GREEN ARROW #74

Jericho, Part Two:  Seems Like Old Times

July 2007

Written by Judd Winick

Pencils by Scott McDaniel

Inks by Andy Owens

Cover by Scott McDaniel & Andy Owens

Synopsis

Brick is meeting with his new gang with plans to solidify Star City as his.  Green Arrow, however, has other plans.  With the help of Connor, Mia, and Dinah they interrupt the meeting and take care of the crew.  Brick, however, captures Ollie giving Merlyn a chance to finally kill the Green Arrow.  With her siren cry, Black Canary blasts Brick and Merlyn to save Ollie.  Except Ollie had a plan and Black Canary ruined that plan.  They begin to argue, which leads to sex.  later, Dinah tells Ollie that she is proud of him for all of the changes he has made recently.  He admits that he did it all for her.  Meanwhile, Mia has found Brick and Merlyn.  They head over to the location but instead find Deathstroke and Drakon waiting for them. 

Review by Binkley (e-mail)

This was a definite improvement from the last issue and I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that Winick is focusing on character, in this case Ollie and Dinah, rather than trying to maneuver himself through the plot to get where he needed the characters to be.  Instead of long expository dialogue to explain why Ollie is essentially quitting as mayor, we get a great scene of Dinah and Ollie re-connecting with each other (apparently for a really long time).  The entire sequence of Ollie and Dinah talking about themselves and their relationship; you can sense and feel a lot of growth in these two characters.  For those who have been reading Green Arrow since Winick took over, you can see the progression in Ollie as a person that Dinah finally recognizes.  And as a reader of Birds of Prey, I can also accept Dinah’s progression as a person that she would be in a position to once more fall in love with him. 

There were other bits and pieces that I enjoyed, including the nostalgic use of the boxing glove arrow, Ollie’s pride with Roy’s inclusion in the JLA (which brilliantly mirrors how Meltzer wrote him in that book and this shows great continuity of character), and finally I liked the ending.  It brings together bits and pieces from earlier issues and shows that the two villains were less interested in bringing down Ollie as mayor but rather taking down Green Arrow.  I always thought removing Ollie from office was a weak end game and I am glad that Winick proved he had something bigger in mind.  Next issue should be a wild ride. 

The one negative in this issue was the inclusion of Merlyn, who only seemed to serve the story in terms of creating a nifty cliffhanger in the previous issue.  Otherwise, he does absolutely nothing here worth including him.

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