Green Arrow 80th Anniversary Special

Green Arrow 80th Anniversary Special

DC Comics 2021

By Various Creators

CELEBRATING THE EMERALD ARCHER’S 80TH ANNIVERSARY! For the last eight decades Green Arrow has been one of the premier (and loudest) characters in the DCU, always at the forefront of where the superhero genre is headed. This oversized anniversary issue follows in those footsteps, as an all-star lineup of Green Arrow creators, alongside some of the gifted creators of the modern era who have been inspired by Oliver Queen, unite to pay tribute to the Battling Bowman. See what the past, present and future have in store for Oliver Queen, Black Canary, Connor Hawke, Arsenal, Red Arrow, Speedy, and more in this epic special!

While Green Arrow has been called Batman with Arrows, it isn’t really that far off. I think this is why over the years we’ve seen Ollie with so many personality changes, something to set him apart from Bruce and then there’s Roy with his drug addiction that also sets them apart from their so-called counterparts. If we’re being honest Ollie has had some of the craziest and best adventures over the years and his early days were filled with optimism and that quirkiness that came with his schtick.

I absolutely love the way that this book is being told. It makes me wish we’d see more adventures throughout his long existence. When he and Speedy were young and idealistic to the more cynical moments and exploring the fact that he couldn’t keep it in his pants and didn’t use condoms. Each story focuses on a point in time of his life and all of them are complete stories with a clear beginning, middle and ending and that impresses me to no end. The character development that we see is amazing thanks to the dialogue, the character interaction and how they act and react to the situations and circumstances they encounter. The pacing throughout is perfectly done as each story flows seamlessly into the next one.

Now I don’t know who came up with pairing off the artists and the writers but whoever is responsible for this deserves a raise because honestly I couldn’t have done one of the fan made choices that would’ve come near to what we see. Though in all honesty I’d have loved to see Phil Jimenez being given an arc to illustrated. The Wildcat arc introduces us to the Yellow Wasp and shows Ted’s nine-lives power and how the boxing glove arrow was born and it’s one of my absolute favourite stories, so let’s see more of G.A. and the Yellow Wasp!

Speaking of the interiors here I love the work in ever single arc regardless if its my go to style or not because what we see brings so much emotion and feeling to the forefront thanks to how we see faces, facial expressions and of course body language. All of this furthers the characterisation beautifully. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show such beautiful eyes for storytelling. The colour work is brilliantly rendered throughout. The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work is brilliantly rendered.

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I miss these 100 page giant sized issues. I think a yearly book like the this one would be a great way to showcase these talented creators as well as giving us a chance to thrill at unseen adventures that take place throughout Ollie’s life. The only thing missing here, for me anyway, are The Seven Soldiers of Victory, which if you think about it is Batman and the Outsiders long before Bats even had the idea. Still i’m down for a yearly book that does what this one does and allows us to see what his family, and he’s got a large one whether it’s blood or not, is currently up to. This is brilliantly done from head to toe, side to side and every which way including loose. It really is worth every single penny folks.