't wind up with a bunch of people bleeding out when the protagonist uses piercing weapons to subdue them all!

Dinah and Ollie almost fuck again but Oliver pays too close attention to a scar on the back of Dinah's neck and she gets all butthurt about it. And not in a sexy, Rated X way! I bet it's the scar she got from Team 7 turning her into a walking megaphone that loves to fuck rich turds. It's also probably that it's a serious scar received from some kind of sexual abuse while growing up on the streets, so Oliver isn't allowed to make light of it. Her scars are serious! His are just rich little asshole boy scars! Plus, it's important to tell people what they are allowed to talk about before they begin thinking they can just be all whimsical and light-hearted about anything they want.

Dinah and Ollie find evidence of Diggle's night of animal passion and decide to follow the tracks leading away from the camp. Even though they're bear tracks and drops of semen. No way I'd follow that trail!

The Ranking!
0! I almost gave this comic book a +1 but then I remembered that the majority of it was Black Canary and Green Arrow fucking. That's gross. But at least there's a panel of Diggle and a Bear fucking. That's pretty awesome! I'd say this comic book wasn't nearly as good as that YouTube clip I saw a few days ago where the bat licks his penis until he comes all over his own face but what in the world could be that good?! This was okay if you like smut.

Green Arrow #2

After Shado and Emiko nearly killed Ollie, did they piss on him too?

The Review!
Benjamin Percy is doing a much better job on Green Arrow than he was before Rebirth. Although the whole "Oliver Queen loses all of his money and identity and connections to others to become a cypher fighting for justice" is pretty familiar territory by this point. I guess Black Canary will take him more seriously if he's not able to help people using his money and has to only help people one at a time with a shitty bow and arrow carved from the wood of Monkey Puzzle Trees. So, anyway, I'm actually sort of enjoying Green Arrow because these stories since Rebirth feel like Green Arrow stories. Not that he shot any arrows this issue but at least he had goatee, I guess? The rest of the commentary you probably don't want to read because I'm just as sick and angry as everybody else because of events this week. I think even Black Manta would be sick of America's current answer to all of its problems. I wonder how we would solve problems if we didn't have so many guns at hand? Is "talk" too ridiculous of an answer here? Probably, right?

The Commentary!
How many times do I need to do nothing but rant on the internet about good cops not standing against bad cops before I can ever support any police officers at all? Maybe it's time to start shouting into the void about District Attorneys being complicit in the wave of police officers murdering African-Americans? The problem with the "not all cops" defense is that when one cop commits an atrocity, the entire force closes ranks and defends the cop, no matter how much evidence exists to show that they were violent for no reason and then lied about the brutality. And how is a District Attorney supposed to indict a police officer when the District Attorney relies heavily on police cooperation and support? The entire police force would see an indictment as a betrayal and the District Attorney would soon be out of a job due to being made impotent and toothless. But how crazy is it that people are dying for nothing more than a police officer deciding anything is resisting arrest and that resisting arrest is a capital crime? Something needs to be done before we're living in 2000 AD's Judge Dredd world. I don't know what that thing is because I mostly just hide in my apartment reading comic books. I think this is an extrovert problem! My toolkit allows for me to forage for food, barely sustain a roof over my head, and act like it's the end of the world when a comic book writer does a substandard job. One of my other tools is keeping things light-hearted but fuck me. I feel like a fucking cunt if I just start spouting off Green Arrow dick jokes without at least acknowledging that this world sucks ass. I should at least mention that I realize real world shit is going down before I start pointing out how badly Benjamin Percy wants to be World's Best Ally.

So comic books. Whatever. Let's go. I guess.

This issue is called "Erasure" because Benjamin Percy was totally into them in the eighties. Unless he's choosing that word because it's prime Social Justice Lingo! I wonder who Black Canary will accuse Green Arrow of erasing?! Probably poor bisexual First Nation crossdressers. I've never heard him mention their problems when he's gone on a rant about the underprivileged! Erasure!

Emiko and Shado dump Ollie's nearly lifeless body into the Puget Sound. But first they load up his boat with spilled booze and needles and bags of smack. Now everybody will know he got fucked up and fell overboard and was probably eaten by Killer Whales. I guess they think he's really dead or else I'm sure they would have slit his throat to make sure. Maybe Emiko is still on Ollie's side and made sure he's still alive before throwing him overboard. Then maybe she filled Ollie's pockets with dog treats and set George loose in the Sound to find him.

Shado now works for an organization called The Burned. They travel around the world on the most ostentatious ship I've ever seen called The Inferno. And they work in the service of the Ninth Circle. I think Ben is setting up some kind of theme here but I just can't grasp what it might be.

Meanwhile, some guy outside Abu Dhabi is Skyping some other guy named Dante. I wonder if Dante has anything to do with The Burned? Nah, I don't see the connection. Anyway, the guy Skyping in to Dante is named Mr. Kanoot and he has some familiar muscle keeping him safe.

Diggle is pretty boring on the television show. I hope he's more entertaining here. Maybe he'll have a hilarious quirk, or a really horrible tramp stamp that can constantly be mentioned!

Diggle gets a message via his Google Glasses that Queen is dead, followed by instructions on how to avenge Queen. You know, if he wants too. The upside is that by avenging Oliver Queen's death, Diggle will get to be a main character in a comic book! The downside? Oh, you know the downside! Don't make me have to say the punchline that you've already guessed! I mean, of course I'm going to say it because I can't just leave it hanging! Okay, okay! The downside is that the comic book is Green Arrow!

Burn!

And, of course, before I'm even done reading my comic book, some police are shot by snipers at a protest for police shooting civilians. I'm starting to think my solution of typing words to nobody wasn't so bad after all! Way to go, America. You fucking suck. If only there were more guns, I guess?

I guess I'm done talking about non-comic book things because I'd rather remain in my denial bubble. Everything good outside my window with the shades drawn and the curtains closed? Yeah, probably!

The news breaks that Oliver Queen has died in a drug fueled murder/suicide with his secretary whose body was recovered. Oliver's body is still missing because he's really alive somewhere. But Black Canary sees the news reports and she's all, "This is all about me! I'm the reason for this! Tragedy follows me and this is my tragedy that somebody else died because they put their penis inside my vagina and probably my butthole too. Darn me! Darn, darn, darn it, me!"

Meanwhile, Oliver has washed up on shore and is found by the pudgy IT guy. I'm really bad with names! I would have said, "Remember how bad I am with names?" But I don't expect anybody to have read enough of my sprawling manifesto hidden within comic book reviews to have even read that about me. Emiko managed to put her emergency tracking beacon up Oliver's butt before throwing him out of the boat. I guess she might be against hetero cis white rich guys but she isn't up for killing them. At least not the rich one that is also her brother and hasn't put her name on his will yet.

Ollie finally uses Henry's name and it all comes back to me! Henry Fyff! Hmm, that wasn't as much "all" as I thought it was going to be. Henry took Oliver to his Grandmother's house and she's able to heal him with racist tropes. You know the one! A-word C-word S-word! So racist!

Oliver wakes up from his healing bed two weeks later to find he's, once again, poor and homeless and destitute and without an identity. How often is this going to happen to him? I guess as often as the plot demands that Oliver have money or not have money! He's like a yo-yo except totally different because yo-yos have nothing to do with money at all.

I am bad at the analogies.

Black Canary conducts an investigation of her own because she thinks she's Batgirl. She's not very good at it because investigating doesn't often require singing and kicking ass and picking pubic hairs out of fishnet stockings.

Pshaw! I was just about to point out how everything was pointing towards that Dante fellow!

All Oliver has left is a secret hideout he dug in the woods outside Seattle. He tries to get Henry to do some more work for him but Henry doesn't do IT work for free. So now Oliver is all alone. It's just broke-ass Green Arrow against the world! Just like happens every twelve issues or so!

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.

Green Arrow Rebirth #1

Green Arrow's new sidekick is a Traci Lords blow-up doll?

The Review!
Ben Percy's Green Arrow is a message from a white guy who desperately needs validation as an ally of...well, whoever needs an ally, I guess! I suppose he sees a lot of himself in the character he's writing. Green Arrow wants to help but feels, because of birth and circumstance, he's somehow outside the movement for social change. But he's still going to use the tools he has to help! Green Arrow uses his gadget arrows and Percy uses his sledgehammer. I mean his writing pen! He just utilizes his pen like a hammer. I can see a lot of ways in which I might begin liking this comic book but first Percy has to get out his dictionary and look up the word "subtle." Then he should read the entry. Then he should reread the entry. Then he should write five thousand times, "Racism is bad," just to get the need to keep saying that in the comic books out of his system. I suppose if he reaches one person who didn't know racism was bad when they picked up this comic book, he's done his job! I just wish he'd do his job better and be more entertaining. Still, this is a step in the right direction because there could be some fucking in it soon.

The Commentary!
I'm not sure I can handle another Green Arrow story where I learn racism is bad. Percy is beating me over the head with it so much that I'm beginning to rebel against the idea! I'm beginning to think, "Percy's writing is bland and uninteresting which means I'm probably racist!" I was once called a racist by a complete stranger so maybe I am! A black guy asked me for a dollar while I was walking my bike off campus at San Jose State years ago. I said I didn't have any money and he called me a racist. I replied, "Whatever you want to think." And he replied with "What did you say?" and began coming at me. I just got on my bike and left. I suppose I could see his point. I was coming off of a hoity toity state college campus with a beat-to-shit rusty ten speed I was borrowing from my mom and yet I still refused to give him a dollar? I can't believe that guy thought I was racist because I didn't give him a dollar! Sure, I thought he was a dirty vagabond that probably had mental health issues whom I was a little bit afraid of! But his skin tone didn't have anything to do with any of those thoughts! Those were just my usual lower middle class biases against itinerants!

I don't mind being called names, not even a racist. Because I just think back to the great words of the mighty Blue Falcon: "Taking offense at thoughtless words is juvenile!" That's also a strong argument to disregard me if you're a creator whom I bash in my reviews! These are just thoughtless words! Most of them really thoughtless!

The issue begins reminding readers that Rebirth is a change of tune and an acceptance that characters are not what they were but are now what they were. I mean...well, you know what I mean. I think. Anyway, the first two pages make sure to point out that Oliver Queen is once more a liberal minded protector of the downtrodden with a goatee. In other words, New 52 Oliver Queen is no more! We're back to the Oliver Queen who doesn't mind giving a dirty street urchin hundred dollar bills.

This sums up Percy's run on Green Arrow nicely. Love me, Tumblr! Love me!

I don't think Otto Schmidt, the artist, got the message that this comic book is for Tumblr though. Because when Black Canary is introduced, he goes all in on a major Butt-Boobs Showcase.

Despise me, Tumblr! Despise me!

Okay, so her boobs aren't quite as showcased as her butt. But she's still in the proper, anatomically uncomfortable stance!

Black Canary is in Seattle for something music related, probably. And while in Seattle, she discovered a homeless kid in a sewer who needed her help. She and Ollie take the kid back to Ollie's place to get him cleaned up and discover that his mother was taken by people who live in the sewers. Oh no. Is Seattle going to get a huge, nonsensical underground empire like Gotham? I think there are already too many similarities between Green Arrow and Batman. Although a Court of Owls would be more fitting in Seattle than Gotham, I think. Also Seattle does have a weird underground city thing going on. Although I don't think it's full of Mole Men.

Forget the New 52 Green Arrow you may have become accustomed to because he's dead and gone! And good riddance, I tell you! Even if the new Green Arrow is going to beat me over the head with how fucking problematic I am, I'm glad to see the old one go. Black Canary makes sure to mention that Green Arrow has a reputation among the other heroes of "loud-mouthing [his] moral outrage, complaining about elitism, racism, cronyism, conservatism, any -ism, all the isms." So feminism too?! What a jerkbro! She mentions all of this to point out that he's a hypocrite because a white man with loads of money obviously can't be against bad things. Although is conservatism really bad? Sure, some aspects of a philosophy that wants to remain in a traditional vain will certainly butt up against forward change. But that isn't all conservatism is! I'm having a hard time coming up with some of its positive qualities but I'm sure there are some!

I hope Green Arrow tells Black Canary how he spent a week as a Werewolf and now he knows what it's like to be a minority! That'll shut her up!

Yeah! How dare you make wild, baseless accusations against her based on gossip and hearsay! She'd never do that to...oh wait. Never mind.

Black Canary and Green Arrow argue about who had the worst experience in their past to shape them into being a better person and I think I completely lose the will to ever masturbate again. Is this what being a hero has become? Is this how people make a difference? They having pissing contests about who's opinion matters more because they've had a harder time in life? Fucking get over it and work together to help this kid, you narcissistic assholes!

The homeless camp (which is basically an Ewok village on the edge of Seattle) is suddenly overrun by Moloids. Black Canary says one of the stupidest lines a comic book character has ever said ("This is what it sounds like when your ears bleed." With a period. If that didn't deserve an exclamation point, what does?!) and Green Arrow pauses for a moment to feel his heart go pitter patter.

The Moloids are having a slave auction later, so Green Arrow and Black Canary decide to team up and fuck after they stop the auction. It's underground because Gotham isn't the only city that gets to have a vast, unimaginable network of caves causing constant sinkholes and the inevitable collapse of the city. Although that's frankly exactly how Seattle is! Underground ruins and a failing infrastructure!

"I thought I would do something that everybody is doing because it was popularized in a movie so I could figure out the unique person I truly am!"

Ollie and Dinah follow a trail of Moloid blood that leads not to a Moloid hospital but the Moloid slave auction. The auction must be the event of the season if it's to die for!

I wasn't serious about Seattle having its own Court of Owls, dammit!

The Moloid with the arrow through his leg trailing blood behind him has come to the auction to warn the others that heroes are following his trail of blood to the auction! I guess Moloids aren't known for their smarts.

"I don't know who you are or what you're doing but I'm going to completely debase you." Sounds like a Twitter Mob attack. I guess Ollie really is a Social Justice Warrior.

Oliver and Dinah stop the auction but now they're going to have to hunt down the people behind these slave auctions. Until then, it's time to fuck! Too bad the comic ends before they even kiss. Although it's close!