GREEN ARROW/BLACK CANARY #15

1.078 Seconds

February 2009

Written by Andrew Kreisberg

Pencils by Mike Norton

Inks by Joe Rubenstein

Cover by Ladrönn

Synopsis

Dregz is holding Black Canary by throat.  Green Arrow is nearby.  He notches his arrow and fires.  In the second it takes to reach them, Green Arrow recalls his life.  The arrow is caught by Black Canary, who stabs Dregz and is able to break free.  She then uses her canary cry to subdue him.  After Black Canary and Green Arrow leave the scene, Green Arrow muses how one second change everything.  Including for the bystander caught in the Canary blast that blew a hole in his wall.     

Review by Binkley (e-mail)

Interesting.  In my last review, I had stated that Winick’s last issue served as a nice ending and probably should’ve been the final issue for the Green Arrow title, rather than the 14th issue of this book.  This issue serves as a perfect jumping on point for new readers, recapping much of Green Arrow’s history (including the recent Year One story) up to and including the events that concluded Winick’s run.  If this had been a first issue, I think I might’ve been more forgiving.  As it is, I was moderately annoyed and bored having to read through a history I am thoroughly familiar with.  Granted, Kreisberg made sure to set the stage for his run by getting rid of the sidekicks, but that could’ve been handled differently (or didn’t need to be tied to the recaps).  I suppose my biggest problem is not so much the lengthy recap, but the device used for the recap.  It is a trite conceit, made even worse because Black Canary should not be the kind of character who would be stuck in such a predicament.  Kreisberg tries his best to explain it away, but it doesn’t quite help to overcome the sheer shock of Canary in that position in the first place. 

Having said that, the ending somewhat made up for it.  I liked the idea of an innocent bystander getting caught in the middle of a superhero fight and then doing something about it.  I am sure this has been done before, I can’t imagine it hasn’t.  Even so, given the way this issue was structured, I wasn’t really expecting the ending, but I think it works nicely and could possibly set up the next storyline.  I just wish Kreisberg could have found a way to incorporate this into the issue without doing the comic book equivalent of a tv clip show. 

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