Green Arrow and Black Canary #6

DC Comics
Green Arrow and Black Canary #6
By Hervé St-Louis
April 15, 2008 - 10:16

DC Comics
Writer(s): Judd Winick
Penciller(s): Cliff Chiang

Green Arrow and Black Canary #6

On the trail of the kidnappers of Connor Hawke, Green Arrow and Black Canary are in Prague, undercover, posing as arms dealers. When the transaction doesn’t work out, the newlywed couple must escape for their lives and try to use the new intelligence about the kidnapping and the people who shot Hawke to rescue him. However, a wild goose chase on a shorefront may be the least surprising outcome for Green Arrow and Black Canary.

The shot of Green Arrow and Black Canary posing as criminals brought back some good memories of a similar scene in Mike Grell’s Green Arrow series when Black Canary was posing as a prostitute. It also brought back an important element to her character, her ability to go undercover to dig for information. That Green Arrow seems as adept is a good thing too. I think this series is an improvement over the last one also written by Judd Winick. What seems to be different? Well, he steers clear from controversy and ill built situations. He focuses on character building and adventure. He’s also capable of having both main characters play one against the other.

However, there is still missing in their chemistry and although Winick covers all the basics, this story is not very inspiring. There’s something missing, as if someone had hand coughed Winick and stop him short from exposing some of the most exuberant aspect of his writing skills. One can feel the effort Winick puts into making Black Canary’s Green Arrow’s equal, to the extent where the latter often looks less competent and more impulsive than the former. I don’t mind that Black Canary seems to be the more competent of the two, but that card has been played before.

Chiang is a good artist. His work is simple and he gives his characters solid and beautiful figures. However, his ligne Claire style may not be realistic enough and this series fails to stand out visually from all the others on the comic book stand.