Green Arrow #8 Review – Return to The Blue Lagoon
Ask, and ye shall receive. The last few issues of Green Arrow have been about Emiko Queen and her familial problems in the Japanese underworld. While it was an interesting story, I am here to read about the Green Arrow and not his sister. It’s time to get back to Mr. Goatee. And thankfully with issue #8, we do. I also commented on last night’s podcast that I was hoping the tease of Ollie and Dinah on the cover was real, and it is indeed real. Almost a little overkill.
I know; you just can’t keep me happy.
Following the catastrophic events of several issues ago, Oliver washes up on a deserted island. He doesn’t know where Emiko, Diggle, or Dinah are. But he can’t think about it too much as he’s too busy surviving. There are actually bears on this island, and they’re as hungry as he is. Just as he’s about to give up looking for a bright side, Black Canary appears out of nowhere. She even asks if she can be his bright side. I love these two as a couple, but I threw up in my mouth a little bit.
There’s no talking about where she’s been, how she found him, nothing. It’s straight to naked town for them, which they revisit a few times in this one issue. Even better than the two of them staying together is the return of joking Ollie!
Finally, some semblance that Green Arrow is keeping some roots and ties to his past character. I may stick with this series a little longer!
But this island isn’t another Blue Lagoon scenario for them. Shady characters also reside on the island with robot bears, and one such robot bear has dragged in Diggle. We definitely have some adventure ahead in upcoming issues.
My biggest complaint with this issue is in the writing. It’s not terrible or even bad by any stretch of the means. But at one point, it jumps to a conversation that doesn’t flow with the art. Right after the panel above, Ollie suddenly makes a joke about a scar on Black Canary’s body, cracking that she was fighting Catwoman at the time. Dinah responds that she already told him it was nothing. In the panel with this conversation, we can’t see what scar he’s talking about. I flipped back through the book to see if you could see a scar in other panels. I couldn’t find anything. Also, when did he ask her about this scar before and she told him it was nothing? I searched in back issues for such discussion topic, and I couldn’t find one. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t matter that there’s no definitive point in the series where they talked about one of her many scars. It could have come up during pillow talk or pre-pillow talk. The problem I have is how sudden this topic comes up. If it was never talked about before, then why not have the art reflect what scar he’s talking about? It’s incredibly abrupt and breaks all cohesion.
This is a first since I started reading Green Arrow Rebirth in that I’m happy with what I read, even though there wasn’t too much action. I think the moral of the story is we need more Black Canary and less Emiko. Less Emiko means less emo teenage angst. And perhaps we also need less Oliver Queen and more Green Arrow. Ollie is a bit of a douche.
Author: Benjamin Percy
Artists: Juan E. Ferreyra and Otto Schmidt
Publication Date: 10/5/2016
Publisher: DC Comics
Acquired via Purchase
