Green Arrow Vol. 1: The Death and Life Of Oliver Queen (Rebirth)

amazing comic! but I draw it so my review is baised!!

The New 52 Green Arrow never did much for my tastes. Even at its strongest, it just wasn't what I was looking for in a Green Arrow book. This book is clearly meant for me; like much of Rebirth, this story resets much of what the characters involved lost with the New 52. Oliver Queen very much feels like his old self again; he's political, and a little preachy (thankfully never too much to alienate most people, even if you don't agree with him), but most importantly he's fun again. He's snarky, smart, and capable, a description that could fit the book just as well. The book also restores Black Canary more like her earlier depictions, and while she isn't quite where she was before, it's clear that the author intends it to happen as the series progresses.

Also like the rest of Rebirth, though, it doesn't totally disregard the new, but it does refine things. There is just a smidgen of Arrowverse Ollie mixed in now, which comes out at times when it feels appropriate. Diggle and Emi (something of an expy of Thea from the tv show) also continue to gain footing as worthy members of the cast. I'm even beginning to feel more than apathy towards Ollie's tech guy now, which I couldn't really say before.

Finally, the brand new additions work well too. Two villain groups, the underground people and the Ninth Circle (or the Burned), pop up here, and both are visually interesting and a little repulsive to look at (in a good way). Hopefully, we will see them stick around for future use; Green Arrow does have a tragically small rogues gallery beyond those he borrows from Batman or the Justice League.

Last, the art meshes very well with the story. It's very stylized, almost cutesy at times, but it lends itself well to the macabre and unusual elements present here too.

The artwork by Juan Ferreyra and Otto Schmidt is absolutely breathtaking and Benjamin Percys writing actually makes me care about the Green Arrow..

Its a strong start. Percy seems to have dropped or wrapped up the arc he had in his previous books about werewolf people infesting seattle. Meh. So Ollie is off fighting crime, trying to figure out whats happening with the missing population of homeless people. They didn't just die or stop being homeless, theyre being harvested. Who is the culprit? A boring villain. Almost immediately Ollie teams up with Black Canary and they start a relationship and it feels really organic. Something I don't think the writers of Arrow never got was that Ollie is better paired with someone who can fight beside him, rather than sticking safely behind a computer monitor. A good bit of dialogue comes from Dinah critiquing ollie's methods of paying off people to not be evil and thinking that sprinkling money at problems solves them. Ollie's retort is a good comeback in that in order to fight crime as efficiently as he does, to keep track of who is on his payroll, the charities he funds and research he develops REQUIRES MONEY. Green Arrow and Batman are the 2 heroes who always seem to be made fun of for needing money to do the superheroing that they do, but Ollie is right. Its such a shame that the book never seems to come back to this philosophy, and seems to lean toward a bit where ollie questions if he really needs the green to be green arrow.

The problems with the volume start around the 3rd chapter which stinks cause its the last issue that has Schmidt's art. They switch artists on the 4th chapter and its noticeable. They added John Diggle from the show in Lemire's run for some reason but it never made sense to me. He's another soldier on the ground helping with Ollie's fight. He left after some time in the new 52 but returns here. He's also mad at Ollie for some personal reason that I cant be bothered to care about. Doesn't even matter much cause they bro it out after like 3 panels of Diggle saying hes mad at ollie. The main plot of this volume is mostly Ollie being betrayed and his company being taken from him, his name ruined and his fortune lost (again).

The villains are also pretty boring. The guy who stole Ollie's money is just Komodo minus the insane archery skills and is just a businessman. The guy he works for is even more generic. The book keeps trying to make their organization cool by alluding it to the 9 circles of hell from the divine comedy but ultimately just boring in that its not really a challenge for ollie to take them down. Theyre there really just to challenge Ollie's philosophy. Also Shado makes an appearance, and shes allied with the bad guys but for very unclear/dumb reasons. Feels like they just needed another person for ollie to fight who was another good archer. Wasted really considering She loved Ollie's dad to the point of withstanding torture for months without ever giving up his secrets/information.

I'll wrap it up by saying that it had good potential at first with establishing Ollie and Dinah's relationship, but just couldn't use that as a good base, and chose instead to focus on a boring villain, Diggle seems unnecessary, Shado is wasted by being a villain, and ollie's newfound philosophy of caring about the little guy in a liberal way isnt explored in any meaningful way. Hopefully it gets better in the next volume

I've really been loving Rebirth so far. I've enjoyed Superman, Action Comics, Batman, Detective Comics, Blue Beetle, Hellblazer , Captain Atom, SuperSons, Nightwing, JLA (Yay for having the REAL Lobo back), Gotham Academy, Titans Deadman and Trinity. There have been a few series that I haven't enjoyed though. Flash has done nothing for me, nor has Teen Titans. I wasn't a fan of the New 52 Green Arrow at all, but when offered the Rebirth trade to review, I decided to give it a try. Unfortunately, it hasn't really improved at all. The store here was really weak and most of the characters felt two-dimensional. I found I didn't care about any of the characters nor did I care about the trials and tribulations Ollie went through in this TPB.

I did enjoy the art. Otto Schmidt did a good job here. I also enjoyed that Ollie has his beard back and that they are FINALLY making Ollie and Dinah (Black Canary) meet up. It's insane they kept them apart as long as they have in the New 52. I just wish it was a better story.

Maybe it's just me. I loved O'Neil, Dixon, Kevin Smith and Meltzer (who I normally don't enjoy)'s run with Ollie, but my favorite Green Arrow writer of all time is Mike Grell (I also loved The Warlord). I just didn't feel the stories in this TPB were anywhere as good as the aforementioned authors. It was okay, but Green Arrow is definitely one of the weakest Rebirth titles.

I've never been a big fan of Green Arrow since he switched to being a bleeding heart liberal back in the 1970's. It wasn't because he was a liberal. I sit comfortably on the political left. It's because he became, in the words of Black Canary, "a sanctimonious jerk... complaining about elitism, racism, cronyism, conservativism, any -ism, all the -isms" Green Arrow was being written in a way where I began to suspect the writers hated liberals. Early in this book Green Arrow TWICE refers to himself as a social justice warrior. Yikes. At least Black Canary was there to critique his actions and she saw fault in him continually using his vast wealth to solve social ills. I was interested to see where Banjamin Percy was going to take this but the story quickly changed into a much more traditional comic book story.

I see a LOT of similarities this story and the work that Grant Morrison/Scott Snyder have done with Batman. Super rich industrialist crime fighter facing off against a hugely powerful secret organization. In this case the Underground Men who all resemble bald old men with coke bottle glasses who kidnap people to be sold into slavery. They work with a group called The Burned who all look like identical severe burn victims and hold a considerable amount of power in the world. One wonders why all these super powerful secret societies in the DCU don't continually bump into each other.

For me the problem with this book is in the pacing and organization. We have at least three big villains including one who is an executive at Queen Enterprises. This is where it gets confusing because when he's first introduced his name is never mention and I don't think that it was done on purpose. Also, he is CLEARLY shown to be a villain so his later reveal is no surprise. Later, when Oliver refers to him by name I had to keep flipping back and forth to see if it was the same guy and I can only assume it was because as I said his name wasn't initially given. It's not helped that the artist switched so I couldn't even really go by how he was drawn. Oliver is left for dead and loses his company but he gets everything back rather quickly making it feel pointless. By the final book in the volume I had lost interest in the whole messy affair.

It would have been cool if Percy had mixed in some character building with Oliver Queen expressing his political beliefs but after a few mentions that he considers himself an SJW it was dropped. One issue in and I was intrigued but by the end I was bored.

After having read the Rebirth one shot, I knew this was going to impress me!

Story: The one shot that starts this off establishes Ollie meeting Dinah Lance, the Black Canary, and them becoming associated with one another for the first time as they try to break up what appears to be a human trafficking ring. The story raises some interesting questions and examines some really nice themes for a GA book. Dinah brings up a dang good point for Ollie to examine about himself. That is, how can Ollie be a "social justice warrior" and fight "the man" when his IS "the man". By the start of the book, Ollie is still rolling in dough as a tech billionaire. Ollie seems to be convinced that all problems can be solved by simply throwing money at it. A shelter here, a start over project there, a ballpark to keep kids out of trouble, a children's hospital, all things that certainly help out, but it doesn't impress Dinah who simply sees that most of Ollie's relationships with the people in his life revolve around his money. Either people who work for him, or the people he bribes as GA. Ollie sets out to show Dinah and the baddies that he is someone who cares about the people far beneath him on the streets. I was impressed with how Percy portrays Ollie as a very good hearted, good intentioned, rich man who doesn't view himself as being above others or viewing his life as being more valuable than other's. One can clearly see the good heart of a hero here! I won't spoil any story aspects here, but if I could best describe the plot of this great book I'd say it's The Court of Owls, but Green Arrow, and it's just as dang good! There's some awesome surprises, a return to legacy (just as DC promised the fans), an infusion of love and heart, and a really great secret society plot going on here. I loved it! The book ends on a cliffhanger that will pick up with the next volume. I can't wait!

Art: I love Otto Schmidt's art here! I can see that he will probably become one of my favorite comics artists. If I had to describe his art style to someone who's never seen any book drawn by him, I'd say his style is a slightly grittier version of Francis Manapul's style. His pencils remind me so much of Manapul, who did phenomenal work on the New 52 Flash title, and the New 52 Detective Comics title. Schmidt also inks and colors his own art and it's wonderful! For such an "artsy" penciling style that isn't photo realistic I have to say that Schmidt has quite the ability to convey facial expressions that other artists who draw more realistically can't match! Looking at Schmidt's pencils here, there is never any doubt as to how a character is feeling. Emotions like fear and anger are pretty easy for almost any comics artist to convey. I'm sure many artists practice drawing those expressions, but what I find really impressive is when an artist has mastered the ability to convey to the reader any emotion, especially the ones seen slightly less often in superhero comics like a look of boredom, or being skeptical, or feeling slightly over confident. Schmidt has mastered facial expression and it adds so much to the story! Juan Ferreyra also has an interesting style that looks painted over. He draws the second half of the book. While his style is good in its own right, I would like to say that I much prefer Schmidt's style over Ferreyra's. But, not bad at all.

Overall: I knew when I read the one shot that this was going to be AMAZING, and I was right. It was! The story had me from the very beginning. I can't help but feel that Percy sort of took a page out of Scott Snyder's book by doing his own Court of Owls story, but I guess if you're going to copy an idea (and let's be honest, all ideas have already been done) then you might as well copy the best. The story and art here are world class. I can't wait to get to volume 2! Rebirth is really proving to be the best thing in American comics right now! If all of DC's books are as good as the two Rebirth books I've read so far then I can see this era of DC being remembered many, many years from now as a second Golden Age. I'd recommend this to any GA fan, any DC fan, and comics fan. Duh. Just get this already!

Green Arrow Vol. 1: The Death and Life of Oliver Queen, by Benjamin Percy, is the first collection of Green Arrow comics under the Rebirth banner. Oliver is at home in Seattle, where he is the face of Queen Industries and also the Green Arrow. He's got a pretty good relationship with his younger half-sister, and he's just begun a relationship with Black Canary, aka Dinah Lance. He even saved a group of homeless people from the Underground Men, a group of human traffickers. Along the way, he discovers that there is a much larger group working behind the scenes: The Ninth Circle. What they do, how they attack Green Arrow, and several betrayals form the basis of this book.

I didn't read any of the New 52 Green Arrow books, so I'm not really sure how this version differs, if at all. However, I do watch Arrow, and this seems to be an attempt to bring the comic and tv show in line a bit. Oliver has a half-sister, Emiko, who fights crime with him, Dinah Lance has joined him to fight as Black Canary, and John Diggle also makes an appearance, as does Shado. Additionally, there is a back-to-basics approach to this story that seems reminiscent of Arrow. None of these are bad things; in fact, I found this book to be entertaining and fast-paced. Percy does a good job with the characterization, particularly with Oliver Queen's more liberal, social justice seeking aspects, which have long been a part of this comics. It also has a nice reflection on the dichotomy of a rich playboy passing himself off as a hero for the common man. As far as the villains, the Ninth Circle was serviceable but seemed to function more as a foil for resetting Oliver Queen's life.

While a good read, Benjamin Percy's Green Arrow Vol. 1: The Death and Life of Oliver Queen works more as the opening arc in a much bigger look at who Green Arrow is and what his mission will be. I found it fun and highly readable. It should appeal to fans of the comic version of Green Arrow as well as fans of the show Arrow. It is also a great jumping on point for new fans. I highly recommend it.

I received a preview copy of this book from DC Comics and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Kinda blah

Really good story, I am excited to see Oliver teaming up with Black Canary. Everytime he called himself a social justice warrior it bugged me tho, it's completely fine if that's his character but I'm a fan of "show it don't say it" kind of writing and repeatedly saying "I'm a social justice warrior" doesn't actually make you one. It's somewhat forgivable because he actually is, but say it a lot less in the furture because it was blaringly obvious