Green Arrow #35

This should tell you how Arrow-crazy I am right now. I’m desperate enough to give Andrew Kreisberg and Ben Sokolowski a chance to sell me on a new 52 title. This is the first issue from some of the writers of the hit CW show, and it shows. While I’ve read a few of the other new 52 trades for Green Arrow, none of them felt this much like the TV show.

Ollie carries himself just as he does in the show. Starling City is replaced by Seattle, but we still have Queen Consolidated (sometimes called Queen Industries?), the Glades, and Diggle. Has Diggle been in the comic for awhile now? I don’t remember seeing him in the older trades. The writers behind the show might be writing the same characters, but the voices aren’t exactly right. Diggle never sounds like himself, and the interaction between he and Ollie never has the same sense of camaraderie and loyalty found in the show. I’m sure the surprise appearance of another Arrow stalwart at the end of the issue will work itself out, but it is too bad that it has to.

This book is still firmly planted in the new 52. There is talk of a world of villains (the Forever Evil crossover, I believe) along with a very long conversation with Bruce Wayne and Lex Luthor. Reading it, the whole scene feels sort of weird. Bruce is awfully chummy with the longtime villain. I’ve seen enough covers to know that Lex Luthor recently joined the Justice League, but man, this feels weird.

There aren’t really too many hints of a long-standing plot yet. The book opens with Green Arrow taking out some thugs; he gets stitched up, and then has a short meeting with Lex and Bruce. There is something going on with Mia Dearden (I had to google her to remember who she was, that’s how out of the DC lore I am). Has Mia appeared in the new 52? Was she still Speedy?

Daniel Sampere’s art is OK, I guess. The characters don’t look a ton like their TV counterparts, but neither do they have a tremendously defined look for the comic either. I had a hard time in a few points during the conversation with Bruce and Ollie where I couldn’t tell them apart if their hair wasn’t visible. They both looked like angry young hunks.

So it wasn’t great, it wasn’t awful. It does feel a lot like the TV show, but not quite enough to get me to stick around. I think at this point, I want either a good “old” Green Arrow as I always knew him, or a good “CW” Arrow as a know him now. This FAIR new 52 version tries to split the difference.