After the title got back on form with Oliver’s return to Seattle and the hard crime stories, it is unfortunate to say that the run is nearing its conclusion. Instead of speaking about my thoughts on the run here and now, which I think that is better left for the next and last two Green Arrow by Mike Grell reviews, lets focus on these issues here. Like on previous occasions, Grell brings back a familiar character, Shado, who is given her last four-part tale, The Hunt for The Red Dragon, covering issues 63 to 66. Not only that, but like before, we get more hard crime stories here featuring Green Arrow, one of which hugely expands Oliver’s group of buddies. Doesn’t sound bad, but you just wait until that outdated rock band turns up…
The stories I will reviewing here are:
The Hunt for The Red Dragon --- Green Arrow (vol 2) 63-66
Bum Rap --- Green Arrow (vol 2) 67-68
Reunion Tour --- Green Arrow (vol 2) 69-70
Wild in The Streets --- Green Arrow (vol 2) 71-72
Green Arrow (vol 2) issues 63-72 were published from June 1992 to March 1993, now on a monthly basis. Like always, all of the stories are written by Mike Grell, with numerous artists, primarily Rick Hoberg and John Nyberg. For some odd reason, issue 63 of the title is when the “Suggested for Mature Readers” subheading disappears, which doesn’t make much sense to me as the tone of the comic doesn’t really change that much, if at all, but who really cares. Finally, I have read these stories in the Green Arrow: The Hunt for The Red Dragon trade paperback.
The Hunt for The Red Dragon --- Written by Mike Grell with art by Rick Hoberg and John Nyberg
THE PLOT
After Green Arrow stops a mugging on the streets of Seattle, he returns home to celebrate his birthday with Dinah. However, when the two go to bed, they hear a knock at the door. Oliver answers it and a man named Clements, who is employed by a man named Ronald Quaid, gives Oliver a bow that was once used by Howard Hill, a hero of Oliver’s. Clements then tells Oliver that he can keep the bow if he visits his employer, which Oliver does. After a plane journey, Oliver meets Quaid, who lives a huge house full of riches. Quaid tells Oliver that his stepfather and his friends were involved in extorting money from a Japanese businessman who had been put in an internment camp. Quaid’s stepfather then killed the businessman’s wife and threatened to do the same to his daughter. Once Quaid’s stepfather extorted the money and left the man broke, he went back to his homeland of Japan and killed himself. Due to that, Quaid believes that his wealth from his stepfather (who is recently deceased) is built on the blood of innocent people and because of that, Quaid wants Oliver to find the living daughter of the businessman and return the extorted money to her. Quaid then tells Oliver that the daughter has a red dragon tattoo, making Oliver realise that the daughter is Shado. After Quaid supplies him with a pilot and tells him that his stepfather died due to a Japanese arrow through the heart, Oliver leaves. Quaid then tells one of his men to keep an eye on Oliver and that he will meet him on “the island” when the times right.
While thinking about where Shado is, Oliver returns to Seattle. Meanwhile in Japan, Shado takes out a gang drug operation, before going home and being with her son again. Back to Seattle, Oliver talks to Dinah about his mission, but doesn’t mention Shado. However, when Oliver tells her that he will start searching in Japan, she knows that he is looking for Shado. Some time later, Oliver travels to Japan and ends up trying to learn the way of Shado using his bow, but he isn’t too good at it. At the same time, one of Quaid’s men watches Oliver and speaks to his employer though a walkie-talkie, but Quaid tells him to be patient. During Oliver’s training, Shado turns up, but when the two of them go into a hotel room to talk, gas bombs are thrown into the room.
Although both Oliver and Shado take out some of the people who threw the gas bombs into the room, the two of them are knocked unconscious and then put into an ambulance and then on a plane. Meanwhile, Quaid is hunting in a forest on an island and he notices a helicopter about to land on the island. Some time later, Oliver and Shado wake up in Quaid’s home and he explains to Shado that he hired Oliver to locate her, but instead of giving her the money, Quaid was going to have Shado killed as she was responsible for the death of his stepfather. However, Quaid reveals that he lied again and that his stepfather is actually alive, but he needed a story so that Oliver would take the mission. Quaid then reveals that outside in the forest on the island, there is a key that will deactivate the collars around both Oliver’s and Shado’s neck, which will explode if either of them try to escape, but he will also be hunting for the key as well. He also promises the two of them that if they recover the key, then he will let the two of them go and they can keep the money that he lied about giving to Shado. After Oliver agrees to that and asks why Quaid is hosting this competition, Quaid explains that he is a collector of tattoos by artist Horiyoshi and that he collects the skins that hold the tattoos. Quaid also says that Shado was the last person to be tattooed the artist, meaning that he wants her skin and tattoos.
Once Oliver and Shado are left in the forest by Quaid, the two split up to find the key. After Oliver, Shado and Quaid are all looking for each other and the key in the forest and activating numerous traps, the two heroes meet up and theorize if the key actually exists. Suddenly, Shado is shot with an arrow and when the two of them go into a hiding place to take the arrow out, Oliver tells Shado that he knows that Shado’s son is his son, but she tells Oliver that it is her son. Oliver then takes the arrow out of Shado’s arm. Some time later, Quaid is met by Oliver, who is above him on a hill. Oliver explains that he has the body of Shado in front of him, dead from her wound. Oliver then explains that he is going to burn her body, making Quaid angry as he wants the skin, but he then comes out and reveals that he has the key. Oliver claims that he doesn’t care about that and he then burns the wood around Shado. Quaid then shoots Oliver with a bow and then runs to Shado to see if she can be recovered. However, Quaid finds that the Oliver he shot was a dummy, resulting in Shado punching him in the face while the real Oliver appears and punches the villain as well. At the same time, Quaid’s men decide to fly their helicopter to find Quaid, but when they arrive at the scene, Quaid runs at the helicopter wearing the two explosives around his neck, which then explode, destroying the helicopter and killing Quaid and his men. In the end, Oliver tells Shado that he wants to meet his son, but Shado tells him that he might one day. Shado then leaves Oliver.
MY THOUGHTS
Similarly, to previous stories featuring Shado, this is an excellent story. It feels incredibly fast paced, action packed, and it is full of character. The main plot itself is compelling and while Mike Grell stories tend to run on character most of the time, this one has both good characters and a good story. It really highlights how easy it can actually be to convince Oliver Queen to work with you, I mean, all that Quaid had to really do was give him a bow belonging to Howard Hill and even then, we aren’t really sure if the bow really belonged to him. The plot itself does change quite rapidly, which I think is a good thing as it makes the story feel diverse and different with each part. Part one focuses on Oliver and Quaid, which perfectly sets the story up and we learn about Quaid’s made up story, which although we think is true at first, you do get a suspicious feeling that there is something not quite right with him. The second part focuses on Oliver finding Shado, which makes the story feel varied and it also gives us a moment where Oliver attempts to learn the way of Shado, which adds more to her fighting style and as Oliver cannot master it, it creates more differences between the two characters while also creating and adding similarities, which to me are aspects of why the two characters work so well together. The third part is the revelation of the story. Quaid reveals himself as a villain and while that isn’t surprising, we do get an excellent change in events as the purpose for why Quaid wants Shado changes numerous times, from her supposedly killing his stepfather and then purely the fact that she has a tattoo that he wants for his collection. This twist feels so unexpected, but not in such a way that renders the build up pointless or disappointing. In fact, I feel that this touch makes the story far more unique than other Green Arrow Mike Grell stories, as for once the killer doesn’t want to kill somebody for thing they have done, but rather something they have on them. Lastly, the fourth part of the story is the climax, where we not only get some tense and character heavy scenes, but we also see some incredible twists, one of those being the death of Quaid, which does feel quite expected, as opposed to Shado’s fake death, which comes across as so casual that you know its fake from the start. So overall, the plot itself is excellent and it is incredibly varied, but one of the main highlights of the story is the character. As I mentioned before, Quaid is certainly an interesting villain due to his intentions and what he wants. No other villain in the run has really been like this before, but the main highlight of character here is certainly Green Arrow and Shado. A lot has (continues after image)
happened since the last time these two have seen each other, but as they have definitely become closer as the run progresses, their relationship remains the same and I think that their relationship and the way they speak to each other is perfect. Like I mentioned before, there is definitely huge differences between the two characters, but they clash so with the similarities. Apart from that, I always like to see the casual life of Oliver and Dinah. This is shown perfectly again with Oliver’s birthday, which continues to be a tradition in the run. Aspects like this give the characters human elements. The same goes for Shado’s child, who has barely featured in the series at all, but he is clearly so crucial to both Green Arrow and Shado that you don’t really have to see him make an appearance.
That all being said, my problem with this story is that it goes by way too f*cking quick. I mean, this is a four part, meaning that unlike the regular two-parters, we are going to have a story that is full of plot. While this story does have a large amount of plot, all of it interesting and enjoyable, I find the length of the story too short. It only took me fifteen minutes to read this story on my second read due to the long fight scenes and lack of dialogue. To me, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the plot, characters or direction of the story, but I think that the whole thing could have been paced out much better, because here, everything flies by.
I’m sure most of you know my thoughts on the art by Hoberg and Nyberg, but just to repeat here, I’m really not a huge fan. Their art isn't necessarily ugly or terrible, its just that the finishes are boring, the storytelling is dull and some of the inked textures really don’t fit. Throughout this story and all of the others, they are random patches of crosshatching and lines and to me, none of it really fits anywhere. Thankfully, they aren’t Denys Cowan, meaning I can actually work out who the characters are and what is going on.
Story: 9.5/10
Art: 6/10
Bum Rap --- Written by Mike Grell with art by Frank Springer and Pablo Marcos
THE PLOT
During the speech of a man named Caywood, who is running for Congress in Seattle, a man gives money to a homeless man, who then walks down a dark alley. Later on, while Dinah is getting flowers out of her van, Oliver finds Marianne crying in her room. She
tells Oliver that a homeless man she knew nicknamed Pockets was murdered in an alley. After Oliver finds out more information about the tragic life of Pockets, Oliver decides to help and once Marianne changes into some different clothes (possibly her homeless clothing, I don’t know), the two of them head out and find a group of homeless people that Marianne knows. One of these people is a huge black man named Jack and after Oliver meets the whole group of homeless people, one of them, named Jefferson Woods (who hangs about with two dogs) explains how they are all being ignored and that Pockets may have been killed as he noticed something going on. Jefferson then explains how Pockets is the third murdered homeless person recently in Seattle and after Jack jokes that it could be aliens, Jefferson disappears, which is explained by Jack, who says that Jefferson moves to the south for the winter. Some time later, not only does another murder occur, but Jefferson is attacked by a gang, but luckily, Oliver intervenes and saves him.
The candidate for Congress, Tom Caywood, speaks to his campaign manager about how he hates the idea of sleeping in a homeless shelter to improve his electoral chances. However, at the same time, the murders of the homeless people appear to improve Caywood’s chances of winning as he appears in newspapers with the homeless, even if he isn’t a genuine caring politician. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Cameron investigates another murder scene and after complaining about not being able to catch the killer, Green Arrow, Marianne and Jack arrive and come up with the idea of having planted homeless people on the street, meaning that the police could catch the killer. However, Cameron disagrees and after he is told that all of the victims are of different backgrounds and that the murderer may be looking for one specific homeless person, the Lieutenant leaves the scene. Some time later, Oliver and the homeless people find Jefferson injured badly from an attack. Once he is taken to hospital, Oliver finds that instead of the killer using a hammer to kill his victims, he used the spiked end of the hammer instead this time. This makes Oliver think that the murderer is another homeless man named Stony, but when Oliver and the police go to another crime scene and find that Stony is dead, that theory appears to be defunct. However, Oliver believes that Stony could have been killed by whoever hired him to kill the other homeless people, but meanwhile, Jefferson has dreams about his time in the army and how he was a deserter. Jefferson then wakes up and forcefully leaves the hospital. He then meets with Tom Caywood and his campaign manager. Jefferson then explains how his name was Cane and that he got a new identity from money he got when selling drugs in the army. Jefferson then tells Caywood that he believes that he was the person who hired somebody to kill him, but then Caywood gets a gun out to kill Jefferson, but suddenly, Green Arrow and his allies arrive. Caywood is then arrested by Cameron thanks to evidence from Stony’s murder. Much later on, Dinah is shocked to find Oliver and loads of homeless people in their kitchen.
MY THOUGHTS
As opposed to the previous story drawn by Springer and Marcos, I find this story much worse, but before I get to all of that, I must say that underneath all of the sh*t here, there is a good idea for a story. I find that the premise of the tale focusing on the homeless is a great idea that hasn’t been done before in the run. I think that a murder mystery is a suitable idea for a hard crime story, but the execution is just poor…
For starters, the plot itself is so convoluted and confusing. Murders are committed left, right and centre and in such a quick time span that you never really get the chance to register the information which you have been feed. I have to say that it isn’t helped by the huge amount of characters featured in this story, most of whom are dull. The only good character here is Jack, who actually adds some relief and comedy to this bleak and not very enjoyable story, especially when he talks about aliens. I think that the revelation of Jefferson being the murderer feels so forced and to me, it just doesn’t work. Perhaps it would function better if the character of Jefferson featured more in the story to begin with and if he appeared early on, but he just makes a few brief appearances before taking the centre stage halfway through part two. Additionally, I felt that the election campaign aspect of the story was thrown under the rug too quickly and that it was never really taken to its full advantage. That’s another good idea for a story to me, but it just doesn’t clash with this mess of a murder mystery story. Like I said before, too many characters are thrown about and hardly any of them have any character or anything interesting to say. Oh, and you know how I mentioned in the previous story that there wasn’t enough dialogue? Well, here, Grell goes all out and does a Roy Thomas by writing pages and pages of dialogue, all of which can be translated into interestingly simple sentences. Yes, there are aspects to this story I like. I like the idea. I like a small selection of the characters and I think that something great could have been made out of it, but instead, we get a mess of a detective story that isn’t worth your time.
Like I mentioned in my previous review, I actually don’t mind the efforts made by Springer and Marcos. I think that it looks quite nice and the storytelling actually looks interesting. The finishes can look a bit ugly and some of the faces certainly look, well, questionable, but its certainly an improvement over the usual team.
Story: 3.5/10
Art: 7.5/10
Reunion Tour --- Written by Mike Grell with art by Rick Hoberg and John Nyberg
THE PLOT
A former bass guitar player named Joe Cleary, who played for a band known as the Electric Unicorns is murdered in an explosion in his caravan. Oliver and Dinah hear about this on the television. The news not only explains that numerous former members of the band have died, but the manager of the band is questioned by how he allegedly fired one of the former members of the band. At the funeral of the dead bassist, all of the living former members speak to one another, one of whom is called Rufus Fairchild, who dies the same night of the funeral. The news reports on that and also about Tommy Schaeffer, who believes he was fired from the band by the manager years ago due to a drug problem. While Lieutenant Cameron watches the news, he finds out that Ward Brackett, another member of the band, is hosting a memorial concert, making Cameron think that the murderer will strike there. Later at night, Green Arrow visits Ward to protect him and speak to him. After Green Arrow speaks to Ward about the former members of the band and if any of them could be the murderer, the hero tries to convince the musician to cancel the concert, but Ward disagrees. Instead, he puts Oliver in charge of security for the night, but suddenly, bullets are shot into the room through the window and Green Arrow heads out to find who fired them.
After a long time of chasing the attacker, Green Arrow captures him thanks to his homeless friend, Jack. However, Cameron arrives and tells Oliver that the person they captured is actually an escaped lunatic and he wasn’t behind the other murders. Sometime later when the concert is about to begin, Green Arrow and Black Canary are there as security and to protect Ward and the rest of the musicians. Meanwhile, the former manager of the band is visited by Cameron, who has found that the manager took out large insurance policies against the band members, meaning that he has a lot to fall back on if he is the murderer. However, the manager says that he would make more money if the band members were alive and due to that, he wouldn’t be the murderer. Back to the concert, when the band begins playing, Green Arrow watches from above with Black Canary and Cameron. However, by using the camera and zooming in on the band, Green Arrow finds that one of the musician’s arms has blood on it. Green Arrow then gets closer and uses his bow and arrow to cut the electricity cable, turning the power off, resulting in the hero taking out the musician with blood on him with ease. The makeup is taken off the murderer’s face and it is revealed to be Tommy, the angered former member who was fired from the
band. He is arrested by Cameron and taken away by the police.
MY THOUGHTS
Uhhh. I… um. Well. I… I actually don’t know what to say for the positives of this story. Who would have thought it?
Yeah, this story blows and honestly sucks sh*t. Similarly, to the Bum Rap story, in fact, no, no, this story is pretty much exactly the same as Bum Rap. It features cheap characters that are just plain nasty, but this time, its worse. The reason for that is because the dialogue that comes out of the mouths of the band members is so annoying and irritatingly dated to a point where you actually just want their characters to be murdered. Okay, just to make you all aware, I think that the band idea for the story is laughable just because of how terrible it sounds as a concept and how terrible it is when reading it. At least the previous story had you thinking who the murderer could be and while it didn’t help that their were hundreds of characters, most of which were bland anyway, here it is much worse due to the poor selection of characters, making the mystery aspect of this story vanish like a vegetarian at a steak house, meaning the whole story is shot in the ar*e. It is so pathetically easily to work out who the murderer is as really, there are only two suspects, those being Thomas, the actual murderer and their manager, who is dodgy anyway. Like I said before, the whole concept of this story is dated, and it is actually incredibly disappointing. When I first read this story, I didn’t think it was perfect, but I actually thought it was good. I don’t know what drugs I was on to think that, because this story is downright awful and laughable. Whether it be the terrible plot, that actually has the nerve to have a cliff-hanger that is resolved by the fact that the man who tries to kill a member of the band is just insane, meaning that he couldn’t have killed the others. Where is the logic in that? Cameron is meant to be a detective, but here he just comes across like an idiot. I think I have made my argument clear here, but to me, this isn’t my worst Green Arrow story as I think that three-parter in Africa with the rhino hunters drawn by Cowan is much worse, only due to the fact that that story wasn’t set in Seattle, which is where Green Arrow works at his best, that’s what I think anyway.
A bad story by Grell makes Hoberg and Nyberg’s invisible sense of storytelling even worse here.
Story: 1/10
Art: 6/10
Wild in The Streets --- Written by Mike Grell with art by Rick Hoberg and John Nyberg
THE PLOT
Some time after Oliver and Dinah visit the zoo and see a rare jaguar, two of Oliver’s homeless buddies tell them that they have overheard about a seeming drug shipment coming in. At night, Oliver visits the scene of the unloading and after taking out all of the guards in the area, Oliver finds that the import is actually a huge jet-black jaguar. At first, Oliver evades the attacks from the beast, but then luckily, fires his bow in the direction of some guards, which the jaguar follows and tears apart. However, then the jaguar escapes into the streets of Seattle. A man named Mr Karsten is informed about the escaped animal, as he was the one who imported it and he wants the creature as it is rare. Meanwhile, Oliver continues his search for the jaguar, but instead finds a woman who is also searching for the jaguar.
While Mr Karsten prepares to head out and find the jaguar, Green Arrow speaks with the woman, who is named Alia Sombarro. She explains that she is a biologist from Brazil that is searching for the jaguar. She also goes onto say that in Brazil, there is
something known as the legend of the Shamanus, who apparently is the guardian of the forest that takes the form of a black jaguar, but the animal was captured, causing Alia to search for it. Once Alia brings up the possibility that a collector may be hunting for the jaguar, Green Arrow asks why the jaguar didn’t kill him, to which Alia says that he didn’t kill her either, before she walks off, leaving Oliver. Meanwhile, Mr Karsten continues in his hunt for the jaguar, but is unluckily attacked and killed by the jaguar, Green Arrow finds his body and then Alia appears again. She tells Green Arrow that the police are also looking for the jaguar, but Oliver tells her that the police won’t give up as the creature has killed people. Alia then tells Green Arrow to help the animal die, before she kisses him and leaves. After searching for a short period of time, Green Arrow finds the jaguar, which charges at him, but the police arrive and shoot and kill the jaguar. The police tell Green Arrow that the jaguar could have killed him, but Green Arrow says that she didn’t, before he picks up her dead body and walks away with it.
MY THOUGHTS
Although this story isn’t perfect, I think that certain aspects of it work well, particularly when the story is focused on the jaguar. In fact, lets start with that. The jaguar itself may be some strange godly creature that is the guardian of the forest, but to me, it is animal and thankfully it is treated like that. What I mean by that is that I can just imagine a less-than-impressive story featuring a jaguar that can talk and protect forests. Christ, that’s something that Vertigo would have published in the mid-1990s. Anyway, you can feel emotion for the jaguar here, particularly during the second part and especially at the end. Let’s face it, at the end of the story, we know that the jaguar was going to kill Oliver, but we didn’t see it and I think that Grell makes you feel emotion for the dead animal due to that. In the end, it was just acting out of instinct, but can we really blame it for it? I’ll move on before I get a bit too (continues after image)
RSPCA or PETA on your ar*e’s. Apart from that animal, I think that the ending in itself is excellent. It really adds that sharp, but sad ending to the story, which is strangely satisfying in some way.
Apart from all of that that I mentioned above, I think that the biggest problem with this story is a lack of extensive plot. To me, this story could have been told in one issue. Two is stretching it to me and due to that, there are just moments of walking around doing sweet FA. Also, I think that the villain of the story, Mr Karsten, is particularly boring and limited. Apart from seemingly wanting the jaguar’s fur or body (which Grell did before in a similar way in The Hunt for The Red Dragon story), Karsten hasn’t got any character and because of that, he doesn’t even have much of a threat as a villain or even comes across like one. Plus, the character of Alia comes out of f*cking nowhere and Green Arrow just sort of accepts her after she says a few words. I mean, it doesn’t help how I wasn’t a fan of the whole mystical aspect of the jaguar being a protector of the forests bit, but I thought that her character could have been written better and displayed in a less plastic approach as to me, like the villain of this story, she lacks any real character, meaning that most the second part of the story can be dull to read. Funnily enough, I also didn’t mind this story on my first read of it, but as opposed to the previous story, I can see why I liked this one as I thought that is was certainly a different story to any of the other Grell tales that we had seen up until this point, but looking back, you can have good different and bad different. To me, I think its safe to say that the latter of the two apply to this story.
Although I’m not a huge fan as you know, I think that Hoberg and Nyberg actually draw the jaguar quite well here. They add a quality of fear to the creature, which funnily enough meshes with this sympathetic animal, which normally doesn’t work, but strangely, it works here.
Story: 4.5/10
Art: 6.5/10
VERDICT
Overall, these penultimate tales from Grell’s Green Arrow run are pretty mixed and they are actually really saved by The Hunt for The Red Dragon story, which is damn near excellent. All of the others range from awful to just about average at best. I don’t know if it was just some poor ideas that Grell came up with, or whether it was purely the fact that he was running out of steam and ideas after writing the title for over seventy issues at this point. Although I believe this is a good run, you certainly can sense we are drawing near to a conclusion (despite no long story arches being present unfortunately) and quite honestly, perhaps that’s for the best…
Stories: 6/10
Art: 6.5/10
Highlighted Character: Shado
Next Review: Swamp Thing: The Dead Don’t Sleep (Swamp Thing (vol 6) 1-6). Written by Len Wein with art by Kelley Jones. Expected to be published by 18/08/2019.
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