Green Arrow #9 review

It’s moving day at the Hall of Justice. Or rather, the Bureau of Sovereignty, renamed after Amanda Waller took it over on behalf of the US government. She’s cleaning it out of all Justice League gadgets, weapons and souvenirs; where they’re going and why, nobody knows, certainly not chief lackey Peacemaker.

Now, who’s that crazy? There’s a bit of a visual clue behind you, Peacemaker. Even as the government goons are grinning with glee, Green Arrow glides towards the ground. He’s determined to confront Waller, having heard his missing pseudo-son Roy has joined her cause. Ollie hopes a specially configurated Green Hanglider will help him avoid detection by super-security. It does! And soon he’s face to face with Waller, hanging on her every word.

Ollie asks the question we’ve all been asking for awhile now. How did the nuanced commander of the Suicide Squad turn into a moustache-twirling murderess out to take down all of Earth’s superheroes.

And her answer?

A benefactor? Would that be the group known as The Light we’ve seen her report to. The idea that someone brought her home doesn’t jibe with the War For Earth-3 conclusion in which we saw her come back to Earth 0 under her own steam with her very own Justice League Dodgy.

Hopefully writer Joshua Williamson will knit everything together; meanwhile we have Waller making Ollie an offer he can certainly refuse. It turns out that the ridiculously convoluted shenanigans across time and space involving Ollie being separated from his family were planned by Waller to bring him to her.

Which is patently ridiculous. She could’ve used computer back channels to get a message to Oracle and Ollie would have been there before you could say ‘eat my quiver’. For goodness’ sake, she has Nineties obscurities the Psyber Rats right there!

So, I’m still not convinced by, and certainly not enjoying, Waller’s megamaniacal turn. But there is plenty to enjoy this issue – as well as the things I’ve described there’s a fun fight between Ollie and an Ultron-alike going by Bright. There’s the return of a popular supporting character. And there’s the promise of…

A callback to Heroes in Crisis? A DC Comics event so bad that DC Editorial couldn’t reverse its events quickly enough? It’s safe to say none of us saw that coming.

Williamson gives us some snappy dialogue from hero and villains alike, and drops in a wee mystery so far as Bright goes. It’s interesting that Williamson can produce a compelling Green Arrow story without having a single arrow fired.

I’m not convinced by the starting point of Green Arrow sneaking into the former HoJ alone, there are surely many, many heroes who would want to watch Waller go about her unpleasant business. I bet having the Atom hitching a ride in his quiver could prove very useful, for instance.

As for the art, Sean Izaakse shines throughout, with a convincing line in facial expressions and body language; Waller, for instance, has a permanently narked demeanour. And the action scenes are first rate, with one uncomfortable landing for Ollie eliciting an actual ‘Ooof’ from me. Romulo Fajardo Jr adds to the quality with colouring that carries a sense of character and place, for example in a scene set in the Madeupistan of Corto Maltese.

Letterer Troy Peteri does well with the wordy script, and looks to be having fun with the bad robot font.

Izaakse and Fajardo’s cover is enticing and nicely done, though Waller’s gun could be coloured with more pop – it took me a while to see it.

All in all, this is the best issue in ages, the opening quest to reunite the Arrow clan having gone on for far too long and, according to Waller now, never having mattered. With the Waller business set to get even more drawn out – we’re talking a 25-book ‘event’ written by Mark Waid – Waller isn’t going to get her comeuppance here.

But perhaps Ollie could poke her several times with a really pointy arrow…