This week: Look behind you, it’s Absolute Green Arrow #1 … and it is MAD. Plus, are we reading the best Nightwing comic ever? And more!
Note: The reviews below may contain spoilers.
Absolute Green Arrow #1
Writer: Pornsak Pichetshote
Artist: Rafael Albuquerque
Colorist: Marcelo Maiolo
Letterer: Jeff Powell
Part of the remit for the Absolute Universe, as I’ve come to understand it, was to push the concepts of the characters to the their extremes, both in terms of plots and thematic material. If doing that was indeed one of the goals of Absolute Green Arrow #1, it has succeeded, wildly. This is a book wherein successful business man Oliver Queen was murdered (as seen in October’s Absolute Evil #1), and now someone is using a bow and arrow to exact revenge upon those who in life had done Queen wrong — and that someone looks a whole lot like the Green Arrow character we’ve seen in the regular DC Universe for years and years.
This is the high concept for Absolute Green Arrow #1, and it’s given shape by first issue that closely follows the Absolute Universe’s Dinah Lance, who was once a Star City police officer, and then later a rising-star MMA fighter, known as the Black Canary, naturally. When we meet her in this first issue, she’s now a down-on-her-luck elite body guard, caring for a sick father who needs insurance and financial support past insurance, bad.
That all sounds pretty typical of the Absolute Universe so far, and it sure is. Which is not a criticism nor a compliment, but rather just a note to say this book fits with the rest of the line. What is a major compliment is that this debut is up there with the best of the Absolute debut issues so far, right alongside Batman and Martian Manhunter (my other favorite Absolute starts).
Part of what I liked so much about this comic is that it’s palpably furious. Part of the Green Arrow mythos that has never sat right with me is Oliver Queen being ultra wealthy. I’ve always found it a bit lazy, and so it’s no surprise that my personal favorite Green Arrow run, the Mike Grell era, does with the concept all together, just making Queen a guy who lives in his girlfriend’s flower shop. But this comic has me reconsidering my distaste for it, putting Queen’s wealth at the center of the story in a very interesting way.
Not to spoil too much, but Queen is a bit of an atypical billionaire in this world. He’s flashy and successful sure, but he generally acts magnanimous and is not obsessed with wealth nor domination, and certainly not with bending the world to his will. He is, however, surrounded by folks who are…and so he’s murdered for being a problem.
It’s such a perfect setup for a Green Arrow-tinged murder revenge story, giving us a killer who is massively punching up, going against the best security teams money can buy to get to his pray. And he’s also motivated by savagery, making the choice of the bow and arrow make more sense (doubly so since the company Queen helped found in this one is called Green Arrow).
That’s all very good, and the choice to give us a close third-person POV with Dinah Lance elevates us further, adding a sense that what seems to pretty obviously be going on…might not actually be what’s going on. The end result is a comic loaded with reference to a familiar mythos that is hellbent on doing something new, something angry and topical and intriguing as all hell.
And the creative team is working so well together to do it. Right or wrong, I tend to think of both artist Rafael Albuquerque and colorist Marcelo Maiolo as creators who more comfortable operate in sunnier modes, but they nail the gritty, ominousness called for by writer Pornsak Pichetshote’s tense script. And it’s all tied together wonderfully by letterer Jeff Powell.
I can’t wait to see how the team will continue to unravel this mystery moving forward. Finally, I know why you read this far, and the answer is no there are not trick arrows in this book, but there are arrows that carry grenades.
The Round-Up
Superman Unlimited — which is somehow already on its 13th issue — continues to be an absolute blast as it participates in the line-wide Reign of the Superboys story that’s happening right now. I love that this book is taking some of the silliest and most fun parts of Superman’s world just seriously enough, and doing it with episodic storytelling. I mean, look at this cover: The Monkey of Steel. It’s great. This current arc seems to be teasing a de-aging of Jon Kent, and I don’t know that I really like that all that much. Just pick an age already, you know? Here’s hoping it’s just a tease. This issue is from writer Dan Slott, artist Lucas Meyer, colorist Giuliano Peratelli, and letterer Dave Sharpe.- It occurred to me while reading Nightwing #138 that we might be in the midst of the best Nightwing run ever. A smart and thoughtful take on the character that gives him different battles to fight than his mentor, Batman. And this arc is its high-point so far, seeing regular series writer Dan Watters (who has a very high floor for the quality of his books) and legendary penciller Denys Cowan, inked here by Norm Rapmund and colored by Francesco Segala, with letters by Wes Abbott. This current arc is about a new super highway being built through Nightwing’s city, Bludhaven, and stirring up all kinds of issues, from dormant murderous aliens to the insidious after impacts of poor urban planning. I love it.
- Finally, look I don’t want to belabor this…but Lobo is my least favorite comic DC has published in a good while. I’m not one for the bro-y fourth wall breaking characters generally. The jokes are always just so obvious in these things. Like, I just can’t do Deadpool at all, and this book seems determined to be DC’s answer to Deadpool. I’ve given it three issues, and now I am tapping out.
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