Although we had a break from the Yakuza attacks on Green Arrow ‘s life and the presence of Shado, it was to end swiftly and quickly. Not to say that the Blood of the Dragon storyline isn’t any good as it was something that the run certainly needed after the series of two partners which ranged in quality (click here to read my review of them). The main four-part story of issues 21-28 feature Shado as the secondary character again along with her newly born child, who is an integral part of the plot that will later come back to bite Green Arrow’s ar*e. Not only that, but the Yakuza return and there is a lot of travelling in Asia. Therefore, there are similarities between this story and the four-part story Here There Be Dragons (Green Arrow (vol 2) 9-12), but that isn’t a bad thing. Additionally, in issues 27-28, Grell introduces (or reintroduces to some long-time readers) the character of Warlord, who Grell had created in the mid-1970’s for his own title. I think we can all agree that aspects like the return of Warlord and Shado make the title more interesting, so lets just hope these stories are better than those which came before it…
The stories I will be reviewing are:
Blood of the Dragon --- Green Arrow (vol 2) 21-24
Witch Hunt --- Green Arrow (vol 2) 25-26
Enter…/Siege --- Green Arrow (vol 2) 27-28
Green Arrow (vol 2) 21-28 were published from August 1989 to January 1990 on a monthly basis, with the exception of issues 21-24 (Blood of the Dragon) which were released fortnightly in both August and September. As usual, all stories are written by Mike Grell with various artists. Again, these issues were published under the “Suggested for Mature Readers” line and I have read these issues in the Green Arrow: Blood of the Dragon trade paperback.
THE STORIES AND MY THOUGHTS
Blood of the Dragon --- Written by Mike Grell with art by Dan Jurgens, Dick Giordano and Frank McLaughlin
THE PLOT
Somewhere in Japan, Shado puts her newly born baby to bed and goes out to train with her bow. But she hears a noise of gunfire from inside her home. She runs in to find masked attackers kidnapping her baby, but before she can do anything, she is knocked unconscious. Later on, she awakens in a dark room with some Americans working with the Yakuza. After she is told that they want her to repay them after she killed their leader (Here There Be Dragons), the people bring in her baby and tell Shado that she must take a mission on behalf of the Yakuza and then kill herself, resulting in her child’s life being saved. Meanwhile in Seattle, Oliver Queen celebrates his forty fifth birthday with Dinah Lance and after the celebration, a man delivers a note to Oliver, which makes him come to the conclusion that he has to go to Japan. Although he has an argument with Dinah about his verdict, he goes out to Japan and meets Shado, who tells him about her problem and how she must try to get her baby back alive. Oliver asks about her mission which entails her assassinating somebody, but she refuses to tell Oliver who the target is. Oliver then tells Shado that he must go with her to help, but she tells him not to. Oliver then asks why she sent for him, but she tells him that she didn’t send him the letter, making Oliver shocked.
After asking who sent for him, Oliver is told to go back home to Dinah again by Shado,
but he refuses and helps her in her mission to get her baby back. After getting dressed into costume and being reminded that she must get her child back in four days, Oliver asks Shado to remember where she was taken by the Yakuza. She remembers hearing an eagle, a helicopter and bells from a monastery. The two then search the Japanese area and locate the monastery. Before starting to attack any inhabitants of the monastery, Green Arrow tells Shado to keep one of the people alive so they can get information. She accepts that and the two go in and violently takes out and murders all of the Yakuza members. Although Shado reluctantly lets one of the Yakuza members live after Green Arrow warns her, unfortunately, the last remaining gang member in the area kills himself with Shado’s weapon, resulting in Shado and Oliver leaving the monastery empty handed. Oliver then gets angry about their failure, but Shado persists that they must get her baby back.
After thinking about Shado and their relationship, Green Arrow and Shado bathe in a small pool of water. The two continue their argument about their failure at the monastery and how Shado made a mistake about how she thought her child would have been held at the same place as before. Therefore, the two decide to break into and attack the Yakuza’s head office of operations, who are clearly alarmed about the monastery attacks. Shado splits from Green Arrow and gets through the Yakuza’s base in a maid’s disguise and results in her meeting Green Arrow again so the two can attack the Yakuza members. The fight begins and Shado offers a gun to Green Arrow for better protection, but he refuses and sticks to his bow and arrow. But near the end of the duel, one of the Yakuza members escape in a helicopter with Shado’s baby. Since they have failed again, Shado now comes to the conclusion that she must kill the person that the Yakuza and Americans have told her to kill. But, just as Green Arrow asks her who the person is, she disappears. Meanwhile, the Yakuza bosses speak about the assassination plot that they have forced Shado to perform and one of the gang members shows a newspaper with numerous world leaders who they are planning to kill.
After thinking in his head, Oliver works out as she was told to assassinate someone, that implies that she must kill a world leader. At the same time, the Yakuza and Americans speak about their real plan, which is to have Oliver kill Shado so she doesn’t kill the target while another assassin will kill the target using a pen that emits cyanide gas. Oliver visits the US embassy in Japan to warn them that the President of the US is in danger from Shado. Although at first the person from the embassy he is speaking to doesn’t give any information away (as he is obviously secretly working with the Yakuza and their assassination plot), Oliver comes back as Green Arrow and forces the person to give the location of where the assassination attempt will be, along with other information about the other world leaders that will attend the event. He also forces the person to reveal the location of Shado’s baby. At the area of the assassination attempt (a mounted archery demonstration), Shado disguises herself as one of the shooters. During the demonstration, Shado plans to save her last arrow for one of the world leaders, but before she can kill him, Green Arrow gets her attention by firing an arrow at an archery target. She also notices that Green Arrow has got her baby back. The assassination plot then goes wrong as Shado shoots the person with the poisoned pen which was going to be used on one of the world leaders. Shado is then shot at by security and falls into the ocean, seemingly dead. However back at the Yakuza HQ, the boss is informed of what happened, but he reveals that it was part of his plan as it means that his competition had been killed, resulting in him having more power than anyone else. Before going home to Seattle, Oliver says goodbye to Shado, but not before asking her who the father of her child is. Although she doesn’t give an answer, she tells Oliver that he has his father’s eyes. Oliver then leaves and as Shado becomes tearful, it can be seen that her child’s eye colour is green, the same as Oliver’s.
MY THOUGHTS
As the stories that feature Shado and the Yakuza are meant to be much longer, interesting and hard hitting, this four-part story does not disappoint. The balance between dialogue and action scenes works well and the story is never dull. This tends to be consistent in all the stories that Shado features in, whether it be The Longbow Hunters, Here There Be Dragons or this, the plots never feel tiresome. It is clear that Mike Grell absolutely loves writing these Shado stories because not only are they interesting and great to read, but because they add so much character depth, development and hard-hitting drama that I think the best stories in comics all need. Looking at the newest aspect of this story, Shado’s unnamed baby comes as a mystery to everyone who reads this for the first time. It seems very random to the casual reader. But when you think about it and examine it further, you really understand the background around the baby. One of the biggest hints and suggestions about the baby is the ending of part four of the story where it is revealed that the child has green (continues after image)
eyes, the same colour as Green Arrow’s. Unless you haven’t got a brain, that instantly tells you that this child belongs to Oliver as well as Shado. Although this isn’t explicitly told or shown until much later, the ways that Grell hints at this are perfect. Whether it be how Shado speaks about the baby in front of Green Arrow or the strange hallucination scene in Here There Be Dragons (which will also be explained much later), Grell is excellent at creating hints and implications that really satisfy the reader or just make the story much better as a whole. The huge highlight of this story has to be Shado. Although I think it is pretty safe to say that as a character, she is naturally violent as she is a trained assassin, here she is done like that but to the nth degree. She is incredibly violent, casually murderous and borderline psychotic. This makes realistic sense to me and it isn’t done just to make the story more violent and appealing to people. She has had her baby taken off her forcefully. She is naturally going to be angry and as an assassin, the things she does won’t be pretty to say the least. Due to Shado’s mighty presence, Green Arrow really takes a back seat here, with the exception of the fourth part where he becomes a much bigger part of the story. Speaking of which, as I always say in these Green Arrow reviews, it is great to see his birthday as it makes the character feel human and fleshed out. Aspects like this make the story feel much better to read and just more entertaining. Apart from that, the Yakuza are just as evil as usual and it is good to see a twist ending of sorts, which I think makes the story feel different and it leaves it open for a future story or sequel to the events of this story. Although the presence of real-life world leaders like United States President George Bush Snr and Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev may slightly date the story, this doesn’t bother me. In fact, I think that this makes the threat of the story more real, making the story as a whole feel engaging and impactful.
I understand that this story was published fortnightly, but come on… Let me just say that I am happy that I have read this in the trade paperback format which compiles multiple issues. That is because it took me twenty minutes (if that) to read this story on my second read. There are literally pages and pages of fight scenes without any dialogue or anything and even some of the conversational scenes barely have any dialogue. I said earlier that there was a balance and I think there is due to the amount of dialogue scenes and fight scenes. But that balance is weak. I think what the story needs is more dialogue to explain the plot as I find some aspects of it and the explanation throughout the story just a bit confusing. Due to that, part four of the story crams tons of dialogue in, which isn’t a terrible thing, but I think it would have been wiser to have had it spread out over the space of the four issues. Not only that, but why would four world leaders go to a sports competition? Sure, I understand one or maybe two, but four is a bit of a stretch and it is a huge security risk thinking about it. Other than that, the story is pretty much great. I just feel like the dialogue scenes should have been more prominent in order to make the plot explanations more comprehensive and less confusing and crammed.
The art creative team of Dan Jurgens, Dick Giordano and Frank McLaughlin are all present for this four-part story and their art works pretty well for the most part. Sure, my usual problem with the art is present, which is that can be messy at times in the story and it can look a bit untidy, but the artists tell the story very well and it isn’t a challenge to work out what is going on in some of the scenes. Also, the fight scenes are displayed in a very interesting way that doesn’t look dull. This is a good thing as it keeps the story looking entertaining and interesting while there isn’t dialogue present at all in the story. But most importantly, the team tell the story well and in an interesting way, which I think is one of the most important aspects of being an artist.
Story: 9/10
Art: 8/10
Witch Hunt --- Written by Mike Grell with art by Trevor Von Eeden, J.J. Birch and Michael Bair
THE PLOT
In Nottingham, England, some hunters are looking for a girl who is doing some paranormal ritual. However, she escapes from the hunters as an owl warns her of their presence. Once she gets home, her grandfather shouts at her and warns her about her supernatural activities. But, after throwing a tantrum, he has a heart attack, collapses and dies. In Seattle, Oliver and Dinah have decorated their home for Halloween and Oliver has bought sweets for any trick-or-treaters. The two then check their mail and find a letter, which is addressed to Oliver and asks for him to go to England and investigate somebody’s death. Although Oliver has never heard of the sender, named Geoffrey Dunston, he flies over to England on a plane. He arrives at the airport and meets Dunston, who explains that the girl in the woods of Nottingham, named Rowan Hawthorne, has been doing these supernatural activities and that her family has been torn apart over it. As he serves a lawyer for the family, Dunston also tells Oliver that her grandfather (who Dunston is unaware that he is dead) has gone
missing and he thinks that Rowan is responsible. Oliver asks why he was chosen to be the one for this mission and Dunston says that Rowan is being hunted by people and due to that, Oliver must make sure that they don’t kill her, meaning he might have to kill some of the hunters. After this, Oliver drives in a car that Dunston gives him to Nottingham to look for Sherwood Forest. He ends up finding a small inn, where he asks the inhabitants about the Hawthorne estate. The room goes quiet, except for one man named John Constantine, who tells Oliver about how the residence and how it is like hell. Oliver then leaves to go to estate.
After hearing about the hunters looking for Rowan and some of the tales related to the house, Oliver investigates the estate and finds a cane belonging to Rowan’s grandfather. However, he is shocked to find Dunston at the house, who explains that he is in Nottingham to see if Oliver needs any help. After looking around the inside garden and finding that many of the plants have been harvested for healing purposes, Oliver becomes Green Arrow and searches Sherwood Forest, where he hallucinates Robin Hood, castles, dragons and a strange voice telling him that it is the voice of the forest. Green Arrow then wakes up from his strange dream and finds that he had actually been hit by a car. Just as the driver shouts at him, Rowan appears, helps Green Arrow up and tells him that he may have been drugged. He and Rowan go deeper into the forest, where she speaks about what she does and how the Earth must be looked after, and nature must be preserved. But just as they are talking, Dunston comes out of the shadows with some hunters, one of which has a dog that Rowan controls. Oliver tells Dunston that the cane belonging to Rowan’s grandfather had been covered in LSD, resulting in his heart attack. Dunston then admits that he killed him, telling Oliver that he couldn’t let all of Rowan’s grandfather’s will money go to Rowan. Dunston then gets agitated and is about to attack Rowan, but her dog pushes him into a stone pillar, which then collapse and lands on Dunston, killing him. After the hunters forgive Rowan and admit they were wrong, Green Arrow shoots an arrow into the forest, which lands at the feet of the spirit of Sherwood Forest. This is Green Arrow’s way of thanking the spirit.
MY THOUGHTS
After a four part story that is certainly a highlight in the run, this story hasn’t got many redeeming features. I’ll get onto why I think this story is pretty bad in a bit, but the main thing that sticks out in this story the most has to be the way that England is written and drawn in both parts of the story. The way that both London and Nottingham are shown is completely laughable to me and to be honest, those funny moments are probably some of the only good bits of the story. I mean, Nottingham literally is a load of woods and Grell thinks that planes fly incredibly low over London Bridge and the Houses of Parliament. Also, the Robin Hood stuff is pretty funny and stupid, even if it does seem like an obvious thing to do with Green Arrow. Additionally, it is good to see a quick cameo of John Constantine (from Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing and his own title, Hellblazer). I think it would have been better if he featured in the story more.
But apart from those funny bits, the story is absolutely poo. The main plot featuring the girl who has these weird powers isn’t really explained much and I’m not really exactly sure why she is doing these rituals, apart from something to with nature. Also, her character is pretty bad as she doesn’t seem to be affected or caring towards the death of her grandfather, who seems to be one of the only people that she spoke to. I think it would have been nice if we saw some of that and a bit of dialogue between Dunston and Rowan as it would have made Dunston’s plan feel a bit more real and not out of the blue. Speaking of which, Dunston’s plan is one of the most elaborate and confusing ways of getting money that looking back at it, doesn’t really make too much sense. Why did Dunston have to hire Green Arrow? He clearly had the help of the hunters towards the end of part two so why couldn’t he even have just confronted her then without Green Arrow available to thrash his plans. Also, if Dunston really wanted to get some of the will money then why didn’t he just ask Rowan’s grandfather to be on the will? I don’t understand why he had to kill him for it. To me, it seems like Dunston went with the last resort for every step of his plan, which obviously didn’t work out well for him, but it just makes the character and his plan incredibly stupid and clumsy. Moving on, the stuff to do with the spirit of the forest was a complete load of rubbish to me. Sherwood Forest should just be a load of trees, but in this story, it is somehow made into a form of the living version of nature, with some strange hallucinations of Robin Hood. Everything about this story is just bad, with the exception of a few aspects I mentioned earlier. Although this is a nit-pick of sorts, the Halloween aspect of the story felt sort of pointless. I get the story was published around that time, but we didn’t get to see much of it, which isn’t an awful thing, but it would have made the story feel a bit more complete.
I assume that the usual art trio were busy working on the Blood of the Dragon story, hence why in this story we get art by Trevor Von Eeden, J.J Birch and Michael Bair. The artwork isn’t too bad in some areas, but it is clearly worse than the usual team. There are instances of strange lighting along with some of the people and faces looking almost deformed and alien. Also, might I add, John Constantine looks terrible in this story. I don’t know why he is wearing some knitted jumper instead of his usual look, but he doesn’t have any of the similar facial features or marks. Also, although I tend to like Julia Lacquement’s colouring of the book, her Constantine has ginger hair for some reason, which is just flat out incorrect. The rest of the colours are fine, but overall, the art can be at best average, but it can sometimes look horrifically bad.
Story: 2/10
Art: 5/10
Enter…/Siege --- Written by Mike Grell with art by Dan Jurgens, Dick Giordano and Frank McLaughlin
THE PLOT
In Seattle, a man who looks a lot like Oliver Queen walks into a bar. A young criminal comes up to him, showing him a scar on his hand which Green Arrow did to him. Obviously mistaking him for the archer, the gangster prepares to kill the man with a knife but is apprehended by the man who then sticks the knife in the gangster and walks out. Meanwhile, the real Oliver is getting patched up by Dinah after coming back from patrol. At the same time, the mysterious man who looks like Green Arrow is harassed by prostitutes and gangsters. The man becomes angry and annoyed that he is being mistaken for Green Arrow and he asks one of the gangsters he meets about Green Arrow. Later that night, Oliver is woken up by the doorbell. He goes to answer it and finds the man there (who is revealed to us to be Travis Morgan, Warlord). Travis then punches Oliver in the face for being an indirect cause of all of the people trying to kill him.
Just as some gangsters speak about their plot to take out Oliver and Dinah at their home, Dinah meets Travis. Although at first, he tells her to go back to the kitchen, she punches him in the face. After the quick fight, Travis explains that the people of Seattle have been trying to kill him as he looks like Oliver. He also introduces himself as Morgan The Raider and tells them that he was born in 1926 but doesn’t age at the same rate as normal people. During the discussion between Oliver, Dinah and Travis, the gangsters manage to turn all of the power out in the whole city, resulting in darkness. This allows for the gangsters to distract the police from the home of Oliver and Dinah, who are the main target for the gangsters. Oliver, Dinah and Travis discover numerous gangsters at the home, making them to attack back at them and take them all out. After the fight, Travis leaves the residence of Oliver and Dinah peacefully.
MY THOUGHTS
For somebody who has never read Mike Grell’s Warlord title, this two-part story has certainly made me more interested. The best character of this story has to be Travis Morgan, who is just excellently written. I guess in some way that must be because unlike Green Arrow, Grell created Morgan and due to that, he has the perfect understanding of his character and how he reacts with other people. The arguments
between Travis and Oliver can be hilarious and really funny, making the story as a whole a joy to read. Although the main plot is quite regular and nothing special with the mob being the bad guys of the story, it does allow for a fight scene to happen, resulting in Travis becoming Warlord once again. I can imagine that this is great for long time fans of the Warlord series. Grell manages to slowly introduce us to the Warlord character, for both those who are long time fans and new readers who are unaware about him. The information surrounding him is told very interestingly and the story is never dull. The same goes for the characters as well, who all work incredibly well together.
My only small criticism of the story has to be the gang’s certainty with knowing if Oliver and Dinah are going to be in their home during the riots in Seattle. Yes, this is a small point, but as Oliver and Dinah are vigilantes, you would have thought that the gang would have made sure that they are in their home. I repeat, this point is small, and the story is excellent.
As we return to Jurgens, Giordano and McLaughlin, the quality of the art is much better than the previous story. In most of the first part, you cannot tell a difference between how Oliver looks, and Travis looks. This is great as it adds more mystery to the story and keeps the readers asking who is person who looks like Oliver is, even if it can easily be worked out to be Warlord due to the cover. Sure, it can be a bit messy as normal, but it looks pretty decent.
Story: 9.5/10
Art: 8/10
VERDICT
Overall, the stories from Green Arrow: Blood of the Dragon are definitely an improvement over those stories from The Trial of Oliver Queen. As I said earlier, Witch Hunt is a very bad story and is definitely one of the worst stories of the run, but to make up for them, we get the Warlord two-parter and the four-part epic Blood of the Dragon, which are both excellent and almost perfect. The Blood of the Dragon story really makes you want to find out what happens next and there won’t be long to go before Shado returns…
Stories: 7.5/10
Art: 7/10
Highlighted Character: Travis “The Raider” Morgan (Warlord)
Next Review: The Creeper Oddities by Steve Ditko (1st Issue Special 7, stories from World’s Finest Comics (vol 1) 249-255, a story from Cancelled Comic Cavalcade 2). Written by Michael Fleisher and Steve Ditko with art by Steve Ditko and Mike Royer. Expected to be published by 07/07/2019.
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