Green Arrow has been upgraded to a full series! This particular issue, on that note, is being brought to us by the team of writer Joshua Williamson and artists Carmine Di Giandomenico and Trevor Hairsine. When the first issue dropped and turned out in the long run to be everything that I, as a fan, had wanted from the character, I hoped something like this would happen. GA has always been an underdog among DC’s pantheon of greats, and I’m glad he’s once again defied fate and come out on top. Welcome back, Ollie!
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Speaking of welcome backs, that’s sort of what this entire issue is about. Oliver is taking stock of what’s changed since he’s been a while, which serves as a great window into the wider goings on in the DC Universe right now. Again, it kind of reminds me of Kevin Smith’s Quiver storyline back in volume 3, using this chance to catch up new readers about what’s going on at large. It’s also just nice seeing Ollie going around and interacting with people – he’s such a strong personality that doesn’t usually like working with others outside the family (with rare exceptions, like an implied classic team-up with Hal Jordan this issue), so it’s just fun to watch him bounce off other heroes. This ends up being a smokescreen to investigate his paranoid suspicions surrounding Amanda Waller, who has been moving around a lot in the background of this book so far, and of course to question to recent status quo change of the disbanded Justice League.
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Of course, one of the big reveals that blew my mind was the stinger at the end revealing the return of the long-forgotten Kevin Smith created villain Onomatopoeia, a character that’s felt very underused and misused, with us having never really found out what the hell his whole deal is back in Smith’s runs on GA and Batman. He’s been in limbo since Smith has never gone into his backstory much further in a story like he apparently intended. When I said Williamson was drawing heavily upon volume 3 for this run, I never in my life thought he would ride that wave this far. Maybe we’ll finally get an idea of what this fascinating villain’s intentions and history are, or at the very least why he seems to hate Ollie so much.
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The art here is quite good, though I have to admit that I am already missing Sean Izaakse on pencils. I really enjoyed the energy he brought to this book, but thankfully the new artists for this issue are no slouches. In fact, I couldn’t originally even really tell on a quick read through which one is which, which I think is some impressively seamless synergy. Each artist’s individual strengths come through when you slow down and notice which one did which half though, which I think effectively encourages a reread.
This was a great start to the rest of this new series. The opening initial six issues were a great self contained story, but I’m really glad Williamson isn’t going anywhere now that those issues are over. He’s really proven himself as a fantastic storyteller with this character and the notion of a long term run with GA like he had with the Flash has got me beyond excited. Green Arrow will always be one of my favorite characters, so I can rest easy knowing he’s in good hands. Just don’t overwork yourself there, Josh. I know how many books you’re writing right now. Godspeed (not that one), and here’s to many, many adventures with ol’ Green Jeans to come!
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