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Green Arrow #30
DC Comics, $2.99, 32 pages
Story Grade: B
Issue Score: 65.50
POINTEDLY RECOMMENDED
It seems that every few issues we're fated to get a drawn-bow standoff between Green Arrow and Lacroix over Emiko. And, as usual, somebody gets shot. I don’t think I’m unleashing any spoilers by saying this time it’s Robert Queen. If you’re like me, from the moment he reappeared in issue #28, you figured he’d either get revealed as the big bad and die by Ollie’s hand, or else sacrifice himself to save someone in the cast. In this instance, it’s a little bit of both. Oddly, the trademark detail panels of artist Andrea Sorrentino makes it look as if the elder Queen wears his heart on the outside of his spinal column.
This issue’s resolution of the Green Arrow shot-in-the-head cliffhanger from last week was a tad confusing. I do think it’s a tad unfair of writer Jeff Lemire to start off with what seems like a flashback to the moments before he left off last time while Sorrento gives only the tiniest establishing shot of Ollie with an Arrow on the head (a small close-up panel to the far left of the double-page splash). For that reason, as we turn to the next page, I thought at first Green Arrow had been shot during this entrance. It wasn’t until Magus popped up off the floor (I wasn’t aware he had shape-shifting powers) that I remembered we already had a dead Ollie from last issue, so I must have spent the first few pages reading about the real Green Arrow and not a flashback to the moments just before Magus-doppelganger “died” last issue. Remember, comics creators, its been 30 days since your reader was with your characters last, they might need a reminder of what’s what and who’s who.
On another note, Magus is revealed to be his own one-man Outsider clan (the mask, naturally, is his weapon of choice), so it’s nice to finally get some clue as to his connection to events. I still say, however, if it had been by choice, I’d have given the New 52 treatment to each of the former Seven Soldiers of Victory, making them heads of the various Outsider clans. You know, sword = Shining Knight; spear = Starman/girl/-spangled kid; fist – Crimson Avenger, etc. With D-listers like Katana and Butcher in the mix, I can’t help but think to myself when Katana says, “It would seem our fates are linked by more than just the Justice League of America,” she is really saying, “It seems mine is the name that got drawn out of the hat!”
[COVER: 6.5 — PLOT: 5.5 — SCRIPT: 8.5 — LAYOUT: 7.0 — ARTWORK: 8.0 — EDITING: 5.0 — COLORS/PRODUCTION: 6.25 — DOLLAR VALUE: 6,0 — COLLECTIBILITY: 5.75 —GOSH-WOW FACTOR: 6.50]
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