I'm actually liking this Benson run quite a bit at this point. These are all flawed issues, but they get the kind of tone I like to see from Green Arrow.

With that said, I do think this issue was the least character-driven so far. I think this is because they felt a need to catch up after the Roy Harper issue, and the pacing is maybe a bit too fast.

Either way, I like the direction the story takes--Oliver discovering that he actually is innocent, and the plot twist at the end as well.

I'm looking forward to the rest of their run. In the end, when it comes to Green Arrow, my favorite superhero, I'd rather have a respectable writer whose concept of the character I agree with but writes flawed stories than someone who writes good stories that don't ring true to the character. more

I'm never a fan of comic book deaths. With that said, I do think it made for a very important Green Arrow issue and a good one at that. It has been a while since anyone has focused this psychologically on Ollie's character, which to me have always been the best Green Arrows. So, props to the Benson's for doing that right.

Some of the specific ways in which Oliver deals with the grief are just common tropes, though, like asking Hal to create something with his ring that brings Roy back. The flaw in this issue just comes from a lack of originality that could have made it more powerful. However, the Confucius quote about archers was a nice touch.

I've heard some complaints about the art which is interesting because I thought it was pretty expressive and had some nice imagery.

Great issue all around. more

Some nice art but what is this nonsense? Action Comics is actually pretty decent right now but this is like a satire of a bad Superman story. There's no humanity in this.

I'll keep this short. This is not a terrible issue and has all the strengths and weaknesses of King's writing.

First the strengths. I am hard on the man and it's only right that I give him credit where credit is due.

Richard Grayson sticking around to cheer Bruce up after filling in as Batman is a right and proper plot. Showing how Bruce worked with young Richard after the Flying Graysons had their lethal dispute with gravity is not terrible. (Though I've seen this in Batman The Animated Series and Robin Year One, so not a lot of new ground plowed here).

Showing Richard has a cheerful person, also nice. Contrasting the two personalities makes sense.

But that takes us to King's weaknesses as a writer. A lot of his stuff is conceptual. In interview he talks about theme and such. But a theme is not a full story. There are things like dialog, show don't tell and structure that help make a story great.

Slavish devotion to any one of these literary conceits can result in an off-kilter story.

In this issue we get parallel story lines. We see Richard recreating the circumstances of Bruce helping him when he first came to Wayne Manor.

But this time it's Richard cheering Bruce up.

Short aside. I am not calling Richard Grayson Dick. The reason is not because Dick is slang for the penis. It's because no one under the age of 65 is called Dick anymore. Maybe the penis thing killed it, but if Richard is, say, 25, no way he's called Dick. Get with the times DC.

Back to critique. So we see King write a highly structured story, but without better dialog and without better exploration of character what we get is basically "Richard cheers Bruce up by recreating past."

What we don't see is Bruce actually break down and say thanks for being there my son. We don't see Richard say you were there for me, I'll be there for you. It's all allusion.

For example, we learn when Richard first came to Wayne Manor, he didn't like cucumber sandwiches. But Bruce said stick with them, you'll learn to love them, that's what my dad taught me.

Get it? Work hard and you'll overcome your awful past as illustrated with cucumber sandwiches. Get it? Get it?

Of course Bruce's lesson could just as easily be the stalker's creed. Wear someone down and they'll love you.

What we don't get is Bruce actually having any sort of epiphany. Richard gets him to laugh because he bets a penny that he bounce his billy club 36 times. (Physics doesn't work that way). Richard then says he wants the giant penny in the Batcave. Bruce laughs. This refers to an earlier flashback where Richard wants to bet a penny that he can stand on one hand longer than Bruce. Bruce said he doesn't bet. Richard said that his parents would make penny bets and a penny is a small thing. Bruce says not all pennies are small.

We don't see Bruce acknowledge that he is down. He doesn't realize he's not alone. We get almost zero sense of forward emotional growth.

What I didn't like. Again, King really likes killing people. We see Nightwing and Batman tackle Crazy Quilt and Condiment King. Nightwing mocks them for being losers. Batman points out that Condiment King has killed three people in seven robberies in a week. Again, told, not shown.

Why is this bad. Well as I've said in the past, death for the sake of death in a story depresses me. This is supposed to be a light-hearted issue and the Condiment King was absolutely created to be a joke. Making him a mass murderer isn't a joke. It harshes the buzz of the story as the kids who won't stop playing on my lawn say.

King loves his obscure joke villains. Fine. Just don't make them killers. Because being a killer is no joke, despite what you've seen in "A Fish Called Wanda."

Also, I found Nightwing's banter to be lame, but I will concede that is more a matter of opinion. (Though a review by its very nature is all opinion. I get confused).

So not a terrible issue. The art by Wagner was great. I guess the real problem is that reconciling the boy's adventure Batman of 1940 with the mass murder Batman of 2018 is difficult. It needs a light touch, and say what you will about King, you must concede he is not a subtle writer.

That's why I think it's best if Batman stories from different eras remain separate. Trying to reconcile different styles under one roof, as it were, hardly ever works.

But it was nice seeing Nightwing and Batman together, especially showing they didn't hate each other. (F*ck Teen Titans TV's F*ck Batman. That's what I say).

Or I could be wrong. more

It still bothers me that the Bensons decided to make Oliver a millionaire again. It's hard for me to accept this change and so I'll continue to whine about that.

However, the dynamic between Oliver and Dinah is so much better than it was with Percy--Black Canary is more than just a generic flirt with the Bensons writing. I also enjoy that they have made an effort to make chili such a theme again, as I always loved that part of the character's history and it's been missing for some time.


The main problem with this issue is that Oliver's emotional fallout from finding out he killed somebody as a drunken teenager is not done in a believable way. There are a couple of panels that I think captured his mood well from an artistic standpoint but other than that we just hear his feelings about it through short segments of his own dialogue, and then he claims that he is starting to feel better because Dinah made him chili?

Hopefully next issue really gets into more of the gritty feelings and really shows the core of his character. Sometimes its better to stray away from generic action plots, and that moment is now.

In the end, issue 44 was almost good...with a fatal flaw. more

A good but flawed debut for the new team.

What I loved:

* Acknowledging Oliver's chili recipe for the first time in a long while.

* Black Canary already seems to be more integral and authentic to the story.

* The story seems to be much more simplistic than the stuff Percy was trying, which should give us a much less convoluted plot and more time for character depth.


What I didn't like:

* Oliver at Queen Industries again? How many times is he going to go back and forth? I really think he's more interesting with a modest income. Given the twist at the end, it feels like they brought this back purely for plot reasons. Hopefully he (once again) gives up his company by the end of this arc.


* The internal monologue is way too on the spot and expository.

* Dialogue has some really clunky moments, which once again root from it being too exposition-heavy.

* Characters' faces are sometimes just drawn at really weird positions.

* The plot is pretty cliche and I'm generally weary of villains showing up for the first time on a TV screen in front of the whole city. more