Although nothing near the mess of the last arc, I'm starting to doubt more and more that this version of the Green Arrow character is salvageable. In this issue, he makes a feeble argument about the difference between robots and humans, in an attempt to shut down the operations of one of the lamest excuses for a mad scientist I have ever seen: Dr. Cognate. And honestly, I still don't understand Cognate's plan. He turns people into robots because they want him to...but then he sells them to other people? But then also some of them escape, I guess, because that must be Pauline's deal. Right? I'm unclear on that, too. But it doesn't matter because Green Arrow completely fails to save her or anyone else. Or, really, to defeat Dr. Cognate.
On top of all that...it doesn't especially feel like he gives a shit. He's all attitude, this Oliver Queen, and there's not a lot of sincere caring for others coming through. Even the ending comes across as Queen being unable to let out whatever he's feeling, and so instead he's just cool and distant and ineffectual. Ann Nocenti didn't think up this interpretation of Queen as a cocky, pigheaded thrill-seeker with no apparent reason to be donning a mask and a code name, but she has amplified a lot of the worst aspects of him in her time at the helm.
Steve Kurth's artwork here is also far less stylistically interesting or tight as a lot of what has come before on the title, and there are several truly bad panels, like when Pauline's hand is bleeding or when the Robust robot guy has bits of his arm flying off. Everybody sort of looks like they're made of clay, and it does nothing to help the discomfort Green Arrow's personality makes me feel already. I keep buying this title because I have such a fondness for the character historically, but it's been a good while since the last time a decent Green Arrow comicbook was published, and I might need to contemplate giving it a rest.
3.5/10
No comments:
Post a Comment