Comic Review: DC Rebirth Green Arrow Volume 1

I generally like the various Arrowverse shows on the CW, so named for the series that started it all, Arrow.  And, quite frankly, Arrow has been having it’s best season in a long time this year.

So, seeing as how the season finale is tonight, here’s a review for DC’s Rebirth of Green Arrow, notably the first volume subtitled The Death and Life of Oliver Queen.

I gave a bunch of New 52 books a try, and something about that version of Green Arrow didn’t feel right.  It took me a couple issues to realize the new Ollie Queen was a superhero version of Steve Jobs, and then I gave it up because I didn’t much care.

However, there were changes made later, some to match up a bit better with Arrow from the looks of things.  John Diggle crossed over into the comics, and while Felicity and Thea didn’t, Ollie does have a (male) hacker working for him and a half-sister named Emi that was raised by a super-assassin, though in this case it’s Shado, not Malcolm Merlyn.

But what happens here is writer Benjamin Percy finishes off the billionaire aspects of Oliver Queen through an elaborate scheme.  Oliver is depicted for most of the volume as being very dependent on his fortune as a means to do good by passing cash around (in some cases in ways that look like bribes), setting up charities, running hospitals, and a number of other ways beyond paying for fancy arrows.

Some things happen, though.  First, Black Canary blows into town and challenges Green Arrow on how much good he’s actually doing if he’s relying on his cash too much.  And second, Oliver finds his good name and assets stripped from him by the nefarious Ninth Circle.  Horrifying to look at bad guys that they are, the Ninth Circle are, well, the perfect twenty-first century bad guys for a big time leftie like Oliver Queen when it is revealed what they really are.  This is a Green Arrow who willingly calls himself a Social Justice Warrior with few if any hints of irony.  The artwork by Otto Schmidt and Juan Ferreyra was clean and simple, with a muted color scheme to give the book a highly appropriate atmosphere for this character and this story.

I really enjoyed this one.  It was much better than the New 52 work from a couple years ago.  Nine out of ten homeless auctions.