GREEN ARROW #2
Review by Brad Jones
Written by J. T. Krul
Drawn by Dan Jurgens
Mayhaps I’m just jaded, but after reading some of the stronger offerings of the New 52’s Issue #1, going back to saccharine Green Arrow land felt like a big let-down. None of the fun I thought I had had with Issue #1 was prevalent. I spent most of this book feeling like this was a “monster/baddie of the week” type of story or a rip-off of some Sinister Six of Spider-Man’s of old. Moreover, this book felt tired, predictable and lazy. There were certain story beats (ie, Ollie playing a little pick-up game of b-ball) that felt phoned in and scripted. Sure, in Issue #2 of Detective Comics, Bruce does some rock climbing with a new character, but unlike that book, the scene in Arrow was devoid of character development or artistic direction. It just sat there for me. Speaking of the art direction: in the first book I was charmed by the 60’s-ish era art direction, in the sophomore issue, I felt the action was limp, the images stale and the energy flat.
The threat is this group of baddies who have all had unfortunate run-ins with the Arrow in the past, such as the three idiots we met in the last issue. Led by a guy named Rush, the “super-powered sociopaths” (Krul’s words, not mine!) kill some villain-worshiping web-dork to grab Ollie’s attention with the intent to collectively murder Green Arrow on a live Internet feed. This leads to a little diatribe by Arrow helper, Adrian, about the violent state of youngsters today. I know I’m paraphrasing, but she says at one point that the extreme violence in our videogames is to blame for the psychotic behavior of this generation and is it any wonder? It’s a sign of the times. Wait a second…did that chick just bite the hand that feeds her? Comics are sold, in general, to these boys playing those videogames. And didn’t Green Arrow shoot projectiles through the hands of Supercharge in one of the more memorable panels of Issue #1? This off-hand comment felt a little like a slap on the wrist from a book that isn’t even trying to pretend to be something other than a slightly-better-than Sunday comic strip and is, frankly, insulting.
VERDICT
This issue raised the seat on any good feeling I had after reading the first book and crapped on my head. I’m gonna give Ollie one more go, but if you held an arrow to my head, my gut reaction would be to tell you to skip this!
