Golden Age Red Arrow

I repainted and rebased an old Golden Age Green Arrow HeroClix figure into a generic archer. The lines are cleaner than they look at this sky. 
 

Green Arrow Misses the Mark

 

Arrow Strikes Home

Arrow has had its ups and downs over its eight-year journey, from the heights of the early seasons to the lows of the middle seasons to its final course corrections in its final years. Arrow's eighth and final season was devoted mostly to serving as the lead-in to the ambitious Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover, and that role reinvigorated the show with new storytelling techniques and the highest possible stakes to keep the action and drama taut and exciting. While the final season stumbled with its dreadful penultimate episode, a backdoor pilot to yet another spinoff, the show's finale features all the best elements of the series - its character building and its exploration of what it means to be a good person - combined with a well-earned, bittersweet happy ending for all concerned. It's also chock full of cameos from seasons past, and it all feels very organic and authentic. The final episode also teases what's to come in Arrow's world even though we won't get to see it all onscreen, but those teases, and one in particular, should delight fans of the show and the world it's created.

Plenty of television shows leave their fans with weak finales that make us feel like we wasted years investing our time. Arrow's finale leaves us glad we stuck with the show. 

DC Editor for a Day

Let's say, for some insane reason, DC Comics decided to give me editorial control over their line of comic book titles, but only to the extent that I could create a slate of comics based strictly on existing characters.  

Well, I'd create the line that I would want to read, without regard for sales viability. Here's what it would look like, imagining that each title has an incredible creative team: 

 

Superman Books

Action Comics (anthology led by Superman, just the way it started back in 1938)

DC Comics Presents (Superman team-up stories)

Lana Lang (Lana Lang, on-again off-again girlfriend of Clark Kent, goes on archeological adventures from Qurac to Skartaris to Atlantis) 

Lex Luthor (diabolical tales of Lex Luthor's infamies great and small) 

Lois Lane: Woman of Steel (Lois Lane's adventures as a brave, bold reporter) 

Man of Tomorrow (Superman's adventures with the adult Legion of Super-Heroes)

Man of Steel (Superman's adventures as a radical 

The Private Life of Clark Kent (Clark Kent's day-to-day adventures in journalism, dating, grocery shopping, etc.) 

Supergirl (stories of Kara Zor-El, Superman's cousin) 

Superman (Superman's main title, with his biggest adventures)

Young Clark Kent (Clark Kent's life in Smallville, as his powers were developing; frequently crosses over with Legion of Super-Heroes, below)

Batman Books

Batgirl (the adventures of congresswoman Barbara Gordon, AKA Batgirl, in Washington, DC)

Batman (Batman's main title, two-fisted street crime adventures) 

The Brave and the Bold (Batman team-up stories) 

Legends of the Dark Knight (Batman stories told from the perspective of his villains) 

Detective Comics (anthology led by Batman, just the way it started; detective stories) 

Team Books

Birds of Prey (Batgirl, Black Canary, Huntress, and Hawk and Dove fight street-level crime) 

Blackhawks! (a squad of pilots from around the world fly into danger wherever they can find it!) 

Doom Patrol (DP members from all incarnations of the team gather to fight the weirdest threats ever) 

Freedom Fighters (the heroes of Earth X have freed their world from tyranny, only to be stranded in ours!) 

Gorilla Soldiers (Congorilla, Detective Chimp, Beppo the Super Monkey, Angel and the Ape, and xx versus their arch-rivals the Ultra-Humanite, Gorilla Grodd, Titano the Super-Ape, and Monsieur Mallah and the Brain.)  

The Haunted Tank (ghostly adventures in World War II) 

Justice League of America (DC's greatest heroes team up to face the biggest threats) 

Justice Society of America (the greatest heroes of the 1930s and 40s fight the Nazis and other fascists and mad scientists) 

Legion of Substitute Heroes (good-hearted Legion rejects try to do the right thing despite their shortcomings) 

Legion of Super-Heroes (dozens of super-powered teenagers of the 31st century explore the galaxy and combat interstellar evil)

Secret Society of Super-Villains (super-villains work in secret, hatching sinister conspiracies to rule the world--but can they avoid killing each other?) 

Suicide Squad (super-villains and anti-heroes reluctantly work together under threat of government sanction, performing secret missions so dangerous that not everyone comes back alive)

Suicide Squad Secret Missions (Suicide Squad anthology)  

Tales of the Green Lantern Corps (anthology series about the non-Terran Green Lanterns) 

Titans (generations of sidekicks work together to prove themselves) 

The Other Heroes

Animal Man

Aquaman

The Atoms (scientists Ray Palmer and Ryan Choi explore the microverse) 

Black Canary

Black Lightning

Blue Beetle

Captain Atom

Elongated Man (back to the original concept, the Nick and Nora Charles of the superhero world; lighthearted mysteries of the jet set) 

Fury of Firestorm (Ron Raymond and Martin Stein take back the Firestorm matrix - but they're not happy about it!) 

Flash Legacy (anthology of stories of the fastest men and women alive, from World War II to the far future) 

Green Arrow

Green Lantern

Hawks (the adventures of Katar and Shayera Hol, police officers of Thanagar) 

Hellblazer

Red Tornado

Shazam! and the Marvel Family

Swamp Thing
Vixen and Bronze Tiger (solo adventures of the Suicide Squad team-mates) 

Wonder Woman

Zatanna

A pretty solid selection of titles--at least from my selfish perspective. 

Arrow Straightens Out

I must say, season seven (seven already?) of Arrow opened with promise: the characters act in reasonable ways with believable motivations, the stakes are high and yet grounded, the action choreography is excellent, and the cast, given better material, seems more engaged. The Flash also premiered strong last week, showing many of the same strengths but with a stronger focus on lighthearted moments, which is entirely appropriate for that show. Supergirl, too, had a strong, topical opening, featuring the welcome return of Lynda Carter as the President of the United States (if only!). Things are looking up in the Arrowverse this year...

The Moonhaulers

When I first saw this calendar sometime back in 1977, I'm sure my face fell in slack-jawed wonder. Some villain had knocked the moon out of its orbit, and only the Justice League (and Supergirl) could put it back in its rightful place! The concept is ludicrous, but the great Neal Adams somehow makes it work. Those kilometres-long harnesses bolted across the face of the moon are wonderful, and look at the strain on the faces of Superman and Supergirl. Adams totally sells it. Everyone has a role to play; presumably Green Lantern is either shoring up the harnesses so they don't snap, or helping push; possibly both. Wonder Woman is using her lasso to help arrest the Moon's fall, even though in this era she couldn't fly under her own power, so I'm not sure what's going on there. Compared to the titans putting all their godlike energy into the effort, Hawkman's Thanagarian police cruiser probably isn't adding much thrust to the package, but all for one and one for all. I suppose Aquaman, Green Arrow and Black Canary are on board to provide damage control if the ship blows some fuses.

As for Batman, well...thanks for coming out, Bruce, but standing there and yelling "Push! Harder!" can't be that helpful in this situation.

Not Green Arrow's Finest Moment

While Superman has long been one of my favourite comic book characters - if not the favourite - I often prefer the stories featuring second-tier characters such as Green Arrow (aka Oliver Queen) and Black Canary (aka Dinah Lance), mostly because it seems like the writers and artists feel more comfortable taking chances and exploring the boundaries of the medium.

For example, during the "Dollar Comic" era of World's Finest, when each issue was super-sized and featured a half-dozen characters in four different stories, I looked forward to the Black Canary/Green Arrow stories most, because I enjoyed their tempestuous relationship.

When I first read this issue - #253, cover-dated November 1978 - I was only nine years old, and I thought Black Canary was being kind of mean to her boyfriend. I took their argument at face value, missing the nuance entirely, because I hadn't learned about the birds and the bees yet...nor the menstrual cycle:

"This Earth 2 deal, going home, finding yourself, all of it's part of the mood you get in. A few days, you'll be over it." 

"Do you seriously think my problems are biological? That I'm like a faucet you can turn on and off?" 

It seems pretty clear to me that Oliver is attributing Dinah's current feelings to her period - edgy stuff for a comic book allegedly targeted at kids! From an adult perspective, Green Arrow's dismissive behaviour is revealed as almost hilariously sexist and blockheaded; my sympathies now lie entirely with Dinah. No wonder their on-again, off-again relationship didn't work out in the end.

Arrow Continues to Surprise

Given the genre's history, one can hardly blame television viewers with reasonably sophisticated tastes to expect much from shows about super-heroes. Sure, The Adventures of Superman was fun kiddie fare and The Flash provided some reasonable action-adventure thrills. But for the most part, live-action superhero television has ranged from embarrassing to abysmal.

To my complete shock, the CW's Arrow is far more ambitious than I ever expected. The show uses a standard trope: man has traumatic experience and becomes a better person for it, vowing to fight for justice so others won't suffer as he did. And while much of Arrow does indeed focus on the crimefighting exploits of its titular hero, the show runners place as much or more emphasis on the consequences of Oliver Queen's choices, particularly in tonight's episode, the appropriately-titled "Damaged."

In "Damaged," Oliver Queen weaves an elaborate web of lies to convince his friends, family and enemies that he is not, in fact, the masked avenger killing bad guys with arrows. The scheme works, but in the process Oliver lies to his mother and stepfather, his ex-girlfriend, her father, his little sister, his best friend and, in fact, all of his peers save the one man he's taken into his confidence: his bodyguard Diggle, who he puts in harm's way to accomplish his goals.

In a surprisingly mature and moving coda to the episode, Diggle berates Oliver for his lies even as viewers are presented with a montage of scenes showing how Oliver's choices - dating back to those he made before and during his shipwreck - have damaged himself and his loved ones. Though the show's protagonist, Oliver lies without apology over and over, and he is a master of deceit, playing on the sympathies of those closest to him to hide his dark secret. Meanwhile Quentin Lance, Oliver's ex-girlfriend's father, is determined to put Oliver in jail because he rightly suspects him of being the vigilante and the murderer. Oliver even hires Laurel Lance, his ex, to defend him in court, betraying her trust in two ways - as an ex-lover and as a client.

Meanwhile we find out that Oliver's stepfather seems to be a decent man, while his mother is somehow in league with the criminals on Oliver's master list of bad guys - a very neat reversal of cliche that's wringing further emotional drama from an already tortured cast of characters.

Indeed, the tragedy approaches Shakespearean levels as Quentin is forced not only to save Oliver's life, but to drop all charges against him because Oliver's scheme to exonerate himself worked. Frustrated beyond belief and still grieving over the death of his other daughter (Laurel's sister), a death he blames with some justification on Queen, Quentin winds up mourning and drunk at a local bar and has to be half-carried home by Laurel.

None of this sounds particularly compelling when hastily summarized, nor does it capture even a fraction of the episode's pathos. This isn't drama on the level of The Wire or Breaking Bad, but for a show about a masked vigilante it is surprisingly mature and challenging. It may be the most realistic show about superheroes ever made, at least when it comes to the legal, physical and psychological consequences of vigilantism. 

To-the-Point Review of Arrow

Arrow premiered on the CW last night. I watched with low expectations but was nonetheless pleasantly surprised by what turned out to be an above-average hour of derring-do and angst-ridden super-hero drama.

Adapting the decades-old story of second-string DC character Green Arrow, Arrow's pilot tells the hero's origin in effective flashback form, adding just enough elements to freshen the familiar plot. In short, billionaire heir Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) is stranded on a Pacific island for five years, forced to turn himself into a hunter to survive, and returns to the United States to take over the family business. There are hints that Queen's father, who didn't survive the shipwreck that marooned his son, was involved in some shady dealings - affairs that Queen the younger wants to put back in their proper order.

As might be expected from the youth-skewing CW network, Arrow features a gaggle of improbably sexy actors; fortunately, the feature players have the acting chops to imbue their characters with the necessary charisma and empathy to keep viewers watching for more than the eye candy. Oliver's ex, (Dinah) Laurel Lance (Katie Cassidy), is particularly appealing as a crusading young lawyer, and it's nice to see former Borg queen Susanna Thompson as Oliver's mom, Moira Queen.

The pilot's plot is straightforward, but I have to give the creators credit for catching me off guard with a significant twist late in the game. I'm not caught by surprise that often, and it's always pleasant to have dramatic expectations overturned.

For a superhero show, the physics of Oliver's feats are nearly plausible; as the titular Arrow, he uses a combination of parkour, fisticuffs and his facility with the bow to accomplish his goals. Director David Nutter gives the fight scenes room to breathe, and the editing is refreshingly clear, free of the recent disagreeable trend that reduces action scenes to a series of incomprehensible jump cuts and closeups. There's an art to stunt work, and it's nice to see these performers shine.

When compared to the CW's most famous super-hero drama, the recently concluded Smallville, Arrow is a more serious, more adult show, with less annoying characters and a protagonist who's already better drawn than Smallville's Clark Kent ever was, even after only one episode.

Arrow doesn't hit the bulls-eye, but it doesn't fly wildly off-target, either. I'll continue watching to see if its aim improves.

JLExicon

Click to embiggen...

From Justice League of America #69, cover-dated February, 1969 (my birth month, oddly enough). How sad that these super-heroes feel the need to belittle the vocabulary of their foes. You'd think pounding them to a pulp would be punishment enough.

The Arrow of His Ways

Green Arrow has a lot of tricks up his quiver, and some of them even make sense. I can see how a flare arrow could come in handy for a super hero; if Green Arrow ever gets lost, he can simply shoot up a flare and one of his Justice League pals, or at least a forest ranger, will come running. A dry ice arrow could be employed to create a fog to befuddle foes. A two-stage rocket arrow could be used to launch a small satellite, or maybe an ICBM. (Hey, in comic books, the implausible is commonplace.)

But...a balloon arrow? A BOOMERANG ARROW? Yeah, that's what I want - an arrow that will turn around and impale me instead of the bad guy.

And why oh why is Green Arrow carrying around a fountain pen arrow? Are his skills so incredible that he can actually shoot this arrow and cause it to write something legible on the the target? Not only that, but why a fountain pen? He'd have to pause and dip it in an inkwell before firing. Wouldn't a ballpoint pen arrow make more sense?

I can only think of one possible dramatic use for this arrow: upon his induction into the Justice League, Superman must have said, "Welcome to the JLA, GREEN ARROW! To make your membership official, you must sign the OATH OF FEALTY!"

To which Green Arrow would have replied, "That's a cinch, SUPERMAN! With my trusty FOUNTAIN PEN ARROW, I can sign the document with just the flick of my bowstring!" Naturally, these words would have gushed forth in the instant it took Green Arrow to loose the arrow in question.

"Holy John Hancock!" Flash would say.