Green Arrow #17
Recap
Green Arrow is back, prowling the streets, and making things right and just for the little guy. But first, he has to face the Justice League for his deep cover actions while embedded with Amanda Waller during Absolute Power. But don't worry - Oliver Queen is ALL-IN!
Review
Green Arrow #17 serves as both a coda to the outgoing creative team and the All-In initiative’s incoming one. In that, it’s a little bit of a tricky beast, because both creative teams have very different approaches to storytelling. Neither are bad at all – in fact, this is one of the most rapturously joyous issues of Green Arrow fans are likely to read for a good long while – just different.
Closing out his surprisingly fantastic run, writer Joshua Williamson shows why he was the man to bring Ollie back from the dead in the first place: he just gets what Oliver Queen is all about. Behind the bluster and grumpiness and wisecracks and Robin Hood-ness, Oliver Queen is a man about his family. On the surface, that gives him a lot in common with several other prominent DC heroes, most notably the Flash. But the difference is that Oliver’s fictive family is one that has been largely fractured and marred with pain and loss, going all the way back to Roy Harper’s infamous heroin addiction.
Williamson’s run has, therefore, been at its core about family, no matter what other hijinks our titular hero got himself into. That theme stays true throughout Williamson’s half of the issue, even as Oliver must face the judgement of the newly-reconstituted Justice League for his actions during Absolute Power. Williamson wisely understands that the League is Oliver’s family too, and yet again, he feels he’s let them down – a striking parallel to the journey he’s taken with his own Arrow-fam.
Amancay Nahuelpan’s art is an absolute joy to look at. His figures dance and pop off the page, flitting to and from from each panel to the next. There’s a kinetic buoyancy to Nahuelpan’s art that makes it a perfect fit for Oliver’s world – or at least, this more superhero-adjacent aspect of it. Combine that with Romulo Fajardo Jr.’s sleek color palette and Troy Peteri’s ever-reliable letters, and you have one slick-looking comic to match Williamson’s tale of rekindled family.
Contrasted with Montos’ more moody, nuanced, and down to earth art in Chris Condon’s (That Texas Blood, The Enfield Gang Massacre) back half of the issue, and you have a comic with two opposing yet complementary visions of Green Arrow. Condon leans into the character as more of a street level vigilante than an out-and-out superhero. The new status quo is set up, bringing to mind such seminal runs as Bendis and Maleev’s Daredevil or anything by Greg Rucka and Michael Lark. With that kind of company to keep – watch out. Green Arrow is about to be the comic everyone’s talking about. Condon and Montos, along with Adriano Lucas’s noir coloring and Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou’s ever-revolutionary lettering, are lighting the fuse to DC’s next big breakout hit. Don’t say you weren’t warned.
Final Thoughts
One creative team exits, the other enters - a seamless transition in both story and tone. Green Arrow is about to be the comic everyone's talking about, and with good reason.
Green Arrow #17: Takin’ It Back to the Fatcats
- Writing - 10/1010/10
- Storyline - 10/1010/10
- Art - 10/1010/10
- Color - 10/1010/10
- Cover Art - 10/1010/10