Green Arrow #2

By Benjamin Percy and Otto Schmidt.

As Oliver’s losing everything he will have to look inward for the motivation and inspiration to go on. Oliver has been left penniless, betrayed and pronounced dead by the people that he thought he could trust. Percy has taken Oliver from the lap of luxury to living in a hollowed out tree in just two issues. When Oliver comes too after having been shot with a lot arrows and drowned he puts on a shirt that just says Sherwood. Perhaps that’s foreshadowing as to where Percy might be going with this story arc. Making Green Arrow more like his inspiration Robin Hood inasmuch as he fights for the poor and lives among them. Oliver is already living in a tree, now all he needs to do is go steal from the rich. In this case Oliver would more likely be stealing from his own corrupted company. Instead of running through the trees of Sherwood Forest from the sheriff and his posse, Ollie will be sprinting through the trees of Seattle dodging those creepy human traffickers. Going back and taking cues would also give the opportunity to explore symbols of hope and what they need to be inspirational and what the man or woman wearing the costume needs to keep going. This could totally be an off the mark prediction and analysis of the story so far and what is still to come, but its not unreasonable to have faith that wherever Percy decides to take the story, it’s going to have us take a look at Oliver in a way that most may not expect.

While Oliver is being pronounced dead and slandered we get to see how mad Dinah is over Oliver’s disappearance. This prompts her to start investigating and she begins to see the edges of what they are dealing with. We get to spend four pages with Dinah and they’re not wasted. Percy and Schmidt show us that Dinah is a resourceful detective that has valuable connections such as Batgirl’s database. It’s really fun and interesting to have the opportunity to see the way that Dinah operates as she starts down what will probably be a long trail of corruption.

Everyone who enjoys a beautiful splash page should pick up this issue. In print, turn to page 16, or digitally, swipe and or click to page 14. What you will see there is Schmidt’s rendering of what must be a fever dream that Oliver has while he is being rescued and healed. Oliver is show falling from this heaven like place where he is with Dinah down into a glowing red pit. Schmidt has been on top of his game and like the story aspects of spending time with Dinah she is also rendered beautifully. In the course of this issue we are introduced to Diggle who is overseas working as private security during his introduction Schmidt gives us an action movie style shotgun shootout which is something new for this run of Green Arrow.

Oliver has a long road ahead of him, between needing to come back from the “dead” and getting a handle on his life as he now knows it. Now that Oliver has nothing but his identity as Green Arrow, it opens up storytelling opportunities that have the possibility to teach him things that he may never have known because he always had unlimited resources. At the end of the issue Oliver has lost faith in himself and as he heads off he knows that people close to him the general public also don’t believe in Oliver Queen. Regardless, Oliver still believes in Green Arrow and he knows that others will too.