While Grell began his main Green Arrow run rather well and successfully, it was clear to us as readers and clear to Grell as a writer that a recurring “super villain” of sorts should feature every so often in the series. Although most of the villains that Grell’s version of the hero had fought tended to be crime lords and amateur criminals, one stood out, that one being Shado, who featured as a mysterious and excellently well written villain in the preceding miniseries to the main run, Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters. After her father had dishonoured the Yakuza and been executed by them, Shado had to repay the debt and was taught how to use a bow and arrow in order to become a skilled and masterful assassin. During the Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters events, with Shado killing those who dishonoured her father and her crime family, she met Green Arrow and over time, the two teamed up to take out corrupt members of the CIA. After they went their separate ways, it was always clear that Green Arrow was going to meet her again and only nine issues into the run (Here There Be Dragons Part One), she returned, showing us that Mike Grell as her creator clearly had many ideas for her character and development. While this is only the first time she returns after her debut story, Grell sets up some key background and information which will come back to shock readers issues later, but what are those revelations that are so important to not only Shado’s character, but to Green Arrow and his life?
The stories which I will be reviewing are:
Black Canary/The Powderhorn Trail --- Green Arrow (vol 2) 7-8
Here There Be Dragons --- Green Arrow (vol 2) 9-12
The stories that I will be reviewing are from Green Arrow (vol 2) 7-12, which were published from August 1988 to January 1989, which are primarily by Grell, Hannigan, Giordano and McLaughlin with various others. Again, this is published under the “Suggested for Mature Readers” line and I have read these stories in the Green Arrow:
Here There Be Dragons trade paperback.
THE STORIES AND MY THOUGHTS
Black Canary/The Powderhorn Trail --- Written by Mike Grell and Sharon Wright with art by Eduardo Barreto, Randy DuBurke, Paris Cullins, Dick Giordano, Arne Starr and Gary Martin
THE PLOT
After some prostitutes offer themselves to him, Oliver Queen picks up his girlfriend Dinah Lance who was out running in the rain. She asks how his day was, with him commenting on a case he is involved in with Lieutenant Cameron which entails the Chinese mob having gambling houses to run their illegal doings, leaving no evidence behind, making Green Arrow angry that there is no way to arrest them. The next day, Oliver takes his Sherwood Florist van to a car wash. After the washer tells Oliver that the wash will take fifteen minutes, he walks away to go and have coffee. But, once he leaves, the car washer goes into Oliver’s van from the back and does something suspicious with some of his tools. The washer is then caught by another employee named Rita, who tells the washer that there is a call for him. Just then, Oliver returns, not aware of the possible damage that the car washer has done to Oliver’s van. Elsewhere, Dinah visits a jewellery store to pick up something that she asked the store to make for her and after picking up the item, she leaves and returns home to meet Oliver. He tells Dinah that he has arranged to go to Alaska as he has discovered that the Chinese mob has also got gambling houses in the state, making it possible for him to get more information. He also wants to see the dog sled racing (which was mentioned in Green Arrow (vol 2) 5). After he tells Dinah that he has to leave for Alaska that night, Dinah finds that Rita has entered the shop, who tells Dinah that she was the girl who crashed through the shop window on crack (from the start of Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters 1). Dinah then greets her nicely, before the two go out to eat in which Rita tells Dinah that she was fired from her job at a car wash, perhaps due to something she witnessed, possibly the suspicious actions of her boss, who was “cleaning” Oliver’s van. Dinah is intrigued by this. When she goes home, she finds a note from Oliver, telling her that he has left for Alaska. She then dresses into a darker Black Canary type costume, revealing that the jewellery she bought earlier was for protection purposes. She goes out in the night in the shop van and finds the suspicious car washer named Eric and begins to follow him in the car. She ends up leaving the van and getting in a taxi, telling the driver to follow it. But, Eric gets onto a ferry, which Dinah finds out is going to Alaska, the same area as Oliver. Dinah then arrives back to her shop home, but realises that her own car has been stolen and she phones to the police to tell them. Meanwhile on the ferry, Oliver notices Dinah’s car in the car park, but checks with the staff and finds out that Dinah isn’t on the ferry. Oliver then secretly turns the headlights of the car on, causing a radio announcement to play to everyone on the ship, making the “real” owner of the car appear to turn them off. Oliver finds out that the thief of the car is part of the Chinese mob and after leaving a phone message for Dinah to tell her about her stolen car, he opens the boot and finds bags of drugs in it.
After finding the drugs in the boot, Green Arrow not only tastes the drugs, but also tests the drugs and discovers that they aren’t cocaine. Just then, he hears an update that the ferry is nearly in Alaska, which makes Green Arrow decide to hide in the boot of the car (as he gives himself a mischievous smile). After being driven through the lawless streets in the city, Green Arrow manages to escape from the boot and finds himself in a garage, where the Chinese mob give paint jobs and remodelling to cars, making them look different and not seemingly stolen. After noticing that Dinah’s car has been painted yellow, Green Arrow follows one of the mob members who left the building to go to a casino, where Green Arrow finds the boss behind the Chinese gang operation, who is telling his men that a man named Quinn is taking care of the drug shipment for the next day. After this, Green Arrow meets with the Alaskan police, who query him about the drugs that he discovered. Instead, he is more concentrated on what exactly the drugs are. As Green Arrow knows the location of the casino and dodgy car altering business, he goes with the police to take out the criminals. He also continues by capturing members of the Chinese mob, who are coincidently found at the same time that the dog sled race begins, which Oliver wanted to see. But, he is still in luck as he discovers that one of the people in the race is called Quinn, who is obviously part of the Chinese gang’s operation and due to that, Green Arrow gets in a sled to chase down Quinn with the police. They both find out that Quinn went off the path of the race to transfer the drugs over, but was caught by U.S Customers Officers, who manage to defeat Quinn with the police and Green Arrow. In the end, the drugs are revealed to be a powdered rhino horn, which is still an illegal drug, meaning that
Quinn is arrested. Lastly, Green Arrow finishes the race by taking the dogs and sled on his own.
MY THOUGHTS
Although this story really feels like a fill in two part story due to its large number of irregular artists and new secondary writer for just issue seven, the story has two plot which merge into one plot. Now while this may seem confusing to some, don’t worry. Mike Grell seems to do this in multiple stories in the series, most notably Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters, which I found had three plots all sort of running together that converge during the last sections of the story (read my review of it here). While the second part really features some of the main plot, the first part is a really good and interesting display of Black Canary’s character and because of that, it doesn’t feel like a waste of a story. For starters, the main plot of the story is pretty regular for a Mike Grell story as it features gangs and drugs, but that being said, there are some unique factors in it. For instance, I thought that the idea of cars being altered and painted by the mob made sense and it has been known to have happened in real life, making the story feel realistic while staying in the boundaries of a superhero comic, even if the series can be considered as a borderline crime comic rather than a superhero one, but I digress. Moments like that in the story not only add some humour to the story, which I believe is essential due to the dark tone of the story as it needs to have some lighter appeal to it (not over the top obviously), but it also makes the story more interesting and in-depth, showing how complicated the case is and it also explains for why Green Arrow has been failing to track down the gangs. That all being said, to me I feel like the first part of the story is much stronger and feels much more at home with the Green Arrow comic. This is because it explores the mental effects of being a crime fighter as there are some great moments in the story in which Dinah keeps remembering te events of her torture from Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters, making the events of the story feel much more impactful and not wasted. This story is also a great character piece for Black Canary as it shows her independence as a hero and it shows that the comic belongs to Black Canary just as much as it does to Green Arrow. Speaking of which, I thought that as usual, Mike Grell wrote the characters of the main two heroes well, making them generally likable and just all around interesting characters. In terms of other aspects, it was a great idea to feature the character of Rita again as her crashing through the window in the miniseries isn’t exactly something that people would forget. This just makes the comic feel much more human and it really shows just how well Mike Grell writes characters, making them drive the story in most instances. The same can be said about the events in which Oliver goes to the car wash with his work van, showing that he has a life behind Green Arrow. Again, this makes the story and characters both very interesting, making them drive the story.
As previously stated, the story is just a regular story from Green Arrow in this era and while that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it would have been nice to have seen some different plots. But, one of the main problems I have with this story has to be the bracelet jewellery that Dinah gets in the first part. While this may have been writer Sharon Wright’s idea, I didn’t get the relevance to it and in the end, it felt rather quite pointless in the story. Also, why would Dinah follow the man from the car wash in her own van, the same van that he seemingly tampered with earlier. Actually, what was the point of that? That washer man just disappears, nowhere to be seen in part two. The more you look at the story, the more you realise the flaws of the story and while I think the character really makes this story noticeable and great to read, the main plot and the events surrounding it range from at best, above average to just plain lazy. Sure, Grell may have been preparing the next story (Here There Be Drgaons), but still, I think some more effort really could have been put into this story.
Instead of Hannigan, Giordano and/or McLaughlin doing the art for this, we get a load of other artists doing the work, most of whom look shoddy and don’t compare at all with the great effective art of the usual team. I noticed that the lighting was off, bodily anatomy was a bit inaccurate (not in a Rob Liefeld style) and also, Green Arrow’s head was f*cking huge in one panel. At least I could tell what was going on and to be
honest, some panels looked quite good, but not very interesting. The page layouts tended to be quite regular and the art styles were quite regular and standard, as oppose to the interesting and dramatic style of Hannigan, which fits the Green Arrow stories very well. Again, not the best, but not the worst.
Story: 7/10
Art: 6.5/10
Here There Be Dragons --- Written by Mike Grell with art by Ed Hannigan, Dick Giordano and Frank McLaughlin
THE PLOT
During a peaceful walk together in the streets of Seattle, Dinah asks Oliver if he ever thinks of “her”, who Oliver knows she means Shado. After he lies to her, telling her he doesn’t, he continues lying about Shado with Dinah querying about the events that night they met and ends the talk by saying that he would kill the man who tortured Dinah (Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters 2) over and over again. Later that night, Oliver dreams about Dinah’s torture and about how Shado said the two of them aren’t too different from each other as he has killed people now. Oliver then wakes up, wondering where Shado is hiding. Meanwhile in Japan, Shado faces the Yazuka, who are happy to find that all of the targets they had were killed by Shado (Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters), apart from one, who was killed by Oliver. Shado tells the Yakuza boss that she allowed for Oliver to kill one of the targets as his vengeance was more important than their own. As a punishment, Shado is forced to shoot a target on her master with just one arrow, which if she misses will obviously kill him. After preparing for it mentally, she succeeds and her master’s life is spared. But, the Yakuza boss decides as a punishment, she must give over her jade ring which she wears by cutting off her finger. But, just as she is about to do it, her master aims his bow at the Yakuza bosses, allowing for her to escape. As she leaves though, her master is killed by the Yakuza bosses. But as revenge, Shado shoots an arrow through the head of the boss, before running away.
Oliver is woken up by Dinah, who is singing happy birthday to him with a card and a cake (bit early in the morning for cake?). Later in the day, while Dinah is asking Oliver what he wants to do for his birthday, he notices while shaving that Dinah is taking birth control tablets, but he forgets about it. Elsewhere, Yakuza members arrive on a tropical island and breaks down the doors of a cabin which Shado is living in. But as they enter the house, they are all killed by Shado using her bow and arrow along with her martial arts skills. Like before, she escapes. In the Seattle Zoo, Oliver and Dinah are enjoying their day, but they notice that they are being followed by Greg Osborne (Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters) and Eddie Fyers (Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters and Green Arrow (vol 2) 3-4). The two good guys take out both Fyers and Osborne, who wants to speak to Oliver in private while Fyers and Dinah spar together (yeah, in a zoo). Osborne tells Oliver that a map leading to World War Two treasure buried in the Philippines has been found. But, it has gone missing and the Yakuza have taken numerous land areas, which suggests that they have found the map and are looking for the treasure. Osbourne tells Oliver that he thinks Shado is the one who stole the map and that he should try to find her, take the map back, give it to the CIA so they can help the Filipino economy boom. Even though Oliver is very skepitical and worried about the idea, Osborne tells him that if he doesn’t comply, he will turn over Oliver to the IRS for tax evasion (due to money he gave Oliver in Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters 3). After asking how Osborne knows that Oliver is Green Arrow, he tells Oliver that he thought it wasn’t meant to be a secret that the two were the same, making Oliver shocked. Later on when speaking to Dinah, Oliver tells her that he will take the mission given to him by the CIA. He then is given a report that Shado could be hiding out in Hawaii, so he goes on a plane and after bribing a hotel receptionist to get information, Oliver becomes Green Arrow and in an abandoned shipyard, he finds Shado, who fires an arrow into Green Arrow’s chest.
After the attack, Shado is training by firing arrows at a target while blindfolded. But, behind her a Yakuza member appears and is about to shoot her. However, he is taken (text continues after image)
out by an injured Oliver with a chair before Shado shoots the Yakuza member. Oliver then faints and Shado puts him back to bed to recover, which results in Oliver having a dream about Dinah telling him that she doesn’t want to have children (reference to Green Arrow (vol 2) 1). He even briefly dreams about Shado (more on that much later on). Some days later, Oliver wakes up and speaks to Shado while she is training. After she tells him that they have had to move location due to the Yakuza presence, Oliver informs her about his mission and how it involves the CIA and the events of their previous meeting (again, Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters). Although he tells Shado that he was unsure why he took the mission, she tells him about why the Yakuza is hunting her and about her origin and relation to the gang. She also tells Oliver that the Yakuza will be hunting her for the rest of her life. Oliver decides to stay with Shado and during training, he meets her gardener, Mr Alvaro, who begins to notice that both Shado and Oliver are getting closer together. But, Mr Alvaro is kidnapped by the Yakuza members and bow-wielding duo locate and fight the Yakuza members but even though the two kill all of them, Mr Alvaro grows tired and ill. As he dies he gives his last request for Shado to look over the garden he helped plant. She agrees and avenges his death by firing an arrow at a speedboat which has Yakuza members in it who are reporting back to their masters, killing everyone on board.
After burying Mr Alvaro, Oliver decides to stay with Shado for longer, but warns her that if the island is swarmed by Yakuza members, he is leaving. Some time later, the two visit Honolulu on a boat to get supplies, but they are being watched and after time, Shado goes missing, leaving Oliver alone. She then hastily reappears, ordering Oliver to get back to the boat as the Yakuza have found the two of them after she killed one of the members that she found spying on them. But once they get to the boat, Shado concludes that the only way to defeat the Yakuza is to kill them all and due to that, they stay behind and kill the members hiding throughout the area, one of whom kills himself with a grenade, trying to kill Oliver and Shado. After phoning Dinah to tell her that he is alright, Oliver meets Greg Osborne again, who has a number of Yakuza thugs with him for protection. Oliver tells Osborne that Shado was killed in the explosion and he hands over the map, which Osborne says isn’t the real map. This is when Oliver reveals that the map he gave to him wasn’t actually the original one, but one made by Shado from stories told by Mr Alvaro, who was one of the people who buried the treasure in the first place decades before. He also tells Osborne that he knows that he isn’t actually working for the CIA, but with the Yakuza and the treasure would be split between them. After Osborne explains to Oliver that he is also working with shady political figures to overthrow the Filipino Government, he orders his men to kill Oliver. But, one of the Yakuza members is killed by Shado, who Oliver lied about being dead and not only that, the FBI arrive to arrest Greg Osborne for conspiring to overthrow the government. Although he says that he won’t be in prison for that long, Oliver reminds him that he has double crossed the Yakuza and they will try to kill him for it. Finally, Oliver and Shado part ways, knowing that the two may be close, but it cannot go any further than that.
MY THOUGHTS
Out of all of the stories up to this point, this is the one which feels much more like the sequel to the Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters miniseries. It follows on from the over hanging plot lines that the miniseries purposely left open. A notable one is the return of Greg Osborne, who although made a quick appearance at the end of Green Arrow (vol 2) 6, you would want to know when he returns and this story is set up beautifully in that regard. The best thing about this story really has to be its great pacing. Grell writes the story incredibly fast paced and it has a superb balance between action scenes and conversational scenes, which make the story feel great. While it is true that Grell can write pages and pages of fight scenes with no dialogue or any text whatsoever, it does make the comic feel more action packed. This also makes the dialogue scenes feel unique and interesting and nothing is really dragged on too much, with the possible exception of the ending of part four of the story. Again like before, Grell adds in some of the human elements to the story, which work incredibly well and are generally interesting. One of those aspects is the start of the second part of the story, where Oliver has his birthday. These aspects make the story feel like it is balanced in the real world and due to that, the characters feel much more fleshed out and better. Speaking of characters, this is the first time in the series where we really get to see one of Oliver’s downfalls, which are actually women. Yes, he has a romantic relationship with Dinah Lance, but here it is clearly hinted and implied that he has got some feelings for Shado. Aspects like this really come to bite Oliver on the ar*e later, not just about ten or so issues later, but all the way to the end of the run with the storylines like Green Arrow: Old Tricks and many more. This makes the characters feel real while also giving Oliver much more of a unique feel. Now while Black Canary doesn’t really feature much in the story, Shado is the main secondary character and although we learn more about her and we now know a lot more about her background (from this and the miniseries), she still feels like a mysterious character and you are still kind of unaware about what side she is really on. This adds great drama to this story, but although she can be quite a villain due to her ignorance of killing others, it is clear that the real villain is the Yakuza, who are quite a threat and their constant hunting of Shado gives the story a sense of urgency and importance, making it feel all the more interesting. Speaking of which, their causing of the death of Mr Alvaro may seem unimportant and sort of trivial at first, but in the end, he was the real key to the story. This adds a great twist on the story as when reading it, you pretty much know that Osborne is lying about something and he is really in it for his own purposes, but the additional twists and the expectance of them while being unaware of how and when they are going to be featured in the story just really makes the whole thing feel more epic and a more thrilling story. Like previous stories, Grell grips at the emotions of the reader, especially when Mr Alvaro dies. I mean, I know he was introduced just literallya few pages before his death, but his brief character and appearance just makes the whole thing feel more emotional. The ending result of this also adds to that, especially when you find out how important his character really was to the overall story. Other than that, the story features a brief appearance of Eddie Fyers, who although I would have liked it if he featured more in the story as a whole, it still shows that Grell has plans for him as a character. Moreover, you can just tell by the end that although Shado and Green Arrow part ways, she is going to come back in the future, adding more suspense and tension for when she actually does come back as reading this story and The Longbow Hunters, it is clear that her next story she will be in will be another epic tale.
While I could easily class this story as probably one of the best that Grell writes in the series, I can't help but think why would Osborne and Fyers decide to speak to Oliver and Dinah when they are visiting the zoo? I mean, I understand that Osborne knows the location of Oliver constantly, but why couldn’t he have just waited until he got home. It looks quite strange in a zoo, which is full of kids might I add, for a man to be asked to take a CIA mission. This also comes across as ridiculous for when Dinah decides to spar with Fyers, making the two of them disappear for Osborne to speak to Oliver privately. If that was the case then why did Osborne take Fyers along. He could have just taken some strong looking guys, which shows to me that Fyers was only in the story for just a cameo. I really think the story would have been better if Fyers had had more of a impact in it and not feel quite wasted.
We return to the art of Ed Hannigan, Dick Giordano and Frank McLaughlin, which is for the most part very good. The detailing and lighting is very nicely done, but some areas do look quite rough and strange. For example, in some panels (certainly in the
dream that Oliver has), there is tons of crosshatching which doesn’t really fit too well and it just looks messy. Tons of that is all over the four part story and while it doesn’t exactly make me hate the art, it would have been nice if it looked a bit more organised.
Story: 9.5/10
Art: 8/10
VERDICT
Overall, the stories from Green Arrow: Here There Be Dragons is pretty good. While there are flaws in the Black Canary/The Powderhorn Trail storyline, more so in the first part, I think that the main four part story is excellent and it feel makes the stories with Shado feel unique and massively impactful. With just a few small problems, Here There Be Dragons is probably the best story so far in the run due to its great plot and character, making it compare very well with The Longbow Hunters (1-3) miniseries and Hunters Moon (Green Arrow (vol 2) 1-2). The main question now is can Grell keep this up? This is only the first twelve issues of the run and there are loads left to go…
Stories: 9/10
Art: 7/10
Highlighted Character: Shado
Next Review --- The Creeper by Steve Ditko Part One (Showcase (vol 1) 73, Beware The Creeper (vol 1) 1-6). Written by Steve Ditko, Don Segall and Dennis O’ Neil with art by Steve Ditko, Jack Sparling and Mike Peppe. Expected to be published on 16/06/2019.
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