Back in the day, the death of a superhero was big news. We take it granted today that, in the 1980s, DC took some incredibly bold moves by killing off some famous and loved heroes. For example, in Crisis on Infinite Earths, both Supergirl and the Flash were killed. A few years later - in Batman: A Death in the Family – Jason Todd’s Robin was not only murdered but killed in such a brutal and bloody manner at the hands of the Joker. These moments shocked readers and are remembered as memorable for eternity. So, why do we take deaths for granted in the comic books of today? There can only be one answer – everyone comes back to life. One of the most famous heroes to be killed and then return was Oliver Queen, otherwise known as Green Arrow. Chuck Dixon killed off Green Arrow right at the start of Green Arrow (vol 2) 101, but just a few years later, he was to return when writer Kevin Smith emerged. Smith wrote a fantastic, but short, run on the title, but after his departure, the next writer appeared in the form of Brad Meltzer. A novelist by trade, Meltzer remains a unique writer in the comic book medium. With an imagination for grandly told stories focusing on drama and personality, Meltzer’s story focuses not on the death of Green Arrow, nor his resurrection, but someplace in between…
Green Arrow (vol 3) 16-21 was published from October 2002 to April 2003. Written by Brad Meltzer, the story was drawn by Phil Hester and Ande Parks, the usual artistic duo for the title. This story – like both Quiver and Sounds of Violence – has been reprinted several times, it being the Green Arrow classic it is.
So, what is there between death and rebirth? Nothing at all for the dead, but a whole mission for someone else. With both a new writer, a new story, and potentially a new audience to lap up the world of Green Arrow, it’s important to set the scene. On occasions, stories can be bogged down heavily by long-winded scenes of reminiscent dialogue and captions to get readers up to speed. Here, Brad Meltzer takes the simple yet highly effective approach. “I was dead. I came back to life.” Those words begin each of the six issues of Meltzer’s story, and with that, it sets up both the backstory of Green Arrow and the context of this tale very nicely.
After all the action of Green Arrow (vol 3) 1-15, Oliver Queen finally has time to look back at his funeral. Like most of us would if we ever got the chance, Oliver wants to know who attended the event, and who better to ask than Superman. Meltzer’s skill as a character and dialogue writer shines immensely from the first scene, with Green Arrow’s arrow-sharp (pun intended there) honesty and frankness clashing superbly with the schoolboy attitude of the Man of Steel. Despite Oliver Queen’s apparent dislike of Superman, there is clearly respect between the two characters. All-in-all, Meltzer begins the story almost cinematically and the first revelation is incredibly surprising and mysterious. It turns out that a random stranger was at Oliver Queen’s funeral. After attaining help from Barbara Gordon as Oracle – formerly Batgirl – Oliver Queen discovers the mystery man is… Catman?! A naff supervillain who dressed like a cat only to harass Batman. Surely not. As a writer of mystery stories, Meltzer knows how to hit a reader hard and unexpectedly. It would have been the dull or boring choice to discover that the villain was simply a plant working for, say, any of the usual boring supervillains we’ve become so tired of. But no, Meltzer has clearly scraped the bottom of the barrel and thank goodness for it. With the help of Roy Harper, once the sidekick Speedy but now Red Arrow, the two heroes break into Catman’s home and pin him down violently with their arrows. That’s just after the heroes discover Catman owns several puppies. Anyway, Green Arrow wants to know why Catman was at his funeral, and all is revealed when Oliver finds a letter nearby from himself to the villain about his funeral. It turns out that Catman was hired to visit the funeral by the immortal villain known as The Shade, a golden age foe going way back. What is all this for? That’s where Meltzer’s brilliant introduction ends…
The theme present during much of The Archer’s Quest tale is one of legacy, inheritance, and a father-and-son relationship. With the deaths of characters like Barry Allen’s Flash, and the evil transformation within Hal Jordan’s Green Lantern, it was decided that superheroes needed to keep their families and close friends safe from any danger relating to their real lives. Therefore, Oliver Queen decided – before he died – that his most prized possessions and anything of importance relating to his real identity should be destroyed. The best person to ask for this job has to be around after you die, and the most likely person that is always going to be is an immortal. Therefore, the Shade was chosen for the job and he – in turn, chose Catman to go to his funeral just to make sure Oliver Queen was really dead. Compared to other Green Arrow stories, this plot feels very original and the use of the Shade not as a villain but as an aid is surprising but refreshing. But the drama comes from Oliver’s surrogate son. Oliver Queen and Roy Harper are together for most of this story, just like the classic pre-1970s Green Arrow tales. But a lot has changed since then. Both characters are older; Roy Harper is no longer a kid sidekick, and Oliver can’t keep secrets any longer. There is a sense of sadness when Roy discovers that Oliver trusts the Shade more than him over this matter, but logically the immortal villain has to be the right approach. Regardless, it turns out that the Shade didn’t quite rescue all of Oliver’s belongings, and there isn’t really much excuse for it. I don’t know why the Shade couldn’t have just hired people to do some of the harder jobs, just like he did with Catman. I guess then there wouldn’t be any story. Either way, Oliver and Roy have to go on a quest to retrieve the most important items relating to Green Arrow’s life, with Meltzer delivering a whistle-stop tour of the Green Arrow mythos and some of the most famous places involving Oliver Queen.
First up is the Arrow Cave. Ahh, this hasn’t been seen since Green Arrow really was just a clone of Batman. After the awkwardness of the second issue, the dialogue between Green Arrow and Red Arrow warms up as they relive the memories of adventures from days gone-by. But suddenly, the third issue is transformed into a long and brutal battle. With the cave abandoned, it has now become the home of Solomon Grundy, the brutish creature without blood or a brain. The fight depicted by Meltzer is an impressive one. The inner dialogue of Oliver Queen is suspenseful and suitably brief. Unlike many other fights you’d find in the comic books of the 2000s, it isn’t just an arrangement of splash pages and huge panels of unrealistic fighting. There is pure emotion present, with both Oliver and Roy taking a battering against a villain who can’t be killed. In the end, Solomon Grundy is choked out by Green Arrow. And with that, Green Arrow can claim his prize and the first item on the list – it’s the famous certificate the hero received when he first joined the Justice League of America. For a character who preferred being slightly detached from the league, this might seem odd, but the reasoning is made clear much later. The fight with Solomon Grundy is really the only major punch-up to take place in the story, and I think it’s only present because the editor deemed a battle was essential. I suppose it doesn’t do any harm and it does break up the story well.
The next item is another product of the past – the diamond-tipped arrow that Green Arrow used in Justice League of America (vol 1) 4 to rescue the heroes trapped inside a giant diamond. Once again, it’s a nice reference which shows Meltzer’s love of DC’s history, but the way Oliver Queen obtains the arrow is masterfully told. Using a teleporter to get up to the JLA Watchtower, Oliver Queen bumps into Kyle Rayner as Green Lantern. O’Neil and Adams really solidified an unlikely friendship between Oliver and Hal Jordan in their 1970s run, and a brief but highly memorable scene featuring Green Arrow and the new(er) Green Lantern begins tense but ends with charm and respect. It’s just a shame that Oliver Queen was deluding the hero the whole time as he broke into a safe on board the satellite to take the arrow. The penultimate item focuses on another hero who featured in Oliver’s past. This time it’s the Flash, now Wally West, who stands guarding the Flash Museum in Central City. Here, Oliver wants a Flash ring which was made specifically for him when Barry Allen was still alive. While Red Arrow sneaks in to grab the ring, we’re treated to a few pages where Oliver and Wally essentially just stare at one another in silence. It’s an instance where we get to see the determination of Oliver Queen, and how his often-self-obsessed outer-character isn’t at all reflecting what’s going on inside. Internally, he is a sentimental man who sheds tears at memories and friends long gone. This mission is – overall – a personal one. And the last item on his list is another link to a lost friendship.
The fifth issue begins with an area of the story which was left unfinished. While travelling to a Ferris Aircraft hangar, Oliver and Roy take a break for a bite to eat where they encounter Catman once again. Harassing and bullying an innocent woman, the two heroes have to team-up again to take down this lousy excuse for a villain. But it turns out that Catman is actually on the run from Monsieur Mallah, a giant gorilla who once fought against The Doom Patrol. With the help of the teleporting villain named Warp, Catman is suddenly whisked away and delivered to Mallah. I don’t know if this story is ever continued in anything, but it makes for some light relief that is highly memorable. Either way, Oliver and Roy make it to the aircraft hangar and – after much searching – they find the old, abandoned truck which Green Arrow travelled in with Green Lantern in the O’Neil and Adams run.
Inside the car is one of Hal Jordan’s Green Lantern rings, and with that, all the items are collected. By the end of this penultimate issue, you realise that on the archer’s quest, Green Arrow’s motives have become clearer. At the very start, his motive was to know who came to see him at his funeral. His goal is more self-centred, while at the end, nearly all the collected items aren’t explicitly about him. For example, the diamond-tipped arrow may have been used by him, but it was used to rescue the Justice League from danger. Meanwhile, the rings belonging to the Flash and Green Lantern act as memories and reminders of friends lost in the past. The only exception is the certificate acknowledging Green Arrow’s membership of the Justice League, but Meltzer reveals more about that in the last issue.
Green Arrow (vol 3) 21 ties up two of the loose ends not just from The Archer’s Quest, but from the very first issue of the relaunched series. With both his traumatic death and his shocking rebirth, Black Canary’s world has been in flux for quite some time. To provide some stability and build a relationship once again, Green Arrow invites Black Canary to a dinner at Seattle’s Space Needle. Just like the Mike Grell days. Meltzer captures the two characters well here as that residual awkwardness is still present – Oliver returned just as Black Canary was getting on with her life as the two characters split up at the end of the Grell run in 1993. Oliver thinks of proposing to her but has to delay it as it isn’t quite the time yet. The other loose end to tie up focuses on Oliver’s real son, Conner Hawke. A Green Arrow himself, Conner didn’t feature much at all in this story due to injuries from the Sounds of Violence storyline. It’s a bit of a shame he didn’t appear much in this story, but at least it gave Meltzer the opportunity to build on the Oliver-Roy relationship instead. Conner is sitting in bed looking through old scrapbooks full of newspaper clippings and photos of Green Arrow and Speedy back in the day – it’s revealed that Roy Harper has been keeping these books for years. I guess the Shade must not have cared about those potentially dangerous books. Regardless, it’s at this point we’re shown the true reason why Oliver Queen went after his JLA certificate first. The certificate meant very little to him – inside the frame is a photograph of a young Oliver holding Conner Hawke on the day he was born. This is a very touching moment, one made even more powerful when you recall Conner Hawke’s earliest adventures with his father in Green Arrow (vol 2) 91-101. Although Oliver – being the young, rich and arrogant young adult he was – abandoned his son and didn’t see him for years, this moment once again proves how emotional Oliver Queen is and the love he has for his son. Before heading out on patrol, Oliver writes another letter to the Shade, telling him to destroy all of his belongings when he dies. But as he finishes the letter, he crosses out the Shade’s name only to replace it with Roy’s. Meltzer’s message of family over immortality is entirely appropriate for Oliver Queen and his archer’s quest. With this story, Meltzer almost creates potential for future stories examining the wishes of heroes after their death and how to protect those they love. However, I say almost because I cannot see another story with this angle which could supersede The Archer’s Quest in terms of emotional strength and memorability.
With a cartoony style of art, at first it seems unlikely that the style of Hester and Parks would work well with Meltzer’s deep understanding of character and dialogue. In the end, it’s clear that the styles actually compliment each other quite successfully. Meltzer’s writing can be deep, but also humorous. Meanwhile, Hester’s pencils and storytelling make the script fluid, while Parks provides a basic, but beautifully smooth pallet of inks. This artistic duo drew the Green Arrow stories of Kevin Smith, Brad Meltzer, and Judd Winick – all three of whom have a different style of writing. However, the duo provide good art all of the time, even if it does lack the detail and usual appearance of other Green Arrow artists like Adams, Grell, and Hannigan.
VERDICT
Overall, words cannot do justice to how both emotionally powerful and entertaining The Archer’s Quest can be. Meltzer has cleverly plotted it and there are very few plot holes to be found, but it’s in the relationships and dialogue where this story’s true magic shines. Every page is full of flawless dialogue displaying differing relationships and friendships. Throughout, it feels like a journey for Oliver Queen as we learn what matters the most to him – it isn’t himself but other people, specifically friends like Black Canary, Green Lantern, and The Flash, and family like Roy Harper and Conner Hawke. It stands tall as a one-off story, and few flaws can be found…
Next Week: Justice League: Origin (Justice League (vol 2) 1-6). Written by Geoff Johns with art by Jim Lee and Scott Williams.
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