Green Arrow #20

Recap
A KILLER STALKS OLIVER QUEEN! As Green Arrow comes face to face with the victims of the Fresh Water environmental disaster, the Fresh Water Killer confronts the Emerald Archer!
Review
A great comic can use the structures and decisions of the form to imbue narrative beats and characterization through the technical aspects of the craft. Especially in lettering, which is often mistaken as the “invisible” aspect of a comic. At its best, the lettering can do as much as the coloring or artwork in helping to highlight the subtextual elements of the story. A subtle shift in font or balloon shape can speak to the power of the craft, resulting in new nuggets of insight. That power is on full display in the current issue of Green Arrow as a master of the art form brings a distinct personality to the issue’s lettering.
Green Arrow #20 – written by Chris Condon with art by Montos, coloring by Adriano Lucas, and lettering by Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou – opens with a doctor’s visit for a child suffering through sudden epilepsy, with an indication that the culprit is the chemical benzene. The only connection that the mother makes is living within a decent range of the Horton Chemical Plant established in previous issues. That exchange in the medical offices leads straight into the continuation of the previous issue, as Green Arrow and the Star City detectives observe the suspect in the Freshwater Killer murders.
The person behind the mask is a sickly woman, Francene Dory, suffering from leukemia and lacks a criminal background. Just as Arrow makes a connection between the Freshwater Community and Dory, she collapses while violently foaming at the mouth, dead before medical help can arrive. Arrow snaps at the detectives for their readiness to lay blame on a sick, suffering person without hearing her side of the story, using the confrontation to take the file.
Back home, Oliver makes a call to Black Canary and discusses his culpability in the Horton Chemical corporation machinations, having taken control of the company for a short time in the past. The company was responsible for poisoning a large group of people after selling land used as a toxic waste dump to the local government to develop into new communities. That leads Queen to another bout of guilt as ends the call and tries to clear his head with some archery practice. In the end, the guilt lingers as a surprising figure makes themself known in the shadows of Queen’s new apartment.
Condon delivers a taut script, filled with an unsettling tension from the opening pages. Starting with the brief scene in the doctor’s office establishes where the book is going in a way that feels like Condon is clearly calling his shot. Not only does it build an additional layer of tension from the last issue to this one, but that framing also allows for explicit foreshadowing of the later revelations. Condon makes a distinctive choice that offers a simple flourish while maximizing the narrative of real estate in the standard page count.
That short beat gives way to the most vital sequence of the installment, with Oliver somewhat on the side of the detectives. Separated by the observation glass of an interrogation room, Oliver works the case, making connections on a personal level that the detectives didn’t catch. It’s a small bit of dialogue that Condon overshadows with the big, flashy death scene for Dory. By doing so, Condon is showcasing not only the deductive skills in Ollie’s quiver but highlights his empathetic view of the world. He sees the person in the case file and sees the life lost at the end of the sequence, instead of just seeing the murderer like the detectives.
Montos does an excellent job of depicting that difference in the blocking of the sequence, having Ollie mostly at floor level next to Dory while the detectives linger in the shadows and corners of the room. The cops almost blend into the background while Ollie always stands out, signaling that difference in perspective between the two parties. It’s only when Ollie’s anger explodes that Montos puts him back at eye level with the detectives, allowing the archer to stand confidently against the representations of the system. Montos maintains that separation in the blocking through an excellent panel that puts Ollie in the foreground while the detectives are only seen in the reflection of the two-way glass.
Later in the issue, after his conversation with Dinah, Ollie goes out to conduct some head-clearing archery practice. Montos uses the backdrop of Star City as an excellent establishing shot to indicate the centering of Ollie as a person of the people while still being above them, looking down before hitting his targets. Shifting between the raging at the targets (technically the only action sequence of the issue) and the credits imbues a sense of dynamic montaging that thrills without a spoken or captioned word. It riffs on an effect that almost feels like a James Bond opening, with the silhouette images creating a stylized effect evoking the emotional conflict of the issue while offering a gorgeous sense of movement.
Much of the layering in both that credit sequence and the interrogation beat results from Lucas’s solid tone coloring and the use of stark black backgrounds. Not only are these done to create a sterile, atmospheric tone in the interrogation room but they result in places that allow the key hues or visuals to pop. That can range from the emerald of Arrow’s cloak/mask to the blood splotches on Dory’s mouth. Lucas’s coloring guides the eyes to these moments and magnifies their significance, supercharging the visuals as the narrative beat spikes through the cutting dialogue.
The other result of the solid background is a lettering choice that catches the eye. Otsmane-Elhaou uses bubbleless dialogue with a sketched line to convey these bits of conversation. It’s a similar effect used in other books lettered by Otsmane-Elhaou, but here is used to excellent effect to capture that procedural dialogue. Whether it’s a moment of quiet shock or a defensive recitation of the police’s book, these dialogue tags make the words feel more like the world inside the interrogation room. Otsmane-Elhaou only breaks these balloonless words out when needed, echoing that sense of maximizing the limited space to unveil more subtext for the unfolding mystery.
Final Thoughts
Green Arrow #20 continues a fascinating shift in the title’s core textual and visual aesthetic, playing up the simmering tensions of vigilantism and corporate greed. Condon’s script is a strong contender for building tension and establishing a moral complexity in the current version of Oliver Queen. That peppered in with Montos’s stark, noir linework and smart blocking, results in inducing a second layer of fraught dynamics between Queen and his supposed allies. Lucas’s coloring plays up the atmosphere established by the writing and art while queuing up Otsmane-Elhaou’s bold lettering choices, allowing for a distinct weariness to much of the dialogue. With three issues now under the belt, this creative team is shaping up Green Arrow as a book for crime fiction and innovative lettering fans alike as they for their next hit.
Green Arrow #20: Three Detectives and Francene
- Writing - 9.5/109.5/10
- Storyline - 9.5/109.5/10
- Art - 9.5/109.5/10
- Color - 9.5/109.5/10
- Cover Art - 9.5/109.5/10