Haven't finished Yet I have not finished reading this one yet but I do believe kevin smith knows how to write so I have trust in him.
Can't miss for ANY Graphic Novel Fan My first and only experience with Green Arrow (besides in video games) was in the series 52. I thought he was a pretty cool character and when I heard that one of my fav writer/director Kevin Smith actually wrote a Green Arrow series, it was a no-brainier to pick up. For not having any previous knowledge of G.A. I was able to easily understand what was going on and it helped to develop some other character interest (Green Lantern). Absolutely wonderful read from cover to cover and I will soon be picking up another GA or GL book in the near future if anyone has any recommendations. Buy it today!
Ollie says the darnest things, but y'know, he's right. Smith obviously loves the characters he writes for. His wit and insights were immensely moving.
Not for the casual fan, this book packs in a lot of backstory and showcases everyone's reunion with a long-dead and magically resurrected Ollie.
Ollie and Hal also have a heart-to-heart about their strong, but oft contentious friendship -- one that's survived beyond Hal's evils and Ollie's heroic death.
A tale as absurd and ridiculous as this, could've been easily botched, but Kevin Smith focuses on consistent character psychology and DC metaphysics, pulling together all the elements in a fun and thoughtful way.
A love letter in comic book form Everyone else has hit it on the head, but allow me to reiterate: this book is fantastic. Collecting issues 1-10 of the re-launched Green Arrow series, this sees the intricate but ingenious return of Oliver Queen from the dead.
Being dead, to be sure, is a very touchy subject and returning from it can be controversial but these ten issues tell it very well and very sensibly with respect to all the characters involved.
Not only that, there are plenty of nods to the hat of the DC Universe. Making references to many kinds of ACCESSIBLE history, this book is a love letter to the DC Universe and all its characters; it's a love letter to Oliver Queen as a bleeding heart liberal and a struggling father, a love letter to his supporting cast (his son, his ex-lover, a new sidekick, a new friend) and a love letter to his relationships (with his ex-lover, Batman, Aquaman, his son, et cetera!)
And in the end, it's a love letter to the fans. This is a comic book that masterfully succeeds at being a comic book, and you'd do yourself a favor to pick it up.
Kevin Smith's finest work. I am not a particular fan of Kevin Smith's film work, but I absolutely love much of his comics work, and the ten issues collected in "Green Arrow: Quiver" represent his finest hour.
Oliver Queen, aka the Green Arrow, was created in the Golden Age of superheroes as an arrow-themed Batman ripoff (which Smith humourously acknowledges here), and survived thanks to the patronage of his creator, Mort Weisinger, eventually joining the Silver Age Justice League of America. Circa 1970, Denny O'Neill suggested that what the character really needed was a personality, and recreated Queen as a socialist crusader, and paired him with Green Lantern in a series of famous adventures. Later on, Mike Grell reinvented him as a Punisher-esque figure in a grim series, before being unceremoniously killed off in the early 90s, part of a wave of replacement characters that emerged at DC in that period (although Queen's replacement was one of the few meant to be permanent). Dead for a few years, he finds himself returned to life in this stellar story by fan Kevin Smith.
One can clearly see Smith's love for the DC Universe in every detail of this comic; this is a true epic, spanning the streets of Star City to the JLA's Lunar Watchtower to the gates of Heaven itself, and Smith mixes these disparate elements flawlessly. In bringing Ollie back, Smith clearly has an eye towards his more liberal O'Neill incarnation, rather than the Grell interpretation of the character, and includes commentary about the different eras of superhero comics (although this is somewhat incongruous with some of Smith's other work in the field; his "Daredevil" and "Black Cat" stories take a lot of 'grim and gritty' elements at face value).
This is a very busy comic; Smith includes a lot of dialogue, and a lot of narration; the latter is going out of style, but Smith somehow avoids becoming a latter-day Chris Claremont (which Claremont himself sadly failed to avoid), and the narration works, for the most part). His dialogue is replete with references to pop culture (and a few too many oral sex jokes), but captures the characters well. Smith makes a prominent addition to the Arrow family by introducing Mia Dearden, who will eventually become the second Speedy, and deserves plaudits for not killing off the second Green Arrow to make room for the return of the first.
All in all, a brilliant piece of work, one of my favourite DC stories.
Anything Goes Trivia
Trevor
Megaton Man
