Weekly Comic Book Review

By J.T. Krul (writer), Federico Dallocchio (artist), Michael Atiyeh (colorist)

The Story: Green Arrow finished business with Prometheus in the conclusion of Justice League: Cry for Justice, but now he’s on the trail of Electrocutioner, Prometheus’ accomplice. Problem is, Green Arrow’s Justice League colleagues are on his trail.

What’s Good: I had trashed Green Arrow and Black Canary last year for what I’d considered shoddy writing and scratchy art. The cover art on this book and J.T. Krul’s name enticed me back. An added incentive for me was Dan Didio’s cryptic announcement in Toronto in 2009 that his choice of character to watch for the year 2010 was Green Arrow. If you’ve been following Cry For Justice, you can see that Didio was as good as his word (no further comment on how well Cry For Justice itself worked as a story). Am I glad DC pulled me back? Qualified yes.

The cover art alone was worth the DC price of admission ($2.99), but the real draw here is Krul’s character work (demonstrated so ably in a string of great Titans character pieces). Krul takes us through Oliver Queen’s gritty monologue and shows why he is the Green Arrow and why he is Star City’s protector. When he faces off against Green Lantern (his best friend), Black Canary (his wife) and the Flash (someone who doesn’t like him very much), the character and the conflict come out. Different sides of an argument, hardened against each other, brother against brother. Tough stuff. I thought for a second that Krul was going to let me down and have Green Arrow beat two of the three toughest superheroes in the DCU in some dumb way reminiscent of Cry for Justice. Instead, the way Oliver took down Green Lantern and the Flash was actually pretty smart. Good work, Krul!

What’s Not So Good: I haven’t seen Dallacchio’s work before and at first glance, I was pretty happy with it. There’s a lot of things he does right: a broken city, emotive faces, stoic, posing heroes, and a really fast Flash. But the longer I looked at the art, the more I felt something was missing and I think I figured out what it is. Some of the action poses lacked dynamism and authenticity. Proportions and angles didn’t match in some places and there was just a sense of…missing the mark. Check out the cops with the protesters or Oliver pointing his arrow at Canary – in both cases, the characters don’t seem to belong to the same moment of action, despite their being in the same panel. Distracting and a little off-putting, despite some stellar examples of fine draftsmanship.

Conclusion: Pick up this book. Green Arrow has always been a character with a lot of potential for depth, given the right writer. Krul is the right writer. I’m going to see what he does with GA.

Grade: B-

-DS Arsenault