Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities Green Arrow

Wow! This just in! So I guess Giffen/Jurgens were fill-ins? Ann's run on DD was a classic, so DC has my attention, at least!

J'adore Nocenti!
I guess I'll be givin' this title another shot.

Also thrilled! Love Nocenti and have been hoping for her to do a nice long run on a comic for years! Green Arrow seems like a perfect fit for her among DC's characters!

Wow, this is kind of a big deal here. DC's bringing not only sexy back but lots of long-lost creators!

Issue #2: pretty much more of the same, Ollie fighting a jet-setting gang who do snuff videos on youtube and create general mayhem. We learn that Q-Corp was Ollie's father's company. Ollie shoots hoops with an NBA star, has another run-in with the boss, and shows off some high-tech gear.

I spent most of the issue trying to imagine how his bow retracts to such a compact form.

At this point, Oliver Queen is a young version of Bruce Wayne without the psycho angst (as far as we know) - rich vigilante, no super-powers, lots of physical training and tech. He seems to view his Green Arrow as more of a game than a focused mission like Batman.

While #2 was almost exactly the same as #1, I kind of liked it a bit more for some reason. I'm really digging the artwork, so perhaps seeing Ollie in action against a wide variety of new super villains did it for me.

I'm really just eagerly awaiting Nocenti's arrival (someone should tell Fanfie!), but I'm hoping these issues still give me some enjoyment. I think Krul has one more and then Giffen joins Jurgens, so that should be a fun few issues too.

A little birdie did tell me, Cobie, and I'm guardedly optimistic.

What I liked about Ann's Daredevil was the way she mixed supernatural elements into the crime drama. Don't know if Green Arrow will afford her the chance to do that, but we shall see. I'm certainly intrigued by what her take on Ollie will be.

Ann Nocenti\'s views on Ollie

I have to say, at first I thought she was being a bit harsh, but I quickly came around to agreeing with her. Now I'm really looking forward to her arrival.

Wow, I'm surprised I'm not seeing more reactions to Nocenti's comments!

Well, I didn't find her harsh at all, I pretty much agreed with her as well. Don't know if I'll enjoy her swashbuckler version, unless she has Ollie learning a lot of tough lessons. At this point, he's young and full of potential. As Nocenti said, he needs chutzpah to carry off his Green Arrow game; however, we learned in Red Hood that he ripped off Roy Harper, so maybe he has too much chutzpah. Not that I'd want that changed, I'd just like to see him tempered, matured, deepened over time - for me, that's where the interest is in the Green Arrow character. If he just stays a swashbuckler, yawn.

FC, Nocenti put Daredevil through some VERY tough, life-altering lessons, so I have faith she'll do the same for Green Arrow.

I really wish Marvel would collect her entire DD run, instead of just the Typhoid Mary arc and the early issues of the road trip arc. I've said this in another thread, but it was the closest Marvel came in the late 80s to publish its own equivalent of DC's proto-Vertigo books.

Gotta love a DD writer who pits him against Mephisto!

Nocenti's DD run is my Dad's favorite in the characters history (including Miller and even Wally Wood) so her return to comics may be enough for him to read Green Arrow!

Lardy, yes indeed! It made perfect sense, and I'm sure other writers were tempted to do it before, but it was Nocenti who took the plunge and made a triumphant achievement.

Cobie, your Dad rocks!!

Man! I wish I had some idea where I've stored my old DDs! I'd LOVE to reread Nocenti's run. I remember how friggin' AWESOME that Inferno(?) tie-in was! The rest of the "event" was pretty shitty, but that double-sized Nocenti-written issue was TerRIFfic!

Fickles (which, btw, is SO much better than "Fanfie"! ), did you like Romita Jr.'s art at that point? I recall you've been outspoken about your distaste for his blocky style that debuted around that run and continues to this day.

Lardy, I think JR Jr's style worked perfectly for Daredevil, particularly with the kind of moody, creepy, atmospheric scripts Nocenti was writing. It's when he tries to do straight-ahead superheroics, like his second Uncanny X-Men run or his recent Avengers run, that I think he fails utterly.

Totally agree on the Inferno tie-ins BTW.

I recall he drew Mephisto differently than ANYone else--very creepy and otherworldly! I'd liken it to Simonson's reimagining of Surtur in his classic thor run. Too bad both depictions fell by the wayside....

Again, I totally agree. His Mephisto was like something out of a nightmare, where most Mephisto interpretations are utterly lacking in menace (excepting John Buscema, who drew Mephisto's first appearance.)

Guys, I have a question.

I'm not truly sure of all the details, but, I read that Green Arrow was raped by the woman called Shado, and everyone treated it like Ollie cheated on Black Canary.

Then, in the Blackest Night issue, did they retcon it as consensual sex?

Pretty sure that wasn't rape, Sarky. IIRC, it was basically Ollie being Ollie.

Thats how I remember it too.

Given how that era of GA did not shy away from that topic, there wouldnt be that much ambiguity.

I think he was injured or something, and she was caring for him while he healed up and....baung-chikka-WAOW-WAOW!

Thats why Ollie always gets injured!

Ollie was delirious from pain medications and so on at the time he first had sex with Shado, so the quality of his consent is questionable (hence the 'rape' interpretation).

One thing that's always bugged me about fandom's view of Ollie in the 90s was that he was a cheat on Dinah. Critics of the character always use that fault to disparage him but until that hack Judd Winick came along YEARS after the rumor started and had him cheat with Black Lightning's niece, Ollie had never actually done so.

The closest he ever got was the Shado 'rape' and a moment at a party when a teen stalker named Maryanne kissed him by surprise (which, in grand soap opera fashion, also happened to be the moment Dinah walked in and saw them).

You'd think a new Green Arrow writer would take the opportunity to put that malicious rumor to rest and build the character up. But no, Judd Winick never met a DC character he couldn't damage in some way so in his very first story with the character he goes out of his way to turn a false accusation against Ollie into a true one in the most sensationalistic way possible. And then the army of Green Arrow haters (of which there seem to be a lot, especially if you hang out on a Birds of Prey board) had even more reason to hate him. Gee, thanks Judd.

Judd Winick & Green Arrow = when bad writing happens to good characters.

Shado and Ollie had a definite connection. While I don't have perfect recall of the story in question, it seemed inevitable that something like this would eventually happen between them. In any case I don't ever recall Ollie ever expressing that he was violated. He definitely felt guilt over its implications for him and Dinah, though.

(Winnick certainly ran with the womanizing take, though.)