Green Arrow #12 review

Green Arrow has been through a lot since Rebirth started. On the good side, he’s back with Black Canary, undoing one of the DCNU’s many unpopular moves in their war on relationships (yeah, I’m biased). On the bad, he’s lost his company, been framed or all sorts of crimes, nearly been killed several times, his sister turned on him, and his old and deadly enemy Shado turned up again. Oh, and media creep strikes again, and now he’s friends with a black man named Diggle who has a Special Forces background.

Arrow: What We Leave Behind

Arrow gets their turn for a winter finale in “What We Leave Behind.” I found it to be an uneven episode. The main plot was really well done, very suspenseful, with some good scenes. The flashbacks have finally gotten to the joke people were telling when the show started, looping back now to the first year of Oliver’s career as the Hood/Starling City Vigilante. They also went way out of their way to beat the point into the ground about how the flashbacks connect to the present.

Arrow: Invasion!

The massive CW crossover continues with Arrow’s part of the “Invasion!” At the end of the Flash episode, we saw a good chunk of the Arrow cast beamed up by the Dominators. Now we get to find out what happened to them, along with a few scenes of what the others are up to. Well, most of them. As I commented about in my Flash review, Artemis is never seen, mentioned, referred to at all. Rory gets a passing scene, but no in-costume action.

Flash: Invasion!

While it sort of started on Supergirl, the big four-part crossover really kicks off on Flash. All the other shows share the title of “Invasion!” which was the title of the comic book event in the 90’s this story is loosely based on. For a big-time herogeek like me, it’s a lot of fun, especially as someone who’s been reading comics so long that I remember the initial story. It’s streamlined a lot, since the comic crossover went into every DC title running back then, and there were a LOT more heroes in the DCU of the 90’s than the DC CW-verse of the present.

Arrow: Vigilante

Team Arrow this week is dealing with, “Vigilante,” which some might argue is a somewhat redundant title. Most of the main characters have been referred to as vigilantes themselves at one point or another, by themselves or by others. What they are dealing with is someone who seems to have very little problem with killing criminals. Then again Oliver started off that way, so maybe this is for contrast?

Arrow: Human Target

The writers are really going deep in the DC archives this season. Wild Dog is an obscure character, even if this is a different version, and Adrian Chase isn’t exactly well known. Now they dig up another one who most people don’t know about, even if did have his own show for a while. This episode is the DC CW-verse premier of the Human Target, also the title of the episode.

Arrow: Penance

“Penance,” opens with Team Arrow on the streets. Green Arrow is giving them a chance to show what they can do, and they fail pretty spectacularly. They are after Sergio, one of the higher-ups in Church’s organization. Artemis, who finally has a codename and is using a bow for absolutely no reason (aside from maybe the character from the Young Justice cartoon using one?) misses her shot when Wild Dog gets impatient and disobeys orders (again) and then Mr. Terrific rushes in and gets beaten to a pulp. In the comics, Mr. Terrific is a black belt in several different disciplines. That’s something Curtis might want to look into. Green Arrow eventually steps in to take over and finish with the thug. The team is told to bring him and the box he was carrying to the Anti-Crime Unit. Curtis, ever the rational one, wonders how to do this. “Do we call an Uber?”

Arrow: A Matter of Trust

Arrow’s new episode, “A Matter of Trust,” has a lot of trust issues in it. Maybe it should have been “Matters”? It does open with a pretty good idea for the new team. Green Arrow is running down a drug dealer, while the team watches via some version of a body camera. That’s a pretty clever training technique, even if most of them aren’t impressed, especially the ever-impatient Wild Dog. After dropping by for a brief chat with the recruits, Oliver heads out again to a report of a gunman with an AR-15. This proves to be a false alarm by Billy Malone, Felicity’s new boyfriend and Star City Police Detective. Malone wanted to meet the archer, among other things, to warn him about Prometheus and his declared vendetta against the hero.

Legends of Tomorrow: Out of Time

The Legends of Tomorrow are back with a new line up, new season, and the introductory voice-over by Martin Stein gives a brief rundown of the members. The season opens with the somewhat ominous title of “Out of Time,” which starts us off in a new status quo. A lot has happened since the last time we saw the team.

Green Arrow #8 review

One of the things I was happiest about when DC started their Rebirth event was bringing back the relationship between Green Arrow and Black Canary. They’ve always been one of my favorite comic book couples. This issue has a lot of them together, trapped on an island. As the old song goes, “Reunited, and it feels so good.”