"Feast and Fowl"
Cover Date: March 2002
Writer: Kevin Smith
Artist: Phil Hester (Pencils), Ande Parks (Inks)
Previously...
Green Arrow, the Oliver Queen version, came back from the dead in a tremendously over-long arc (10 issues!). Now he moves on to his next Herculean endeavor: Getting some.
Plot
At stately JSA manor, Green Arrow has come to pick Black Canary up for a date. As she's getting ready, Stargirl pops in to exchange mild innuendo (Shouldn't you be practicing your rod-handling' 'funny that's what I was gonna tell you') and inform Dinah that Ollie is hanging out in the lobby with the also-recently-returned-from-the-dead Hawkman. Dinah informs Stargirl and the reader that this is a bad thing, since Green Arrow and Hawkman are "the ultimate liberal and the ultimate conservative" respectively, and they must therefore be kept apart at all times. I realize that I probably am going to have to do DC Universe: Decisions one of these days, and that thought makes me sad.
But, lo and behold, the pair are actually exchanging good-humored anecdotes about the travails of being resurrected. Black Canary is surprised by this development. Hawkman gives Green Arrow advice that boils down to, "Given the circumstances, you probably shouldn't fuck Black Canary on your first date."
Anyway, Black Canary and Green Arrow go to a restaurant, and Dinah informs Ollie that there's no way she's sleeping with him tonight. At this point, there's roughly a 0% chance that Green Arrow won't be having sex with Black Canary by the end of this issue. Dinah and Ollie chat about all the men Black Canary has seen while Ollie was dead. Unsurprisingly, this is an awkward conversation.
Fortunately, it's time for the perfunctory fight scene. And who's the villain tapped to show up and get his ass kicked in seven pages or less? It's the Riddler. He bursts in quipping, "What a guy gotta do to get a table in this joint?" He then follows that up with a Who Wants to be a Millionaire Reference? I feel like the universe is punishing us all for thinking that Clerks was a good movie.
The Riddler, of course, is just fodder, so he gets taken out quick, including a bit where Ollie creates a bow out of some skewers and a harp. I guess that makes sense as long as you don't think about it for more than about five seconds. Riddler and his henchmen get routed, and that inspires Green Arrow and Black Canary to go back to her room at the JSA's headquarters and have sex. Which they do. Repeatedly.
Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, we meet a super-heroine named Virago. She then gets shot to death by a villain named Onomatopoeia. This villain's gimmick is that he only talks in, wait for it, onomatopoeia. Really, Kevin Smith? Really?
Back at JSA headquarters, Ollie realizes that sleeping with Dinah wasn't the smartest thing he ever did, so decides to double down by sneaking out while she's sleeping. Hawkman catches up to him before he gets out of the building and looks none too pleased. To Be Continued!
Commentary
Green Arrow may be the worst hero that DC has published regularly. I mean, he's a dude with a bow and arrow. He's not a master of the martial arts, he's not a master detective, he's not a super-genius, he's just got the bow. Or, more to the point, he's a character so uninspiring that Kevin Smith felt compelled to let Ollie MacGuyver up a makeshift bow out of a harp so that he'd have a credible chance of taking out the Riddler.
The only really good run the Oliver Queen version of Green Arrow ever had was when Mike Grell moved him to Seattle and basically refused to let him interact with any hero with actual powers. By doing that, he almost made a dude with a Robin Hood beard and bow seem halfway decent. But when you put him next to really any other hero, he just seems completely outclassed.
Of course, the first ten issues of this volume of Green Arrow featured a god-like managing to find a way to resurrect the body of Ollie without his soul, and also involved the copious use of magic, and was really the worst possible way to bring Ollie back since he spent just about the entire story wandering around while demi-gods fought each other in the background. In fact, Queen's most heroic moment in the story is when he allows his best friend, who is know the divine spirit of vengeance, to reinsert his soul into his body.
You know what, I have a simpler explanation for Green Arrow. Years ago, there was this joke on The Simpsons where the titular family is watching a show called "Knightboat" and the joke is that there's always some inlet or canal that lets Knightboat get around the fact the criminals can just escape on dry land. Essentially, Green Arrow is the "Knightboat" of super-heroes, in that you always have to come up with a contrived reason for why a guy with a bow and arrow is able to make it in a world with heat vision, telekinesis, and firearms.
Damage Stars: ****
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