DC ROUND-UP: GREEN ARROW #1…Ollie shoots what kind of arrow?!

THIS WEEK: The Green Arrow main title returns to DC Comics for the first time since 2019, with a new Green Arrow #1. Plus, Action Comics #1054, Sandman Universe Dead Boy Detectives #5, and Unstoppable Doom Patrol #2!

Note: the reviews below contain spoilers. If you want a quick, spoiler-free buy/pass recommendation on the comics in question, check out the bottom of the article for our final verdict.

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Green Arrow #1

Writer: Joshua Williamson
Artist: Sean Izaakse
Colorist: Romulo Fajardo, Jr.
Letterer: Troy Peteri

This week marks the return of a Green Arrow solo-headlined comic for the first time since 2019, with the character having appeared in events, the Justice League comic, and even an odd couple miniseries, Aquaman/Green Arrow: Deep Target. And I, for one, am very happy that a Green Arrow-focused book is back.

This week’s new comic kicks-off a limited series, the sort of thing that in today’s market could be a one-and-done, or could lead to an extension (see Poison Ivy) or maybe even a follow-up mini at some point next year (and! just read in Josh Williamson’s newsletter that the book is now being extended from 6 to 12 issues, so that’s a cool thing…). It also finds Oliver Queen and his support cast in the middle of sort of an unorthodox status quo. At least, unorthodox in the sense of where a new #1 comic would typically pick-up from. Essentially, following the events of Dark Crisis, the old Emerald Archer is a bit lost…

 

As such, the issue opens with a self-aware gag — Oliver washes up on an island, but before he can finish lamenting Not again!, he looks up and realizes he has landed on a very different sort of island (see the art below…). I think fundamentally, there are two ways to approach Green Arrow. Or at least, two ways that consistently prove most effective. The first is grounding the character, having him and his social consciousness take on issues of the day, culled straight from the headlines, which can (and in some of the best-ever stories does — see the 1987 – 1994 run by Mike Grell) keep him as a sort of street level character.

This new miniseries is not that book. It goes the other way. And that path is to sort of juxtapose Green Arrow with the more fantastical elements of the DC Universe. This approach has its roots in the Green Lantern / Green Arrow: Hard-Traveling Heroes stories by Dennis O’Neil and Neal Adams. Those comics hit on how effective it can be to put a regular, albeit powerfully dogmatic guy with a bow and arrow up against a superpowered structure that can run counter to both his views and his lack of fantastical abilities. It was maybe most-famously extended in the much-loved Justice League Unlimited animated series.

This new book, as noted above, opts to take the latter path. At least with Oliver Queen, sending him off through the multiverse (maybe? the true nature of what’s going on with him is a bit obscured, which is the point). And I really enjoyed the segments with Oliver wading through all of that. These segments are almost used as a framing device. We get one at the start, and another at the end. In between the comic focuses on the extended supporting cast that Oliver has accrued over the years (no Eddie Fyers sighting…yet), namely on Roy Harper, Connor Hawke, and Black Canary. Indeed, the dramatic heart of this first issue isn’t even really Oliver being gone. No, it’s actually around Roy and his daughter.

But what the book does really well is find interesting ways to connect that with Oliver’s plight. And that’s what works the best for me in this first issue. It’s kind of a packed book, but writer Josh Williamson and the rest of the creative team does a great job making sure everything is working in tandem together, giving us a holistic and interesting view of all these characters and what’s going on with them. Plus, it’s not above leaning into some of the most fun aspects of the character (to answer my question from the hopefully-attention-grabbing headline…Oliver shoots a freaking chainsaw arrow).

Of course, none of this works without artist Sean Izaakse (colored here by Romulo Fajardo, Jr.) whose stylish and clean linework is a fantastic fit for a set of characters who have never looked so sleek. The scene with the aforementioned chainsaw arrow is also a visual highlight here. I’m really excited (and hopeful) for this team to lay down my all-time favorite Green Arrow visual…a bad guy who has just been absolutely peppered with arrows and has shafts sticking out all over. 

Anyway, all told this is an interesting return for Green Arrow, one that sort puts the character at the center of the happenings in the wider DC Universe while also going all in on including the generational supporting cast.

Verdict: BUY

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The Round-Up

• I have said it before and I will say it again (and probably again…and again…) but Chris Burnham is essentially the ideal Doom Patrol artist, and his work (colored by Brian Reber) makes for another great issue with Unstoppable Doom Patrol #2. This one does something I absolutely love in superhero team books — gives us a diagram of the team’s headquarters. On top of that, the scripting by Dennis Culver serves up some nice tension between characters (namely, Dr. Caulder and The Cheif) as well as an ending twist I won’t spoil even a little bit here. This book, which is lettered by Pat Brosseau, has been excellent so far.
• A thing I am really enjoying about DC’s current Superman line is that it hasn’t thrown the baby out with the bath water, so to speak. It is moving forward with a great new run in the flagship Superman title, but at the same time, it has allowed the most recent Superman storylines to continue (and be built upon) with periphery books. The overarching result is a set of Superman comics that feel very vibrant and coherent. This week’s Action Comics #1054 continues to explore the fallout of the War World storylines that dominated any and all Clark Kent stories for all of last year. And it’s doing so while lining up with what’s happening in the main title, too. It’s just another great Superman comic this week, with a set of interesting backup stories too. The creative team on the main story here is writer Phillip Kennedy Johnson, artist Max Raynor, colorist Matt Herms, and letterer Dave Sharpe. The Jon Kent backup is written and penciled by Dan Jurgens, inked by Norm Rapmund, colored by Elizabeth Breitweiser, and lettered by Rob Leigh. Finally, the new Steel backup is written by Dorado Quick, illustrated by Yasmin Flores Montanez, colored by Brad Anderson, and lettered by Sharpe. 
• Finally, Sandman Universe Dead Boy Detectives #5 goes all in on having a close focus for its characters, and the book is all the better for it. This has been a really macabre and creepy series so far, with chilling imagery and an almost-matter-of-fact treatment of how the principal characters experience death and being dead. In this fifth issue, the team continues to do all of that well. It feels a little unheralded, but between this title and the just-returned Sandman Universe Nightmare Country – The Glass House, it’s sort of banner time for follow-ups set in the world of Neil Gaiman’s utter classic. This book is written by Pornsak Pichetshote, illustrated by Jeff Stokely and Craig Taillefer, inked by Stokely, colored by Miquel Muerto, and lettered by Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou. 

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