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Sep 12, 2011 DC New 52 By Mark Redfern

Green Arrow #1, written by J.T. Krul, is a by-the-numbers superhero/vigilante comic filled with all too familiar tropes. Globe-trotting billionaire who moonlights as a costumed avenger and doesn’t always see eye to eye with his board of directors—check. Spunky female support operative who monitors video feeds and communicates with the hero via earpiece—check. A fight with villains either in a dance club or on a yacht—double check.

So what’s different about the new Green Arrow (aka industrialist/bow and arrow master Oliver Queen)? Well, he’s younger and he’s got stubble rather than a beard (a clear move by DC to make the character more current). He runs a division of his Queen Industries company that seems modeled after Apple and one of his employees, an MIT graduate named Jax (the type of name only found in comic books), secretly, and somewhat reluctantly, helps Oliver design and make his arrows. (On a side note, how is it that Green Arrow never seems to run out of arrows when in battle?)

To be honest, the character was more interesting towards the end of the old DC continuity, after he had murdered the villain Prometheus in revenge for attacking his adoptive son Roy Harper, killing Roy’s daughter, and partially destroying Star City. Oliver was then hiding in, and defending, a magical forest that had grown in the destroyed sections of Star City, acting all Robin Hood like. So far, the new Green Arrow is much more one-dimensional.

This issue opens with Oliver on speakerphone with a Queen Industries’ board meeting while simultaneously tracking down three villains in Paris, which seems slightly unrealistic (how could he focus on both the meeting and the criminals). Then he has the aforementioned fight in a dance club aboard a big yacht with three particularly bland villains. One of them, a female adversary named Doppelganger, has a fairly useless ability where she can grow an extra head and two extra arms (and does little with them). The issue ends with a generic cliffhanger that doesn’t make a strong case for checking out issue two. The art by Dan Jurgens is serviceable, but feels a little dated. It’s hard to pinpoint an era, but the art almost has a late ‘90s vibe.

It was to be expected that not every one of DC’s New 52 titles was going to be a winner, and they’ve already put out some very promising New 52 #1 issues (such as Action Comics, Swamp Thing, and Animal Man). But DC isn’t going to enlist new fans or win over old ones with issues as tired as Green Arrow #1. Green Arrow deserves to be taken in a bold new direction, just as Superman has in Action Comics #1. DC’s editors and Krul should have let their imaginations run wild and perhaps had the emerald archer trapped in a different time period or on a strange planet or done something more dramatic to shake up the character, rather than just shaving off his beard. (www.dccomics.com)

Author rating: 4/10