DCU Comic Book Reviews

GREEN ARROW: YEAR ONE #2

Part Two

late September 2007

Written by Andy Diggle

Pencils by Jock

Inks by Jock

Cover by Jock

Synopsis

Oliver Queen has been robbed by his assistant, Hackett, and then thrown overboard of his yacht, let to die in the ocean.  Ollie, however, manages to make it to a small island.  He finds an abandoned village.  The people were killed, dumped down a well, and the village was burned to the ground.  There, he learns to survive, fashioning a bow and arrow to hunt.  Months pass.  Then he hears the sound of a plane flying overhead.  Ollie shots up a signal flare.  When the plane pass around again, someone starts to shot at Ollie.  The old Ollie would have run, but the new Ollie, the hunter, stands his ground to fight.

Review by Binkley (e-mail)

I had a strange reaction to this issue.  I really, really liked the way Diggle and Jock breezed through a month’s time period, going from near dehydration and hunger to a survivalist in less than 22 pages.  They don’t dwell on Ollie’s attempts to survive, but instead show us that when one is forced to survive, one will always find a way.  We go from one end (desperation) to the other (survivor) in the span of a few panels, but it works.  Jock’s art is fantastic and really underscores Ollie’s desperation at the beginning and then his new stature at the end of the issue. 

As I said, I had a strange reaction.  Afterwards, it occurred to me that Ollie’s lonely months of the island were basically brushed away.  One of the things that I liked about the Batman: Year One story (and the one most people use as the template for any Year One story) is the way Bruce Wayne faltered in his initial attempts.  We don’t get that here.  By the time we get to the end of this issue, Ollie pretty much has honed his skills as an archer and fighter.  We don’t see him in the jungle, hunting the deer or birds and missing his shots.  We don’t see him creating arrows that don’t work or don’t work well.  We don’t see Ollie learning how to shoot better or how to hunt better. 

In essence, this story is all surface, presenting the bare facts of Green Arrow’s origin without getting in the basics of who is and what makes him tick.  Personally, I am not sure the island is the place for this.  I think it is the place where he learns to shoot a bow and hones his body and mind into a fighter and hunter, basically the tools needed to become a vigilante.  Given how much is glossed over in this story perhaps that is where Diggle is heading.