By: Andy Diggle Publisher: DC Comics Average Rating: Binding: Hardcover Label: DC Comics Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 160 Publication Date: April 02, 2008 Reading Level: Young Adult Release Date: April 22, 2008
Product Description: Oliver Queen has been a faithful member of the Justice League of America and defended Star City with his trusty bow and an arsenal of deadly arrows for yearsnow thrill to the definitive tale of how he became Green Arrow! Queen is a frivolous playboy with little care for anyone or anythingapparently even himself. But when he's double-crossed and marooned on a jungle island, he finds that he does care about something: justice! This amazing tale is written and illustrated by the award-winning team behind THE LOSERS.
Diggle and Jock Rock GA's Year One Origin! Green Arrow, as cheesy as he was sometimes portrayed with all the trick arrows (Net Arrow, Boxing Glove Arrow, Boomerang Arrow), was always one of my favorite heroes when I was growing up. When I got tired of wanting to grow up to be Batman, I'd want to be Green Arrow. Especially when he got changed from playboy to radical leftist and bleeding heart. That bearded free spirit with the attitude of sticking it to the man was just what I needed to grow up on in the 1970s. Oliver Queen taught me to think outside the box and question life and a number of other things.
He still remains as DC Comics' most radical hero. Mike Grell created THE LONGBOW HUNTERS and pushed away the trick arrows for a time, getting Ollie back to his roots as a cutting-edge back street brawler, then enjoyed a long run on the strip. Chuck Dixon shortly followed Grell and even killed Ollie off long enough to give us a new Green Arrow in Connor Hawke.
Even though he'd died and gone to Heaven, Ollie come back in issues penned by Kevin (DAREDEVIL, CLERKS) Smith. Lately Judd Winnick has married him off to Black Canary and invented a whole new Speedy for this generation.
But Andy Diggle (THE LOSERS) got the green light to pen the adventures of Oliver Queen's Year One origin while so many longtime DC Comics heroes are getting spotlight treatment. I really enjoyed Diggle's run on THE LOSERS as well as some of his other forays, but I didn't know if he was the right guy for Green Arrow. As it turns out, Diggle was just the guy to bring Ollie once more to the masses.
Diggle's scriptwork is excellent. He moves the story along and finesses the characters and relationship through dialogue and action, and the overall effect is like watching a movie with first-person voiceovers. An added bonus in the graphic novel contains the first few pages of the actual script Diggle turned in to the editor and artist. He didn't just put the words on the page, he actually planned on where the action would go and how it would be revealed.
In the beginning, Oliver Queen was a playboy with more money than he knew what to do with. He rambled and tried extreme sports to fill the gaps in his life, constantly trying to find his happy. Diggle does a masterful job of portraying that, and even ties in the ROBIN HOOD touchstones of Errol Flynn and Howard Hill's longbow at a fundraiser where Ollie really makes an idiot of himself.
Jock's artwork is fantastic. The panels and spreads flow cinematically across the pages. Movement comes alive, tension is as tight as a bowstring, and the sweeping majesty of nature fills the senses so much I could almost smell the grass and the gunpowder. The fact that Diggle and Jock have worked together before shows. They're a well-oiled machine attuned to turned out powerful stories.
The plot of GREEN ARROW: YEAR ONE is absurdly simple, but it shows off so much of what has become canon for the character. Oliver's disenchantment of his own prosperity, the dislike of the image of so many of the rich and celebrity, the false platitudes so many hucksters and politicians spout, and his search for real meanings takes shape in these pages.
His inherent survivalist's nature shines through in the wilderness and the human adversity he faces. Diggle also touches on Ollie's abhorrence of drugs (which became a major plot point in the 1970s when it was revealed that Roy Harper, Green Arrow's original sidekick Speedy who has now gone on to become Red Arrow, had a drug problem). Understanding that Ollie got addicted to opium while healing on the island actually shores up Ollie's overreaction and disappointment in Roy at that time. There's even a comment made after a drastic injury regarding the potential of Ollie losing his arm that plays off the way Ollie was killed - for a time.
There's a lot to love about this graphic novel if you're a Green Arrow fan. I had a blast reading it, then re-reading it. And it's a great introduction to the character if you've never read anything about him. Despite the fact that his series seems to constantly respawn, there's a resiliency of Oliver Queen that just won't go away forever. He's become an icon in the DC Comics universe, and Diggle and Jock reveal here in these pages.
Loved It Before reading this book my only experience with the Green Arrow had been his appearance in Identity Crisis. He seemed interesting enough so I picked this up pretty much based off the cover artwork and was pleased. I thought it was a believable showing of the man's mission being shaped. Explanations of things like his name and costume didn't feel forced and helped the character seem probable for the first time. A prime example being when he got a hold of some the enemy's guns he decided he be better off the arrows he'd spent a year using as opposed to accidently killing himself with a weapon he had little experience with. To sum it all up, If you gave Leonardo D'Caprio's part in the beach to Robin Hood you'd have this story. I'll be reading more of the Green Arrow.
Moments of greatness, but overall sub-par Upon hearing the premise for Green Arrow Year One, I could not have been excited to read it. I was even more anxious to read after reading Brian K. Vaughn's foreward of it, in which he said that all comparisons to Batman Year One were 100% deserved. Now, GAYO wasn't a terrible book by any means, but it just didn't blow me away. The story seemed to move really slowly for the majority of the book, and it felt like all the really important scenes were done way too quickly. The artwork looked pretty nice, but it felt out of place. It could've used artwork more along the lines of Batman Year One or Watchmen. There were some great moments in it, but they not enough for this book to be considered great. If I were only allowed one word to describe Year One, it would be inconsistent. It teased me with flashes of brilliant writing and storytelling in some scenes, only to let me down with sloppily done scenes that felt as if the writer was rushed when creating them. I will give credit where credit is due though. The ending, I must admit, was pretty awesome and really fits well with the tone of the book and the Green Arrow character as a whole. Overall, though, Green Arrow Year One is only worth buying if you're a huge fan of the character and want to see his beginnings, but for the rest of us, I would just recommend reading it once. It's not really a book that's going to stick with you the rest of your life.
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