New comics, Grell Green Arrow

New comics!

Batman: Curse of the White Knight 8

Sean Murphy’s art.  His action scenes.  They make me so happy.  This’ll be a fun re-read.

Green Arrow 1-38

Everything’s as I remember so far - Decent stories by Mike Grell, not-bad art by a number of artists (primarily Dan Jurgens and Ed Hannigan (whom I just discovered did this classic Marvel poster:

)) (Yes, I’m finishing the parentheticals from above.  I’m a stickler.), and the occasional stand out moment.

This final page has stuck with me for 20 years.

Grell reserves his best stories for his yearly Shado four-parters.  The tension between Shado, Oliver, and Dinah is a fascinating one, and not the usual love triangle.   

(The rest of the year is devoted to two-issue arcs.)  The one from the third year is the weakest, involving too little Shado, too much Eddie Fyers and government conspiracies, and the introduction of Marianne, who is plain horrible.  Still, it’s got a summation of the aforementioned triangle that explains everything quite nicely.  (Too long to include here.)

Some other things of note:

Horrible hand discontinuity in the lower left by Rick Hoberg.

Hilarious visual gag by Trevor von Eeden and JJ Birch

Regret buying: No 

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Oscillates between Nice and Fine

New comics, Grell Green Arrow

New comics!  I’m stretching these out, just a few left until shipping opens up after humanity gets a handle on COVID.

Punisher: Soviet 6

Frank predictably wraps things out in his own style.  He makes the rare exception of leaving his target alive, but the punishment is very likely worse than his tried and true executions.  Not Garth Ennis’ strongest work, but I’ll always read his Punisher.

Captain Marvel 16

Lee Garbett’s final issue for now (apparently he’s returning in the future, and that’s when I’ll pick this back up).  This arc by Kelly Thompson is an extended fight scene with some sweet character moments, which is all I really wanted on top of the gorgeous art.  Happy I picked it up.

Puke.  On.  Mjolnir.  Epic writing.

Over in DC Box 3, in the land of Green Arrow, I’m starting what will be a long, long run of Mike Grell-written issues.  I’m anticipating an extended string of Nice ratings, let’s see if my memory holds.

Shado 1-4

Well, so far, so true - I remembered decent stories with sketchy art and horrible coloring, so that pans out.  Shado remains one of my favorite aspects of Grell’s run, with her top notch design, complicated relationship with Ollie, and insane skill with the bow.  

Regret buying: No 

Would buy again: No

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Fine

Green Arrow: Wonder Year 1-4

Grell’s take on Ollie’s origin.  (Interesting that I keep calling him Ollie, rather than Green Arrow, Oliver, or Queen…)  It’s pretty uninspiring, especially coming off the heels of my reading Diggle/Jock’s version.  This would be an easy cut if I hadn’t spent so many years collecting the full Grell run…

Regret buying: No 

Would buy again: No

Would read again: No

Rating: Didn’t suck

Green Arrow: Longbow Hunters 1-3

Here we go, with the main course.  Mike Grell starts his post-Crisis reboot of Green Arrow.  Some things that stand out:

This is a mature readers book.  There’s a street-level grittiness that’s similar to Daredevil over at Marvel, but Grell goes a little bit further with the sex and violence.  Dinah’s torture scene is particularly brutal for a major character in a mainstream comic, I don’t think DC would go for something like that today.

Grell’s art oscillates between gorgeous stuff you rarely see on the comic page and the more generic stuff I mentioned earlier.  Perhaps the time needed to complete the former resulted in the latter. I’m okay with that trade off, it’s not like the less spectacular panels suck either.

Look at that portrait!

Grell loves throwing in a portrait to accentuate something profound.

Those eyes!  Also love the difference in their bow drawing styles.

Love love love that character design.

Who else would think to pause the action for a full blown landscape?

I take it back - His regular panels are pretty darn good too.

A nice start, I also like how Grell brings a lot of nuance to Ollie and Dinah’s relationship.  A partnership of equals, Ollie’s rescue of Dinah notwithstanding.

Regret buying: No 

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Nice

Gotham Central, Great Ten, Green Arrow

Gotham Central 25-40

Breathtaking story after story, that’s what Greg Rucka and Ed Brubaker have bombarded me with in this stellar, extraordinary run. It’s all so, so very good.  That’s all I really have to say at this late hour. Read this if you can.

A cheap gag, but at least it's not just the men anymore?

Nora lost her hand issues ago.  Poor editing.

Regret buying: No 

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Pure joy 

Great Ten 1-9

Don’t know how much is because I’m Chinese and how much is pure Tony Bedard and Scott McDaniel magic, but this is a really fun series.  This is essentially the origin stories of nine Chinese superheroes, expertly tied together by a plot that doesn’t really matter at the end of the day.  Each story is expertly told, some with clear inspirations and others with powers and tropes that pleased me with their originality. I don't know how much of it is from Bedard, and how much from team creator Grant Morrison.

Cute take on the change in the phonebooth.

Cute homage to the wink of the olden days.

On the other hand, I'm pretty sick of the stereotypical, overweight Chinese bureaucrat with the slightly thinning hair and large round glasses.  

I'm sad that this planned ten-issue series was truncated to nine, and that there haven't been any more comics with this team since.

Regret buying: No 

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Really good

That’s it for DC Box 2!  Summary:

Box Summary:

Time spent reading: 19 hours, 59 minutes

Issues read: 202

Issues cut: 25 

Highlights (Good or better): Flash - Blitz storyline, Grayson: Future’s End, Gotham Central - the entire run, Great Ten

Project Summary:

Time spent reading: 25 days, 16 hours, 50 minutes

Issues read: 5127

Issues cut: 701

DC Box 3 is entirely Green Arrow.  I’ll be reading the adventures of Ollie Queen (and Black Canary and Connor Hawke) for the foreseeable future.

Green Arrow: Year One 1-6

Andy Diggle and Jock reunite after their awesome work on Losers.  The result is a perfectly readable version of Ollie’s origin, but nothing to write home about.  Or a longer review.

Regret buying: No 

Would buy again: No

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Nice

Thank you, Lee's! Gotham City Sirens, Grayson, Gotham Central

A shout out to Lee’s Comics of Mountain View, my LCS since 2002.  They were forced to permanently shut their doors just a day into the COVID shelter-in-place order.  They will be sorely missed, especially Rich, who’s been the guy behind the counter this whole time.  

Gotham CIty Sirens 1-13

Catwoman 83

This should be a slam dunk - Paul Dini, famed creator of the Batman animated universe, writing Catwoman, Poison Ivy, and Harley Quinn.  Unfortunately, this title suffers from two problems:

Guillem March is a wonderful artist.  At least, he has the potential, as evidenced by his lush, beautiful covers.  But there’s a vast difference between the quality on the front and the art on the inside. That’s the first disappointment.

The second took a little while for me to figure out.  As I read the stories, I thought that they were serviceable, but nothing special, which I didn’t expect from someone of Dini’s mettle.  Then it hit me - He’s writing stories with a Batman Adventures sensibility.  Things are a little more playful, a little less reverent.  And there’s nothing wrong with that at all, except that kind of tale really needs to be drawn in the animated style as well.  Once I started imagining every page a la Mike Parobeck, things improved quite a bit.  

Lovely.

Exquisite.

Way less good.  And wouldn't it read a lot better...

...if it was drawn like this?

Alas, that’s not the comic I got, and the mismatch of artist with writer (blame the editor?) makes this a title I’m dropping from my collection.

Regret buying: No (Yes for the second trade, I should have known better after the first)

Would buy again: No

Would read again: No

Rating: Didn’t suck (cutting)

Grayson: Future’s End

One of the rare “told in reverse” stories that succeeds better than I could have imagined.  Tim Seeley crafts (truly crafts) a story that’s slight when read chronologically, brilliant when arranged Memento-style.  Each page explains something from the prior one, and the whole thing absolutely demands an immediate re-read.  

Regret buying: No 

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Really good

Grayson 1-4

Secret Origins 8

I bought this trade after I got on board the Tom King hype train.  Dick Grayson, post-Robin, post-Nightwing, is now a spy for Spyral. It’s okay, but doesn’t come close to King at his best.  

Regret buying: No 

Would buy again: No

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Nice

Gotham Central 1-24

I know this series is phenomenal.  It’s always had a place of prominence on my bookshelf, and I wasn’t planning to read this (along with the rest of my bookshelf comics) until I’d gone through all of my boxed issues.  But DC Box 2 has the spare room, and this is the only alphabetical title that fits the gap. So here I am reading it way ahead of schedule.

This is probably my third or fourth re-read of Gotham Central.  And as good as I remember it being, it’s always better in the actual experience.  Greg Rucka and Ed Brubaker, two of the best crime writers in the business, team up to create a GCPD that would make a spectacular tv series.  They’ve taken established detectives (Cris Allen, Renee Montoya, Maggie Sawyer) and new ones (to me, at least) and formed a Major Crimes Unit that feels genuine, believable, and storied with a rich backhistory and relationships.  

On top of that, layer a gritty, perfect art style begun by Michael Lark in the first issue and carried on by the artists who take on the baton after he leaves.  

Love the personality Michael Lark imbues in the Joker here. 

I’ll rave about the stories themselves in the next post.  In the meantime, this gets the first Pure Joy rating since Wizard’s Tale three months ago.

Regret buying: No 

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Pure joy