Green Arrow #5: Fighting Against Fate!

Within the last couple of issues, all the main characters have been separated from each other, mysteries and fragments of future plans slightly uncovered, and a much larger event that spans across the entire Dawn of DC continuity has been looming overhead. Unlike the previous issues, this one is more Oliver Queen-heavy and focuses on the character’s role in the series.

In the 31st century, Brainiac reveals that, out of Lian and Connor, only one of them should go to rescue Oliver. Connor volunteers but doesn’t embark on the mission in this issue.

Picking up from the last issue with the current Oliver meeting an older version of himself in the future who has seen the destruction of Star City, they are in a flying vehicle dubbed the Arrow Plane. Older Oliver drives while the younger version shoots adversaries that follow them.

The focus then shifts to Dinah, Roy, and Jade’s only scene in the present Star City. Roy and Jade are arguing about how they each kept their daughter, Lian, from each other, and before the argument can get more intense, Dinah breaks it up. She then shifts the focus to asking what Jade knows about Amanda Waller, to which she reveals that Waller is planning something a bit out of character and big. She then leaves the two heroes alone, saying that she’ll help find Lian, but has no desire to cross paths with Waller.

Back at the Arrow Cave in the destroyed, futuristic version of Star City, present-day Oliver knows that his future self is much more complex than he is. He’s been through hell and back, making it evident as he tells present Oliver about how he watched the Arrow family die and say that they were never supposed to leave the island, almost claiming that staying there was fate.

In an unexpected turn of events, Oliver shoots his future self in the eye, but he doesn’t perish. Instead, he turns out to be another adversary who claims to be one of his biggest foes yet.

Oliver is then teleported to a place where multiple versions of himself are gathered, with one declaring, “The last green arrow standing wins!”. All different versions of Oliver Queen then begin to duke it out, ending with the current Oliver taking an arrow to the chest and falling down a portal to God knows where.

With the entire story tackling the Arrow family’s problem from different angles, seeing a heavier Oliver-based issue almost seemed essential for the story’s progression. Oliver is forced to confront his past and future self, seemingly taking him away from the habit of retrieving his island when things get rough. It speaks volumes for the character development the character must go through to make it out of this story arc well.

The ending also brings Oliver back into the spheres of other characters, with falling down a wormhole and Connor on the verge of embarking on the quest to get back Oliver.