A tie-in to HEROES IN CRISIS puts Ollie firmly against the Justice League as he mourns the death of a friend.
Green Arrow 45
Written by Julie Benson and Shawna Benson
Pencils and Inks by Javier Fernandez
Colors by John Kalisz
We’re entering a weird era within DC Comics, and it’s one we’ve seen before. This issue of GREEN ARROW feels like something that would fit in to the time around the release of Brad Meltzer’s IDENTITY CRISIS. That’s not so strange, because Tom King’s HEROES IN CRISIS feels a lot like that event from 2004.
While Green Arrow led the charge to keep things moving in IDENTITY CRISIS, here Oliver is kind of falling apart with the death of his ward, Roy Harper. The former Speedy is being buried on the Native American reservation, in the spot where he decided to get sober, and Oliver is not handling his death – inside a recovery center for superheroes – very well at all.
In fact, he’s taking shots at Superman, which is just going to end up putting him the hospital with a broken hand if he keeps it up.
It’s a great issue, filled with tons of emotion, and it firmly establishes Oliver Queen as the hothead we all know him to be. He’s angry at everyone – Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, Green Lantern and the whole Justice League – but most importantly, he’s angry with himself, because he wasn’t there for Roy. And when Oliver is angry at himself, he gets angry at everyone, which should make him battle with the Citizen back in Seattle a little bit more even.
And it should make the story the Benson sisters are telling a lot more impactful, because now Oliver is back to being deeply engrained in the fabric of the DC Universe.