Broken Frontier

In an extra-sized 50th issue, Team Arrow and the Outsiders unite to rescue Arsenal from the bowels of an abandoned prison.

Green Arrow has been a pretty good performer under the guidance of Judd Winick. He’s moved on from the bumpy change in art teams by engaging in high-energy storytelling and (mostly) believable characterization. This issue is a pretty good example of where the title is at as a whole: the story is fun and engaging, the fights are exciting and interesting, the ending is unexpected yet well connected to the ongoing arc but the art is not quite up to the task. This issue is pretty well self contained and would be a good jumping on point for new readers.

Arsenal has been kidnapped by the deadly Drakon under the direction of the mob-boss, Brick. Somehow Riddler got involved and stands around philosophizing about the interconnectedness of life. Team Arrow and the Outsiders reluctantly get help from Batman and find out that Arsenal is being held in an abandoned prison (such a waste of public infrastructure…). Team Arrow, with a few tricks up their sleeves, infiltrate the prison and encounter their enemies.

Winick’s work is nothing if not readable. His dialogue is often quite funny and I find myself reading aloud some of the more bombastic pieces of prose. It is never over the top, however, allowing the reader to become pretty well immersed in the story. Winick’s strength in this issue is to use the continuity he has developed within the title to good effect. His characters interact with each other based on what has come before; Connor and Mia fighting Drakon, for example, show how they have learnt from past experience.

The let-down in this issue is the artwork. The use of two pencillers is fine; one takes the pro and epilogues while the other takes the bulk of the issue. Some of the storytelling is hard to follow. For example, Riddler is there without costume and actually looks a little like Joker, for a while I thought Joker had been pretending to be Riddler. Turns out Riddler doesn’t have any defining characteristics aside from speech and costume so he looks pretty dull. Also, Tom Fowler has an annoying habit of placing panels over people’s faces; chopping off the tops of their heads.

The final page is supposed to be moody and mysterious but it is interrupted by an in-house ad that uses the same colour scheme as the actual story page. This forced me to have a double take and ruined the flow of the ending. I shouldn’t be surprised, DC have never shown respect to the flow of stories and art in their advertising – makes me wonder why they bother hiring writers who know how to handle pace when they just go ahead and ruin it with an in-house ad for crying out loud.

From the stunning James Jean cover to the disjointed ending, this issue displays all that is good and all that is disappointing about Green Arrow.

-Matthew Clark