Green Arrow
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- For the LNER steam locomotive, see LNER Class V2 4771 Green Arrow
| Green Arrow | |
 Cover to Green Arrow vol. 3, #60 (May 2006). Art by Scott McDaniel |
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| Publication information | |
|---|---|
| Publisher | DC Comics |
| First appearance | More Fun Comics #73 (November 1941) |
| Created by | Mort Weisinger George Papp |
| In story information | |
| Alter ego | Oliver Jonas "Ollie" Queen |
| Team affiliations | Justice League Green Arrows of the World Justice League Elite Queen Industries The Outsiders |
| Notable aliases | The Emerald Archer, Battling Bowman, formerly Mayor Queen |
| Abilities | Master archer; arsenal of trick arrows; Exceptional martial artist Master swordsman |
Green Arrow is a fictional character, published by DC Comics. Created by Mort Weisinger and George Papp, he first appeared in More Fun Comics #73 in 1941. His secret identity is Oliver Queen, billionaire and former mayor of fictional Star City; he is best known to his associates as Ollie.
Dressed like Robin Hood, Green Arrow is an archer, who invents trick arrows with various special functions, such as a glue arrow, a net arrow, explosive arrow, time bomb arrow, grappling arrow, fire extinguishing arrow, flash arrow, tear gas arrow, cryonic arrow, or a boxing-glove arrow.
Throughout his first twenty-five years, Green Arrow was not a significant hero. In the late 1960s, however, writers chose to have him lose his fortune, giving him the then-unique role of streetwise crusader for the working class and the disadvantaged. In 1970, he was paired with the more law-and-order-oriented hero Green Lantern in a groundbreaking, socially conscious comic book series. Since then, he has been popular among comic book fans and most writers have taken an urban, gritty approach to the character.
His son Connor Hawke also used the moniker Green Arrow for a time after the death of Oliver Queen.
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[edit] Conception
[edit] Inspirations
Aside from the obvious allusions to Robin Hood, the Green Arrow character itself was inspired by a few different sources, including Edgar Wallace's novel The Green Archer (and the 1940 Columbia Pictures serial of the same name based on the novel), and Fawcett Publications' earlier archery-themed hero Golden Arrow. A Centaur Publications archer hero named simply Arrow preceded all of these characters. Green Arrow's Arrowcar was yellow in color and shaped reminiscent of the land speed record holder from 1929, the British Golden Arrow. The name Oliver Queen likely alluded to Ellery Queen, a popular fictional detective (and mystery writer) of the time.
Green Arrow was also created as an archery-themed version of the earlier character Batman, as several similarities between the two characters can be spotted, especially in Green Arrow's earlier incarnation: Green Arrow had a teen-aged sidekick named Speedy just as Batman has Robin; Green Arrow and Batman were/are both billionaire playboys in their secret identities; Green Arrow had an Arrowcar and an Arrowplane similar to Batman's Batmobile and Batplane; Green Arrow had the Arrowcave while Batman had the Batcave; Green Arrow was summoned by the Arrow-signal, just as Batman is summoned to police headquarters by the Bat-signal; in the Golden Age stories, Green Arrow had a clown-like archfoe named Bull's-Eye who was a thinly-disguised version of Batman's archfoe, the Joker. Some of these similarities have been explained in-continuity as inspired by a meeting between Green Arrow and Batman in their early careers, after which Green Arrow looked toward Batman as an inspiration (which has been parodied in the story arc "Quiver" when Batman asks whether Ollie ever had "an original idea in his life").
Green Arrow appeared the same month and year (Nov 1941) as another Mort Weisinger creation, The Vigilante. It has been suggested by some fans (most notably Golden Age expert, Tom Lammers) that the two characters were created at the same time as book-ends (i.e. "Cowboys and Indians"). Reading both original series together seems to suggest thematic links which support this theory but there isn't as yet any direct knowledge or statements of those involved that this was Weisinger's intention.
[edit] Secret origins
Green Arrow has had several official "secret origins" attributed to his character, but most versions agree that Oliver Queen began as a wealthy playboy who lived like Robinson Crusoe on a semi-deserted Pacific island, after having been washed overboard during an ocean cruise. Forced to hunt for survival, Queen developed his natural archery skill to a peak level. When criminals (originally pirates, but later changed to drug-runners) came to the island, he captured them and returned to civilization. The Longbow Hunters gives this origin a humorous twist, as Queen recounts that the "drug runners" were two ordinary guys with a small boat growing pot on the island. He claims that when he reached civilization, and the story got out, the media and urban myths trumped it up to something else entirely.
Green Arrow's code against outright killing is established firmly, with the development of trick arrows to subdue or outwit opponents. Perhaps the most mature origins tale came from Mike Grell's four-part 1992 limited series, Green Arrow: The Wonder Year. Grell portrayed Oliver Queen as a thrill-seeker who inherits his family business at a very young age. Changed by his sojourn on the island, Ollie decided to take up crime fighting as a means of rebelling against his responsibilities. During his first adventure in Star City, Oliver Queen meets an old flame, Brianna Stone, a former college radical who warns him if he continued to carry his bow, he would one day have to use it for real. Grell's limited series also established Queen's attraction toward dangerous women.
In the most recent, and current official version of his origin from Andy Diggle and Jock's Green Arrow: Year One, Ollie is a rich, thrillseeking activist, who after a drunken rant at a party goes for a voyage on his yacht with his bodyguard/thrill seeker guide Hackett. He has had some practice as an archer, and is the recent owner of a Howard Hill bow. However, Hackett is working for the leader of a secret and powerful heroin smuggling operation. Hackett leaves Ollie for dead, and he later wakes up on a deserted island. Forced to use his archery skills to survive, he eventually learned of the smuggling operation being housed on the island he had washed up on. Upon learning of the slave like conditions of the inhabitants, he begins to take down the large group of smugglers. He eventually returns to civilization, changed by his experiences on the island. In the final part of the story, Ollie claims that a mutiny or a group of pot dealers could be used as a cover story for his action, making reference to the original origin, as well as Mike Grell's.
A follow up on the mini-series, written by Judd Winick with art by Andre Coelho, explains the detail of Oliver's abandonment of his son Connor on Green Arrow & Black Canary #5 after his return from the island. During this time, Connor was a few weeks old, and Oliver was proud to cradle his newborn son in his arms. However, believing that he's not ready to be a father due to his desire to seek adventure with the archery skills he mastered, he left a significant amount of money for Connor's mother Sandra Hawke and Connor. A few years years later, Green Arrow seeks the Batman's aid to find Connor. Eventually, Hal Jordan would also learn his secret about Connor.
During his early days (and during his time searching for Connor), Oliver Queen befriended a boy living with a Native American tribe, Roy Harper Jr., whom he nicknamed Speedy when the youth collared a criminal before Green Arrow could. Harper eventually becomes Queen's adopted son, as well as Green Arrow's sidekick. Speedy, who would eventually become the grown-up hero Arsenal, battled a heroin addiction in Green Lantern vol. 2, #85-86 (Sept. & Nov. 1971). He now is an active member of the Justice League of America and operates under the name "Red Arrow."
[edit] Oliver and Warlord
Oliver bears a striking resemblance to Mike Grell's Warlord, Travis Morgan. According to an interview with Grell and editor Mike Gold, this began as a joke when someone suggested to Grell that he could only draw one type of character.[citation needed] Grell incorporated the joke into his run on Green Arrow, when Travis Morgan shows up in Seattle in issue #27. After being attacked on sight by half the Seattle underworld population (all of whom mistake him for Green Arrow), Morgan shows up at Queen's house and lands him on his ear, declaring, "Whatever you've been doing to piss these people off... cut it out!!" Finally appearing on-panel together, Grell illustrates that while there is an uncanny resemblance, Travis Morgan is significantly taller than Oliver Queen, and seemingly several years older.
In Aquaman vol. 3, #75, Aquaman accidentally passes through a dimensional portal that leads to Skartaris, the world of Warlord. When he meets Travis Morgan, he mistakes him for Oliver back from the dead (This was during the time Oliver had passed on before he was resurrected by Hal Jordan).
During Kevin Smith's Green Arrow run, during the Quiver story arc, Deadman pokes fun at the resemblance as well.
[edit] Publication history
[edit] Beginnings, 1941–1968
Created in 1941 by writer/editor Mort Weisinger and artist George Papp, who remained with the series for almost twenty years, Green Arrow and Speedy first appeared in More Fun Comics #73 (cover-dated November 1941).
Another Weisinger-created character called Aquaman also appeared for the first time in that issue, and these two back-up features continued to run concurrently in More Fun Comics until the mid-1940s, and then in Adventure Comics from 1946 until 1960. Green Arrow and Speedy also appeared in various issues of World's Finest Comics until issue #140 (1964). The Green Arrow and Speedy feature was one of five back-up features to be promoted in one of the earliest team-up books, Leading Comics.
Green Arrow was one of the few DC characters to keep going after the Golden Age of Comic Books. The longevity of the character was due to the influence of creator Mort Weisinger, who kept Green Arrow and Aquaman as back-up features to the headlining Superboy feature, first in More Fun Comics and then Adventure Comics. Aside from sharing Adventure Comics with him, #258 featured an encounter between a younger Oliver Queen and Superboy. The Green Arrow and Speedy feature had a relatively undistinguished publishing history, though the main exception in this period was a short run in 1958 by artist/writer Jack Kirby.
The character during this period was largely an archery-based imitation of Batman and actually much of his equipment followed suit, having an Arrowplane, Arrowcar, and an Arrowcave. Most of this was dropped with the character's later redesign and they were gone completely by the time he moved to Seattle post-Crisis. Queen developed an "Arrowcave" of sorts starting with Green Arrow vol. 3 #2, in his home. This was destroyed by Dr. Light in Green Arrow vol. 3 #58. The original Arrowcave still exists, and is the last-known location of the monster Solomon Grundy before Infinite Crisis. The character's writers have played with his originally derivative nature when Batman learned of Queen's imitations and responded "Good lord man, didn't you ever have an original idea back then?"
Green Arrow was made the first non-charter member of the Justice League of America in 1959, a team which guaranteed the character being continually featured, in some way or another, until 1998.
[edit] Neal Adams and Dennis O'Neil, 1969–1983
In 1969, artist Neal Adams decided to update the character's visual appearance by giving him a short, goatee-like beard and costume of his own design in Brave and the Bold #85. Inspired by Adams' redesign, writer Dennis O'Neil followed up on Green Arrow's new appearance by completely remaking the character's attitude in the pages of Justice League of America #79 (cover-dated November 1969), giving his personality a rougher edge like that of Marvel Comics' archery-themed hero Hawkeye. This revision was explained by having Oliver Queen lose his fortune and become an outspoken and strident advocate of the underprivileged in society and the political left wing. For instance, he once saved a child's dog playing in a railyard, but instead of feeling satisfaction, he brooded on the larger problem of how the child had nowhere in the city to play safely. As O'Neil explained: "He would be a hot-tempered anarchist to contrast with the cerebral, sedate model citizen who was the Green Lantern."[1] Incidentally, in the lettercolumn of Brave and the Bold #82, a fan suggested that when Green Arrow appears in the team-up book next that he should be acknowledged as basically a copy of Batman. The editor responded that when G.A. did return, they would consider examining or even revising the character.
In short, he became a kind of superheroic hybrid between Robin Hood and Abbie Hoffman.[original research?] In addition, the Green Arrow began a long running romantic relationship with Black Canary (Dinah Laurel Lance). As a member of the Justice League, he became an argumentative figure who often acted as the team's political conscience.
In the early 1970s, he became a co-feature with Green Lantern (aka Hal Jordan) in the latter's series in an acclaimed, but short-lived series of stories by O'Neil and Adams that dealt with various social and political issues in which Green Arrow spoke for the left-wing while Green Lantern was an establishment conservative figure, half-heartedly serving existing institutions of government and law. Where Oliver Queen advocated direct action, Hal Jordan wanted to work within the system; where Queen advocated social change, Jordan was more concerned about dealing with criminals. Each would find their beliefs challenged by the other. Queen convinced Jordan to see beyond his strict obedience to the Green Lantern Corps, to help those who were neglected or discriminated against. The duo embarked on a quest to find America, witnessing the corruption, racism, pollution, and overpopulation confronting the nation. Writer Denny O'Neil even took on current events, such as the Manson Family cult murders, in issues #78-79 ("A Kind of Loving") where Black Canary falls briefly under the spell of a false prophet who advocates violence.
It was during this period that the most famous Green Arrow story appeared, in Green Lantern vol. 2, #85-86, when it was revealed that Green Arrow's ward Speedy was addicted to heroin. In his zeal to save America, Oliver Queen had failed in his personal responsibility to Speedy — who would overcome his addiction with the help of Black Canary. This story prompted a congratulatory letter from the mayor of New York, John Lindsay. Unfortunately, the series did not match commercial expectations, perhaps because of its mature topics, and Neal Adams had trouble with deadlines, causing issue #88 to be an unscheduled reprint issue; the series was cancelled with issue #89 (April-May 1972).
The duo were moved to the back-up feature in The Flash, issues #217 through #219. The socially-relevant themes would continue, as the story opens with Ollie killing a criminal (albeit accidentally). Ollie shed himself of the remaining trappings of his super-heroic life (including crashing the Arrowplane into a mountain) and withdrew to an ashram monastery. He would find no peace there, and returned to the outside world at the request of Hal and Dinah. This storyline would prove very important to the character in the 1990s. After this three-part story, Green Lantern continued as a solo back-up in The Flash, while Green Arrow's solo stories began appearing in Action Comics.
In 1976, the Green Lantern title was re-launched starring both Hal Jordan and Ollie Queen, and the Green Arrow/Green Lantern partnership returned to more traditional superhero storylines. Denny O'Neill resumed writing the characters, while Adams-influenced artist Mike Grell drew the feature. After the title moved to solo Green Lantern stories, solo Green Arrow stories began appearing in the World's Finest title. The solo stories were frequently written by Elliot S! Maggin.
In his solo series, Oliver Queen would land a job as a newspaper columnist, which allowed him to articulate his political beliefs in a more public field. In World's Finest #255 (1979), Queen ran for Mayor of Star City and lost in a close vote. Although there was reason to believe that the election had been fixed against him, Black Canary chose for him not to contest the results legally, effectively ceding the race to his opponent.
In May through August of 1983, Green Arrow appeared for the first time in his own comic book (Green Arrow vol. 1), a four issue limited series of murder and betrayal that established potential for a full series. It was in this miniseries that Green Arrow would gain a running rivalry with the supervillain Count Vertigo.
[edit] Longbow Hunters/Mike Grell Ongoing
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In 1987, DC Comics launched the character into a new ongoing title as part of their mature audience comic line. Written and illustrated by Mike Grell, the revamp was launched with the controversial Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters mini-series. In this three-issue prestige format limited series, a routine adventure against a group of drug runners led to tragedy as Black Canary was captured and brutally tortured. In response, Green Arrow murders his girlfriend's attackers. The mini-series would also introduce the enigmatic female Japanese archer, Shado, whose family suffered in a World War II internment camp.
Under Grell, Green Arrow would abandon the use of his trademark gadget arrows and relocate from Star City to Seattle, Washington. As the series was part of DC Comics' mature audience line, it took on a more gritty, violent, and urban tone, with Green Arrow often using deadly force against his enemies. Grell wrote the series for the first 80 issues, downplaying the super-hero aspects of the characters and isolating Green Arrow from the rest of the DC Universe. Green Arrow abandoned his mask, and Black Canary mysteriously lost her sonic scream power (a plot hole that was ultimately explained away by later writers, who reasoned that the injuries sustained during The Longbow Hunters left Canary unable to use her powers for several years). While crossover specials were conceived to allow other writers (most notably Denny O'Neil, who wrote Batman and the mature audience comic The Question) to use Green Arrow, Grell deliberately downplayed all super-hero ties to Green Arrow, to the extent of having longtime Green Arrow friend Hal Jordan only appear in civilian form.
In place of the super-hero community, Grell created his own supporting cast. In addition to Shado (who ultimately raped Oliver while he was injured and delirious), Grell introduced Seattle police Lieutenant Jim Cameron, who was disgusted with Green Arrow's vigilante actions (including killing criminals); renegade CIA agent Greg Osborne, who began to monitor Queen's activities; and mercenary Eddie Fyers, initially introduced as Queen's adversary, but later to become a companion of necessity when Green Arrow was forced to leave Seattle after false accusations of aiding terrorists.
Grell's run would end with the breakup of Green Arrow and Black Canary. Though their relationship had survived both the revelation that Black Canary's "The Longbow Hunter" injuries left her unable to have children and the revelation of Oliver's one-night stand with Shado (which led to her pregnancy), Dinah finally left Oliver when she caught him kissing a Green Arrow groupie he had reluctantly allowed to stay in the couple's home.
Once Grell left the series, DC almost immediately began restoring Green Arrow to the mainstream DC Universe. His ongoing series (now written by Kelley Puckett and drawn by artist Jim Aparo) was removed from the "Mature Audience" line (which had evolved into "Vertigo"), and Green Arrow began appearing in various super-hero titles, most notably Green Lantern #47, which had Oliver aiding Green Lantern in rescuing his longtime girlfriend Carol Ferris and her family from one of Hal's enemies. Several months later, Oliver's return to the fold of super-heroes was made official with the 1994 DC Comics mini-series "Zero Hour." As one of the small group of heroes who survives the destruction of the DC Universe by the Parallax entity (which had possessed Hal Jordan), Oliver was forced to shoot his longtime friend in the chest to prevent the Parallax entity from recreating the universe in its own warped image. In doing so, Oliver bought his fellow heroes the time needed to restart the universe naturally, but Jordan was lost in the chaos and presumed dead. Oliver then destroyed his bow and arrows, realizing what he had become in his years of exile, and distraught over his failure to save Jordan.
[edit] Connor Hawke
In the wake of Jordan's apparent death, Oliver Queen returns to Star City, attending a meditation retreat in order to try and find meaning in his life, having lost his one true love and, presumably, murdered his best friend. There he meets a young monk named Connor Hawke who, along with Grell's supporting cast member Eddie Fyers, teams up with Oliver for an adventure. Shockingly, Connor is revealed to be Oliver Queen's son, conceived during Queen's retreat to a monastic commune several decades earlier. Oliver quickly accepts his new son and begins to train him as his new sidekick, a decision aided by Connor's own natural skills as an archer and a fighter. Meanwhile, Oliver's guilt over "murdering" his friend Hal Jordan is cured when Jordan turns up alive (but still controlled by Parallax) as Oliver teams up with his fellow Justice League members to try and stop Hal from murdering his replacement as Green Lantern, Kyle Rayner.
But as Oliver begins to build a new life for himself, fate would bring everything crashing down. In Green Arrow vol. 2, #100-101, Queen would infiltrate a group of eco-terrorists known as the Eden Corps and sacrifice his life in order to prevent the group from detonating a bomb that would destroy the city of Metropolis. In the wake of his father's death, Connor would assume the name "Green Arrow" (which he still shares with his father, upon his resurrection). The series, now written by Chuck Dixon, would continue until issue #137, when the series was canceled.
During this time, DC planted the seeds for Oliver's revival during the 1996 crossover "The Final Night". In the storyline, it was implied that Hal Jordan (now having regained control over his mental capacities) resurrected Oliver from the dead prior to Hal heroically sacrificing his own life to save the planet Earth at the end of the storyline by way of reigniting the Sun.
[edit] Kevin Smith, Phil Hester, and Ande Parks, 2000–2004
In 2000, Oliver Queen is revived in a new series, Green Arrow (vol. 3), written by Kevin Smith and illustrated by Phil Hester and Ande Parks. Picking up the thread from "The Final Night", Smith reveals that Hal's resurrection of Oliver was a flawed one, in that Hal opted to resurrect Oliver in a form that had no memory of the events of "The Longbow Hunters" mini-series or of the subsequent events that followed up until his death. This was because, unwilling to 'play God' again, Hal had travelled to Heaven to ask Oliver if he wanted to come back, and, when Oliver had refused, Hal had eventually convinced him to agree to let him resurrect his body with his memories prior to killing Black Canary's torturer, Oliver regarding his life as having gone into a downward spiral from the moment he took that life and wanting a chance to start over again. Oliver quickly returns to crime fighting, but is evidently traumatized by the experience of resurrection. He lives as a vagabond in the back alleys of Star City, creating a costume and weapons from garbage and castoff material. Oliver is found, confused and delirious by Stanley Dover (a possible pun on the expression "standover man"- one who extorts from people who are on the edges of legal society), who takes him to his home to recuperate. Dover, while appearing altruistic, is a practitioner of black magic, and recognizes Oliver's body as lacking a soul.
Dover soon realizes that Oliver believes it to be several years earlier, and decorates his home appropriately (old computers, etc) to ease Oliver back into reality. In the meanwhile, Oliver is being attacked by monsters. The Demon Etrigan attempts to destroy Queen, and finally explains that his soulless body acts as a gateway for demons wishing to enter the world. In addition, his lack of a soul makes him a target for Stanley Dover's calling of "The Beast with no name." Dover was a Satanist looking for a way to capture souls, which brought him into contact with mystics Jason Blood and the Magus Burgess, who had imprisoned Neil Gaiman's Sandman character. Dover stole the book "The Magdalene Grimoire" from the Magus and used it in attempts to summon the beast while holding his infant grandchild, to which it bonded instead of him. The beast escaped the grandson's control, and Dover is unable to find it. He intends to transfer himself into Queen's younger, healthier body as part of his overall plan for power and immortality, and search for the Beast from the Justice League Watchtower. Connor Hawke locates Oliver, but is caught in the fight for Oliver's body. Queen's soul finally makes the decision to return to Earth to help his son Connor Hawke fight a mass of demons. Dover is defeated and actually consumed by the Beast, who then leaves of his own accord. Queen also finds himself independently wealthy again, as Dover had transferred all his financial assets to Queen in anticipation of taking over his body. He also picked up a new sidekick, Mia Dearden, who would become the new Speedy under Oliver's tutoring.[2]
After the resurrection storyline, Smith wrote a second and shorter arc involving a super-powered serial killer named Onomatopoeia that sought to claim Connor Hawke as his latest victim. Smith then left the title, with Brad Meltzer taking over as writer. Meltzer went on to write the mini-series "Identity Crisis", which heavily featured Green Arrow as one of the story's main characters. During the mini-series, Meltzer had several members of the Justice League- Queen, the Flash, Green Lantern, Black Canary, Hawkman, Zatanna, the Atom and the Elongated Man- fight Deathstroke the Terminator, culminating in Oliver stabbing Deathstroke in his empty left eye-socket when he effortlessly defeated the team in combat.
Meltzer's single storyline for Green Arrow featured Oliver and former sidekick Roy Harper reuniting and going on a cross-country road trip to pick up old possessions of Oliver's, most notably a spare Green Lantern power ring entrusted to him by Hal Jordan many years earlier. It explored several of the ramifications of Queen's return from the dead, such as his seeming strained relationship with new Green Lantern Kyle Rayner; he described his reaction to Kyle as being like a man discovering a boy dressed as his own dead best friend at Halloween. The story also revealed that Oliver knew all along that Connor Hawke was his son and was even present at his birth, but that Oliver ultimately abandoned Connor and his mother due to his fear of becoming a father.
During this time, Queen was briefly recruited into a new Justice League by an emergency program created by Batman in the event of the death or loss of the League; other members of this team included the Atom, Hawkgirl, Major Disaster, Faith, Firestorm and Jason Blood, with Nightwing as the leader. Shortly after this team disbanded, Queen was recruited by the newly formed Justice League Elite- a superhero 'black ops' team created to eliminate metahuman threats to the population before they went public- to act as a tactical advisor and political left-winger. During this time, Queen had a brief affair with Dawn, the wife of the team's magical expert Manitou Raven, but the relationship ended shortly after the team disbanded following their confrontation with the spirit of Manchester Black as he tried to drive his sister to destroy London.
Meltzer's storyline would continue into the mini-series "Green Lantern: Rebirth", which featured Kyle Rayner discovering the existence of the Parallax entity and how longtime Green Lantern enemy Sinestro was responsible for it corrupting Hal Jordan and turning him into a murderer. During a battle between Kyle, Oliver and Sinestro in the JLA Watchtower, Sinestro mocks Oliver over his jadedness and use of lethal force, even upon Hal Jordan. This forced Oliver to use his spare Green Lantern ring to shoot an emerald energy arrow into Sinestro, wounding him, although it took a great deal of effort as his cynical willpower cannot properly use the ring. In the end, Oliver and Kyle were able to keep Sinestro occupied so that Hal Jordan could be purged of the Parallax entity and resurrected, with the spare ring serving as Hal's new power ring.
[edit] Judd Winick, 2004-Present
Meanwhile Judd Winick would take over as Green Arrow writer, with much controversy as he introduced a story line where the new Speedy Mia Dearden tests positive for HIV. Less controversial was Winick's attempt to create a new Rogues Gallery for Green Arrow, including Merlyn the archer, Constantine Drakon the Greek martial artist, Danny Brickwell or the Brick the meta-human mob boss to go along with existing Green Arrow villains, the illusion-casting Count Vertigo, and the enigmatic Onomatopoeia.
The last issue before DC Comic's "One Year Later" depicts Green Arrow in a showdown with Merlyn on the rooftops of Star City. As Green Arrow is about to win, Dr. Light detonates a series of explosions destroying a large portion of the city while a horrified Green Arrow looks on. This gives Merlyn the opportunity to throw Green Arrow on his back, who is then pierced through the chest by arrows previously embedded in his quiver.
Queen survives Merlyn's attack, but remained in critical condition. He is transported to a remote island along with Connor and Mia for treatment, and uses his recuperation time to retrain with several expert instructors, including a sensei known as Natas, one of the people who initially trained Deathstroke.
[edit] "One Year Later"
In the 2006 "One Year Later" jump after the events in Infinite Crisis, Oliver Queen is the newly elected mayor of Star City, continuing his fight on the streets and through the system. He also has a new costume, which appears to be a combination of the classic Neal Adams costume and the Mike Grell Longbow Hunters costume. At the onset, it seems Mayor Queen is most interested in the "shock value" of his office, although his controversial decisions and statements are actually meant to draw attention to and benefit the devastated Star City. He uses an open interpretation of the town charter to perform same-sex marriages in Star City as both a political statement and a way to boost the local tourist economy. He also exercises the power of his office to do things such as blackmail corrupt businessmen, or have the Star City SWAT unit back up his actions as Green Arrow while publicly condemning his alter ego. (He also used his connections to enable his longtime friend and former lover Black Canary to bring a young Vietnamese girl, Sin, into the country to be raised by Canary.)
During the year long hiatus, Queen also amassed a large personal fortune by manipulating stocks of companies he sees as unscrupulous, leading the declines of three major coporations with defense contracts which the media dubbed as "The Gun Run Stock Market Crash". While never stated outright, it appears Oliver Queen is now worth billions. The former gangster Brick now fights crime in Star City and allies himself with Green Arrow, although he evidently still trafficks in drugs and prostitution. Deathstroke returns as well, looking for a rematch from the events in Identity Crisis. Deathstroke loses the rematch and makes the observation that during the one year absence, Green Arrow has become a much better fighter and now carries a sword which he wields proficiently.
Following the battle with Deathstroke and his subsequent imprisonment, Green Arrow begins a battle with Red Hood (Jason Todd) that leads him to ally himself with Batman. Brick's friendship with Queen was short-lived as well, as it appears that he has sided with Todd. The Green Arrow defeats Jason in a sword fight, however Jason escapes and kidnaps Speedy. After the battle, the newly elected mayor suffers a political scandal: a revelation that he has been secretly funding superhero team the Outsiders, who are currently seen as terrorists. This leads to a recall election.
Oliver recently sponsored his former sidekick Roy Harper for membership in the Justice League of America. He declines to accompany the League on its first adventure, fearing that he would not want to leave the group. In a private conversation with Hal Jordan, Oliver admits that he misses the League "every damn day", but that he understood that Roy needed to be a member more than he did.
Amidst the scandal and the recall election, Ollie reunites with his former lover Black Canary in dispatching a failed attempt by Deathstroke to kill Oliver. Following the fighting, Ollie publicly apologizes for any wrongs he committed to the city, taking down the wall that splits the city and resigning as mayor. The current Green Arrow (Vol. 3) series was ended with issue #75 in June 2007, which ends with Ollie proposing to Dinah (Black Canary), but no answer given.
[edit] Black Canary
After the end of the ongoing series, DC Comics published a 4 part bi-monthly Black Canary miniseries, in which Green Arrow teams up with Black Canary to help get Sin into school and a new life. However, the league of assassins come after her and take her. In a desperate move, Green Arrow has Sin apparently killed and lets an Assassin go so that they can tell the others Sin is dead. It is later revealed that Green Arrow had worked out a plan to have Sin escape and go with his son Connor to a new hiding spot so that she could grow up safe. This selfless act convinces Dinah that Ollie has changed, and she accepts his proposal.
[edit] Marriage
Following the miniseries, DC Comics published a three issue arc revolving around the Green Arrow/Black Canary wedding that tied into that month's Countdown stories. These are: The Black Canary Wedding Planner, JLA Wedding Special, and The Green Arrow/Black Canary Wedding Special. During the wedding of the two, the cadre of superheroes in attendance are attacked by an array of villains led by Deathstroke, whose rivalry with Green Arrow has become something of a personal vendetta as months pass. The heroes are victorious and ceremony is completed. As Ollie and Dinah are preparing to consummate their marriage, the groom's eyes go blank and he attacks his bride. Dinah defends herself, but due to the vicious nature of Oliver's attack, she is forced to use deadly force to protect herself, stabbing Oliver in the throat with an arrow.
[edit] Green Arrow/Black Canary
Following the events of the wedding, Black Canary places the body of Green Arrow in cryostasis. She believes that although the body appears to be Oliver, it is not him. She fights with Connor who acts as her moral compass. After several heroes attempt to convince her that she needs to bury him and move on, Dinah ultimately is able to get Batman and Dr. Mid-Nite to autopsy the body in order to prove that the person she stabbed (and possibly married) was a fake and that Ollie was still alive and held captive. Ultimately it was proved that the "Ollie" Dinah had killed was in some part the former Infinity, Inc. member and Lex Luthor minion Everyman, who recently was re-powered by Circe. Dinah tries to trace back to think of who would create this deception and remembers an out of the ordinary "Athena" and her Amazons asking her to join them. Meanwhile, on the island of Themyscira, surrounded by Amazonian warriors, the "real" Oliver Queen (very battered and extremely bruised) swears "When my wife finds out about this...you big bitches are gonna be in some very deep @#$%!" After Dinah, Connor, and Mia rescued him from the Amazons, Connor is shot by an unknown gunman. It is unclear of whether the bullet was meant for the original Emerald Archer or truly Connor.
After taking Connor to the hospital, Ollie learned from Mia that Connor already knew of his father's abandonment. The doctors, with the aid of Hal Jordan, were able to save his life. Unfortunately the bullet was coated with a toxin, leaving Connor in a persistent vegetative state from which he may never recover. Oliver, knowing that his son may never wake up, along the knowledge that Connor forgiven him years ago, is devastated, and the original Emerald Archer vows never to leave his son again.
A few weeks later, as Oliver nurses his son, Dinah Lance expresses unsatisfaction of the ceremony of their marriage, and wishes to be married to Oliver Queen, the man himself and the father, not the Green Arrow, the hero. The Emerald Archer agrees, and had some friends gather to a small ceremony.
When they return home, they find that Connor's nurses were killed and Connor is missing. Ollie immediately asks his wife to bring him his bow in a mission to find his missing son. This leads him to London which puts them on a lead, The League of Assassins.
It has been announced that Oliver Queen will be one of the members of Batman's latest Outsiders team.
[edit] Skills and abilities
- Green Arrow is considered one of the best archers in the world.
- He claims to be able to shoot 29 arrows per minute (stated in the Sound of Violence story arc)[clarify]
- He has a wide-variety of trick arrows, ranging from bola arrows to time-bomb arrows to his infamous boxing-glove arrow. In recent years he has used these arrows sparingly, preferring the time-tested simple arrow.
- Green Arrow has shown the ability to shoot an arrow down the barrel of a gun, pierce a drop of water as it leaves a tap and shoot almost any part of the human body; although he aims only to wound and not kill when he shoots.
- In a flashback sequence encompassing issues 66-68 (while he was recovering from said injuries on an island), he hired some of the best martial arts instructors in the world to come and train him and his companions.
- While initially an inferior fighter and prominent non-martial artist, in recent continuity he has trained to become a proficient martial artist in several forms of hand-to-hand combat including judo, kickboxing and karate, although not on a level with Black Canary. He is proficient with a sword, as evidenced by a battle with Deathstroke in issue #62 and by a battle with Red Hood in issue #71.
[edit] Other versions
Green Arrow has had many alternate versions of himself over the years.
[edit] Green Arrow of Earth-Two
There was an Earth-Two version of Green Arrow who was a member of the Seven Soldiers of Victory and All-Star Squadron in the 1940s along with his sidekick Speedy. Aside from their origin, having been trained on a mesa top together, their history nearly parallels the history of the Earth-One version up until the point when Green Arrow and Speedy, along with their teammates, were thrown into various periods of time during a battle with the Nebula Man. He and his teammates were later retrieved by the Justice Society and the Justice League in order to assist them in saving Earth-Two from the machinations of their old foe the Iron Hand. Years after returning to the present, Green Arrow came out of retirement until he died during the Crisis on Infinite Earths.
A retcon was made, in Crisis on Infinite Earths, that the Earth-Two Green Arrow had brown hair, as opposed to Earth-One's Green Arrow having blonde. Similarly, the Earth-Two Speedy has blonde hair as opposed to Earth-One's Speedy having red.
[edit] The Dark Knight Returns
Oliver Queen was a major player in Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns and the sequel Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again. Despite missing an arm (implied to be because of Superman), Queen still proves to be an effective archer (he grasps the nocks of his arrows in his teeth) and still sports his anti-government views to the point that he has become a full-blown terrorist. He has also kept his left-wing viewpoints, the sequel directly referring to him as a communist. In Batman's showdown with Superman at the end of the story, Oliver plays a decisive role in Batman's planned victory by firing an arrow at Superman that explodes and releases synthesized Kryptonite gas which weakens the Man of Steel and allows Batman to defeat him.
The death scene in Green Arrow #100-101 pays tribute to Miller's story, where Oliver Queen resurfaces as a hard-bitten old revolutionary missing one arm. Never on the best of terms with Queen, Superman intends to rescue Green Arrow by removing his arm, but Queen refuses to let him, thus bringing about his apparent death.
In the sequel to Returns, The Dark Knight Strikes Again, Queen's situation has improved to the point where he's been fitted with a robotic arm. He is usually seen debating with the right-leaning Question on a point/counterpoint news program.
[edit] Kingdom Come
A similar version of the Green Arrow, but with both arms, would later appear in Mark Waid and Alex Ross' Kingdom Come, where Oliver Queen has joined forces with Batman and also shows some enmity towards Superman. Although Oliver is politically opposed to Superman (though this might have been feigned for the benefit of Lex Luthor), in the final battle, the two work together, and Queen dies with Canary in a nuclear explosion (as revealed in Maggin's novelization.)
[edit] Superman/Batman
In the Superman/Batman "Absolute Power" story arc, Green Arrow is one of the few superheroes not killed or converted to a totalitarian regime under Superman and Batman by Cosmic King, Saturn Queen and Lightning Lord. He calls Superman and Batman "the Hitler twins" and appears to be one of the few heroes in operation whatsoever, still active in Star City. He puts up a good fight against Batman and stuns Superman with a kryptonite arrow but is eventually burnt alive by his heat vision. Later in the arc, after time travel puts things back to normal, Superman and Batman discuss the necessity of Ollie's "cantankerous" personality and strong leftist political views active amongst the superhero community.
[edit] The 52
In DC's weekly series 52, the publisher established a new 52-Earth Multiverse. On Earth-3, an evil equivalent of the Green Arrow is a member of the supervillain co-op called the Crime Society of America. On Earth-15, Roy Harper has replaced Ollie as the Green Arrow.[3] The Kingdom Come (Earth-22) and Dark Knight Returns (Earth-31) stories and their variations of Ollie were later amalgamated into the 52-Earth Multiverse. In the gender reversed world of Earth-11, Ollie is now Olivia Queen, and that world's version of Black Canary closely resembles him in appearance.[4]
[edit] Elseworlds
Green Arrow appears in League of Justice, a The Lord of the Rings-inspired fantasy where the character is renamed "Longbow Greenarrow", a mysterious wizard resembling Gandalf.
In JLA: Age of Wonder, Green Arrow is seen as an opponent of the inventor's consortium run by that book's Superman, defending ghetto communities against oppression, much as he does in the present day. In Dean Motter's Batman: Nine Lives, Oliver Queen makes a cameo as Bruce Wayne's society friend.
In Batman: Holy Terror, Oliver Queen is mentioned at the beginning to have been executed having been found guilty of supporting underground Jewish "pornographers". Green Arrow has also appeared in the Justice League Unlimited spin-off comic book.
In the alternate reality of JLA: The Nail, Queen was crippled in a fight with Amazo that cost him an arm and the use of his legs, leaving him bitter at the metahuman community. Later on, in the sequel JLA: Another Nail, his brain was, somewhat ironically, transplanted into Amazo, but Queen/Amazo was then forced to give his life to save the world from a pan-dimensional creature that was damaging the time lines.
Oliver Queen also appears in Mike Mignola’s Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham, where he is portrayed as a latter day Templar equipped with magic arrows dipped in the blood of Saint Sebastian. He is killed in issue two by Poison Ivy.
[edit] In other media
[edit] Trade paperbacks and hardcover collections
The team-up run of Green Lantern & Green Arrow from the early 1970s has been collected on numerous times: as two trade paperbacks in 1992-1993, then as a hardcover slipcase collection in 2000, and again as two trade paperbacks in 2004, but with the 2004 edition of the second volume reprinting a never-before-reprinted back-up solo story starring Green Lantern from The Flash (Vol. 1) #226 (and not collected in any of the previous Green Lantern/Green Arrow collections).
The trade paperback edition of The Archer's Quest (#16-21) was released as Volume 4 in the series after Straight Shooter (#26-31) was released as Volume 3. The hardcover editions of Quiver, The Sounds of Violence, and The Archer's Quest were never numbered.
| Title | Material collected |
|---|---|
| The Green Arrow by Jack Kirby | Adventure Comics #250–256 |
| Showcase Presents: Green Arrow Vol. 1 | Adventure Comics #250–266, 268–269 The Brave and the Bold #50, 71, 85 Justice League of America #4 World's Finest #95–140 |
| Green Lantern/Green Arrow Collection Vol. 1: Hard-Traveling Heroes (1992 SC) | Green Lantern (vol.2) #76–82 |
| Green Lantern/Green Arrow Vol. 1 (2004 SC) | |
| Green Lantern/Green Arrow Collection Vol. 2: More Hard-Traveling Heroes (1993 SC) | Green Lantern (vol.2) #83–87, 89 The Flash (vol. 1) #217–219, (226)† |
| Green Lantern/Green Arrow Vol. 2 (2004 SC) (adds Flash #226, not in 1993 ed.) | |
| The Green Lantern/Green Arrow Collection (2000 slipcase HC) | Green Lantern (vol.2) #76–87, 89 The Flash (vol. 1) #217–219 |
| Green Lantern: Emerald Allies (featuring Green Arrow) | Green Arrow (vol.2) #104, 110–111, 125–126 Green Lantern (vol. 3) #76–77, 92 |
| Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters | Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters #1–3 |
| Green Arrow Vol. 1: Quiver (HC & SC) | Green Arrow (vol.3) #1–10 |
| Green Arrow Vol. 2: The Sounds of Violence (HC & SC) | Green Arrow (vol.3) #11–15 |
| Green Arrow Vol. 3: Straight Shooter | Green Arrow (vol.3) #26–31 |
| Green Arrow Vol. 4: The Archer's Quest (HC & SC) | Green Arrow (vol.3) #16–21 |
| Green Arrow Vol. 5: City Walls | Green Arrow (vol.3) #32, 34–39 |
| Green Arrow Vol. 6: Moving Targets | Green Arrow (vol.3) #40–50 |
| Green Arrow Vol. 7: Heading Into The Light | Green Arrow (vol.3) #52, 54–59 |
| Green Arrow Vol. 8: Crawling From The Wreckage | Green Arrow (vol.3) #60–65 |
| Green Arrow Vol. 9: Road to Jericho | Green Arrow (vol.3) #66–75 |
| Green Arrow/Black Canary: The Wedding Album | Green Arrow/Black Canary (vol.1) #1-5 GA/BC Wedding Special |
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ Green Lantern/Green Arrow Vol. 1 (SC, 2004 edition) introduction, by Dennis O'Neil.
- ^ Smith, Kevin. Phil Hester. Ande Parks. Green Arrow: Quiver, Trade Paperback. New York, NY. DC Comics. 2002.
- ^ Countdown #24
- ^ ''Countdown Presents the Search for Ray Palmer - Superwoman/Batwoman #1
[edit] External links
- Index of the Earth-One adventures of GA
- Green Arrow at Don Markstein's Toonopedia
- Green Arrow's secret origin on dccomics.com
- http://www.GreenArrowBlackCanary.com Green Arrow/Black Canary fan forum
- The Green Arrow on the DC Animated Universe Wiki, a Wikia wiki
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