Ever since Dixon began his run on Green Arrow, it was undeniable that he wanted to go in new directions and explore territory that the Grell run hadn’t. This can obviously be seen in the fact that there is a new Green Arrow meeting heroes from all over the DC Universe. But it is unquestionable that Grell fundamentally changed Green Arrow forever with both The Longbow Hunters and the monolithic run that followed. That three-issue miniseries that started the whole run introduced a character that changed Oliver Queen. She ended up becoming a major character that appeared several times throughout the run, and ultimately played a huge part in changing Green Arrow from a brightly coloured death-fearing hero into a violent and angry vigilante who wasn’t afraid to kill. With The Iron Death, the first real major story featuring the new Green Arrow, Conner, teaming up once again with Eddie Fyers, is reunited with both Black Canary and Shado. But, with Conner wanting to be a different Green Arrow to that of his father’s, where does Shado fit in. Well, we have the Yakuza to thank for that…
Green Arrow (vol 2) 112-120 was published from September 1996 to May 1997. All stories were written by Chuck Dixon with art by Rodolfo Demaggio, Robert
Campanella, William Rosado, Dick Giordano, and Doug Braithwaite. I’ve read these stories in their original issues.
The Lotus Seed --- Written by Chuck Dixon with art by Rodolfo Demaggio, Robert Campanella and William Rosado
With the search for Kyle Rayner’s father over (despite a cop out of an ending), Eddie Fyers and Connor wander through a Chinatown, only to stop when they find a man stabbed in the back. In his last moments, he gives Connor something and tells him that he is the one. The assassins then appear and although Connor and Eddie fight back, they quickly escape in their car. Afterwards, Connor looks at the map which the dying man gave him, which is seemingly related to a princess in the Tang Dynasty from a ghost city with a garden. Long ago, a man named Zheng was in love with the princess, but a sorcerer named Wei Fong-Yi drove them apart, not before the couple bound themselves together metamorphically with two small trees. According to legend, until the lovers reunite, the trees will bear no fruit. Although Eddie doesn’t believe in fairy tales, Connor decides to follow the map as the dying man gave him a locket with a lone seed inside. Reluctantly, Eddie and Connor fly pretty much everywhere and on random routes to get to China, essentially so Eddie can get on board planes which allow smoking. Anyway, after another run in with some thugs, this time black market hunters, Eddie and Connor arrive at the Gardens of W’eng Chun, only to find that princess Lady Ren is still alive, seemingly. Once again, there’s no wasted space here as Dixon throws us straight into the story, which so far works due to the mystery of it all, along with more of Eddie’s great sarcastic humour. Anyway, as Connor meets Lady Ren, who mistakes him for her former lover, Eddie searches around before being ruthlessly attacked by a Wei-Fong, also still alive. This interrupts Connor’s rather romantic session with Lady Ren, with Fong telling her that Connor is not her lover, just “a stupid human”. Ren and Fong then duel it out in a swordfight, only for it to seemingly end with Ren’s death. Angry, Connor confronts Fong, who reveals that he is Ren’s brother and that their father made a pact with demons so that his children could out-live him by many years, explaining why they are still alive and trapped within the Gardens. Connor decides that he is the one who must take her away from this place and he fights Fong, only to nearly kill him before Eddie stops him. He lies to Connor, telling him that Ren is still alive. He manages to convince Connor to leave and together, they begin their journey home, with Connor still unsure whether he had intercourse with a ghost or not. But, before he does, Connor leaves the seed in the gardens, allowing trees to grow that will one day bear fruit. In his dreams, Connor is thanked by Ren. Elsewhere, a servant informs his mistress that somebody has returned. She tells him that the hunt will begin. She is Shado. Now, apart from the great ending which teases the Iron Death, I’m not entirely convinced with this story. Sure, I can’t criticise its pacing as Dixon makes it as fast-paced and dynamic as ever, but the story itself and relationship between Connor and this ghost princess just doesn’t work. The only meet at the end of the first part and in the second part, she somehow confuses him for her former lover. With her death, Connor then swears vengeance on her brother, despite knowing her for only a few minutes at this point. Perhaps if the story was longer, then I’d buy into their relationship more, but because it’s so brief and not subtle, it fails to succeed. I also think the first part wastes time by simply having Connor and Eddie travelling across Asia, which may make for entertaining reading, but the plot doesn’t begin until the end of that first part. If it had started earlier, then the story could have developed more and ultimately have been very good. But, as it is here, it is a brief two-parter that turns out to be about average.
Story: 5.5/10
Art: 7.5/10
The Thousand Year Night --- Written by Chuck Dixon with art by William Rosado and Robert Campanella
The Thousand Year Night is next and like the first-two parter to feature Connor as Green Arrow solo, this is another crossover. This time the story links to The Final Night, a miniseries in which the Sun-Eater, a Legion of Superheroes villain, eats the sun and plunges the world into darkness. During the crisis, Connor is coming back from China after the previous story, but the plane lands in Northern Manchuria as the wings have become heavy due to ice. Now in the cold, Connor and Eddie spot a village nearby where the villagers are dying from the cold and under military rule. Although Connor aids the villagers in bringing them to the plane in order to escape to safety, the military commander decides that they should let the villagers clear the runway before killing them all and escaping on the plane. On to their plan, Connor leaves the plane behind and as Green Arrow, he takes out the soldiers and rescues the civilians. With them (continued)
on board, Connor, Eddie, and the villagers escape from the snow and back into the air. It’s a nice one-off, but it’s clear that it was devised quickly as Dixon was told late that this month’s issue was going to be a crossover. It’s a story which doesn’t have much consequence in the grand scheme of things, but it works as a simple crossover to a much larger event. It would say that the Underworld Unleashed two-parter worked better, primarily because there was a distinguishable villain in a more complex plot. But, for a quick story, this works just as well.
Story: 7.5/10
Art: 7.5/10
The Iron Death --- Written by Chuck Dixon with art by William Rosado, Robert Campanella and Dick Giordano
After Where Angels Fear to Tread, The Iron Death is the next major story of the run and one that reunites most of the characters from the Mike Grell era. It begins, as ever, with Connor and Eddie wandering around a street, this time in Japan. However, they are both confronted by Japanese gangsters. Although Connor fights back against them, it is Eddie who knocks him out on purpose, telling him that one day, he will explain everything to him. After an obligatory flashback to his training, Connor awakens and is met with Jet, a teenager in a biker gang who tells him that Eddie was taken away by Octopus Nine, the Korean Mafia. As they both begin their search for him, Eddie is taken to Manila Runa, the boss of Octopus Nine. Seriously, why are they called that. Anyway, Runa offers Eddie a mysterious job involving an airport. Meanwhile, as Shado practises her archery blind, Jet takes Connor to the local Yakuza hideout and introduces him to her clan, named Bosozoku. Then, after a pointless scene in which Jet seemingly attempts to rob Connor, she tells him about something going on in the airport. There, Eddie is told of a woman he knows that is arriving in the country soon. Runa asks him to find and kill her, but Eddie can’t really turn it down due to a room full of gangsters all pointing guns at his head. When Connor and Jet arrive, they find an American Jet in a hangar, but before Connor can wonder why Octopus Nine would have something like this, Runa and his men appear and confront them. Elsewhere, a familiar face arrives in Black Canary, on a secret mission with the help of Oracle. But, as Dinah leaves the airport, she is confronted by Eddie with a gun pointing at her. So, Runa wants Black Canary killed and Eddie is seemingly the one to do it. This is a strange turn of events because Eddie has become something of a friend to Connor. But we’ve all forgotten that Eddie is a mercenary who can switch sides depending on the weather. But we’ve spoken too soon. Eddie instead turns around and, with the help of Black Canary, takes out all of Runa’s gangsters who were there to ensure that Eddie does his job. Meanwhile, Connor and Jet manage to escape from Runa and his men, before Eddie arrives and drives a car directly into the Jet, causing a huge explosion. However, as Connor notices the explosion and knows that Eddie was behind it, Eddie himself sees one of Runa’s men with an arrow in his arm. Later, Eddie and Black Canary make their way to Tuna’s mansion, unaware that Shado has been inside until they find numerous corpses inside with black arrows in their bodies. Suddenly, Eddie and Black Canary find Shado, who shoots an arrow at them, only for it to be blocked by Connor. Shado then faints, believing Connor to be Oliver. When she (continued)
reawakens, Shado tells Connor about Tuna’s plan to destroy Japan by returning it to militarism to destroy the alliance between the country and the west. She tells Connor that he also stole American weapons, one of which is a nuclear device. The room goes silent. Meanwhile, Tuna advances his plan by forcing the west to turn to war factories in South Korea as with his power, he threatens one of the largest economies on the planet. The third part begins with Tuna basically dreaming about wandering around a destroyed city from his nuclear device, hoping that the destruction will cause a regime change in Japan. Meanwhile, Shado and Connor interrogate an Octopus Nine gangster, before he spills the beans and mentions the Kyoto Maru, Tuna’s ship. With Oracle’s help, Black Canary finds the location of the ship to be near Okinawa Island. Meanwhile, Connor has doubts about Shado, blaming her in his head for what happened to his father. I don’t really remember Oliver bringing up Shado in the Where Angels Fear to Tread story, but even if he did, I’m not quite sure he is blaming her for the dark path that Oliver went down. It was what happened to Black Canary in The Longbow Hunters which started that. Eddie then proves this by telling Connor that Shado didn’t have much to do with it as Oliver was becoming more self-righteous in his actions. Eddie, forever the sarcastic critic. Anyway, Green Arrow, Eddie and Black Canary storm Tuna’s ship and manage to take out his goons, but the man himself appears and nearly kills Eddie. But, with teamwork, the heroes take him out and manage to get the location of the nuclear device out of him. Green Arrow and Eddie then make it to a military camp where they find one of Tuna’s goons about to detonate the nuke. However, he is stopped in time and Japan is saved. Well, that was easier than expected. In the end, Shado gives Connor more than a simple thanks. She gifts him with a recently taken photograph of Oliver Queen, still seemingly alive. With that effective cliff-hanger into the next story, it concludes The Iron Death and overall, it’s good. It’s great to see all the old faces together once more, particularly as I’m a huge fan of the Grell era. However, in terms of the side characters, I do think that Black Canary and Shado were somewhat wasted here and that they could have been involved in the story more. It feels like they only feature just to draw in readers who stopped buying the title. There is clearly something deeper going with Black Canary, especially with her link to Oracle in the story. And, with Shado, she barely interacts with Green Arrow and the tension between the two of them, which is heavily featured at the start of the third part, is too quickly resolved in the final page. The story itself may be very reminiscent of Grell-era Green Arrow stories, but the villain felt bland and evil for the sake of it. His link to Eddie is also vague and his plan may be threatening, but ultimately that too is cleared up too quickly. That all being said, one of the greatest aspects of this story has to be its pacing. As in nearly every other Dixon story I’ve read, the pacing and speed of the story is amazing. It never feels dull nor does it ever slow down. Sure, perhaps you need more where the plot slows down a bit so we can digest something that has happened, but because Dixon never makes the story dull, it is a fun and entertaining read. It’s difficult to criticise certain aspects of the story just because Dixon doesn’t make them boring. For example, there will be moments, particularly in the first part, where nothing really happens and in any other comic book, that would be annoying. However, because Dixon is the writer here and he absolutely knows what he’s doing, it doesn’t emerge as an annoyance. Like I said, it’s great for all the characters to reunite once again and it’s unfortunate that this is the only time, we get Shado, Black Canary and Connor all together in one story. All the more reason to enjoy this story, despite its flaws.
Story: 8/10
Art: 7.5/10
Endangered Species/Menu for Disaster --- Written by Chuck Dixon with art by Doug Braithwaite, Robert Campanella and William Rosado
This story is technically a two-parter, but I have included Green Arrow (vol 2) 120 (the issue after Endangered Species Part Two) as it resolves some of the plot threads from before. With Connor now having a photograph of a seemingly alive Oliver Queen, he and Eddie parachute into the golden triangle, southeast Asia, moments before their plane is taken down by a rocket. Arriving in a nearby village, Eddie reiterates that he recognises the mountain in the background of the photograph of Oliver as the Eagle’s Head. To get there, Eddie introduces Connor to Big Zinh, a murderer and pirate. But, as Eddie is owed his life from a previous experience together, Big Zinh allows he and Connor to travel above Eagle’s Head on a plane. Once they arrive, Eddie and Connor jump once again, but this time they are both separated. Connor searches around the forest only to hear the noises of dinosaurs around him. Meanwhile, an injured Eddie takes himself to nearby village, where a man he names Uncle looks after him and hides him from the Generalissimo, whose military controls the town and ignores rumours of “phantom dragons”. Eddie ignores him too. But, at the same time, Connor fights some dinosaurs after rescuing a young girl, before the Generalissimo’s men find Connor and take him prisoner. When Connor arrives in the jungle prison, he is shocked to find his father in a cage. Sigh. It’s a good cliff-hanger, but I can’t be the only one who saw through this. Even when I read this for the first time, I asked myself who this caged prisoner could be, and Oliver Queen never entered my mind. More on that later. Although Green Arrow fights back against the Generalissimo, he too is locked in a cell (not before another obligatory flashback scene). In fact, that’s something that I haven’t really mentioned, and it has happened usually once every issue. Connor occasionally has flashbacks back to his training or childhood, most of which are enjoyable scenes which add more depth to his character. This one here is interesting as it shows that from an early age, he is fascinated by Green Arrow, but his masters at the monastery shun him for it. Anyway, meanwhile, the young girl who Connor saved reports to Uncle, who informs Eddie that Green Arrow is in the tight grip of the Generalissimo. Meanwhile, Connor attempts to communicate with his “father”, who recognises the name Oliver Queen, but he’s too groggy to remember anything else. As Connor tries to get his “father” to remember, Eddie and Uncle gather villagers together in order to fight back against the Generalissimo and how these “dragons” could prove useful. Eddie theorises that the dinosaurs are attracted to native opium flowers and with them, he and villagers manage to somehow tame these aggressive maneaters, before they raid the Generalissimo’s prison. Meanwhile,
Connor manages to escape from his cell after tricking the guards, but as the Generalissimo arrives to kill his “father”, Eddie, the villagers and the dinosaurs arrive. An all-out fight breaks out, ending with the Generalissimo impaled and defeated. With that, Connor frees his father, only to find that surprise, surprise, it’s not him. It is in fact Travis Morgan, Warlord. To me, this was the most expected resolution to the story. Instantly from the start, I knew that Warlord was going to be in the cell. It’s not just because of the dinosaurs, but also because we saw Oliver die. He was vapourised when the bomb was detonated in Green Arrow (vol 2) 101. Not only that, but the rare dialogue that Morgan says before the ending heavily hints that he isn’t Oliver Queen. So, while Endangered Species was a very entertaining and overall great story, the ending was so predictable and expected. The first few pages of the following issue explains that Warlord appeared in our world from his own after hunting some dinosaurs and following them through a portal. He then spent three weeks in the forests on Earth after being captured by the Generalissimo. Recovering after the ordeal, Warlord learns of Oliver’s death and not long afterwards, Eddie and Connor leave him to recover. On a coach journey to the airport, Connor and Eddie become entangled in an event, shall we say, when a woman with a metal case is being hunted by attackers because she is in the CIA. On board, an undercover agent tries to kill the woman before Eddie takes over the driver’s seat and attempts to escape from the attackers hunting them. However, this fails, and Green Arrow intervenes and takes out all the agents. Afterwards, the woman laughs and reveals that she isn’t in the Central Intelligence Agency, but in the Culinary Institute of America. With that strange misunderstanding out of the way, Eddie and Connor head home and the two-part ways for now. But, when Connor arrives home at his apartment, he finds Master Jansen waiting for him, who tells him that he now longer needs to call him master. What does this all mean? We’ll find out in the next issue, but in the meantime, this one-off is a rather odd one. While its main purpose is to conclude the Warlord story, which I believe it does well, the second half with the CIA is very different. It is certainly comical, and it works if you don’t have a big idea for a one off and if you want something minor to feature, but it just does feel rather out of place here as the issue is trying to do two different things. As I said, it does well in concluding Endangered Species and it does well in setting up the next story, but the middle appears somewhat out of place.
Story: 7.5/10
Art: 7.5/10
THE ART BY RODOLFO DEMAGGIO, ROBERT CAMPANELLA, WILLIAM ROSADO, DICK GIORDANO AND DOUG BRAITHWAITE
The vast majority of the art here is done by William Rosado and Robert Campanella. As somebody who has read New Titans, a run which Rosado pencilled in its final year or so, I think his art is good and fits a character like Green Arrow. It flows very well, and it looks dynamic and while the inks may appear to be very basic and sometimes even bland, it could look a lot worse when you compare it to other stories at the time. Demaggio’s departure here isn’t anything too sad, as while he’s not bad as an artist, he lacked a memorable style for the title. Doug Braithwaite’s art differs in the style that it plays around with dark environments more and visually looks more dramatic. The layouts are also very unique, and he tells the Endangered Species story very well. Whether he would work as the regular penciller, I’m not sure. Visually darker stories work very well with his art and Dixon’s Green Arrow run is very varied in the type of stories that he writes. But overall, despite not being overly impressive, the art works well here and tells Dixon’s stories effectively.
VERDICT
Overall, Green Arrow: The Iron Death is another good set of stories which develops Connor’s Green Arrow further and features some great characters. The Lotus Seed may be just about average and while the one-off Final Night crossover may clearly be a last-minute idea, I think it works well. The Iron Death is very a strong story that, in spite of its many problems, is a very enjoyable read. And lastly, Endangered Species is a great story that may have a very predictable ending and bizarre third part, but it never fails to be entertaining. That can be said of all of these stories, whether they are good or mediocre. Dixon rarely writes awful stories, but even the average ones are paced extremely well.
Stories: 7/10
Art: 7.5/10
Next Week: Identity Crisis (Identity Crisis 1-7). Written by Brad Meltzer with art by Rag Morales and Michael Bair.
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