Back Issues
Green Arrow #75 Volume 1 Review
By Hervé St-Louis
June 16, 2007 - 01:57

DC Comics
Writer(s): Mike Grell
Penciller(s): Rick Hoberg
Inker(s): Rick Hoberg
Cover Artist(s): Mike Grell



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Marian, the homeless girl taken in by Green Arrow and Black Canary and helping out at the flower shop has decided, after months of delusions that she fancies Oliver Queen and wants to be with him, even though he is well engaged with the love of his life, Dinah Drake Lance. While the couple holds a costumed party, villains and ninja interfere with a brainwashed Arsenal trying to murder his friends. But before the heroes can make up and fight the villains, Oliver must explain to Dinah why she found him kissing Marian.

Short for word and quick in plot execution, this story showed why Mike Grell was a master storyteller who could imbue his stories with rich visual undertones without drowning readers in prose. Comparing this issue with the current Green Arrow #75 is incredible. At once, one can see the mastery of a master of the comic book form exerting a story effortlessly while readers comprehend all emotions attached to the supposed treachery of Black Canary by Green Arrow and Marian.

Sure, the brainwashed plot involving Speedy and Shado is thin and nothing but a comic book gimmick of the week, but the characters feel alive and real. I guess the only thing that did not make this issue more of a classic is the brainwash plot with Arsenal. But the words Dinah says at the end about having to share Oliver with the rest of the world, his sons and other women, would become all too real a decade later. In the current Green Arrow #75, Black Canary has to share Green Arrow with two junior sidekicks and an entire city.

Hoberg, as the saying goes did not get corrupted by drawing animation storyboards. What he lacks in explosiveness and style, he makes for by the quietness of his pages. Emotions are felt through the visuals and the vistas of the city. As a comic book costume designer, he lacks some inspiration though.

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