Green Arrow #52 Review and *SPOILERS*

Have Your Pets Spayed or Neutered 

Written By: Ben Percy
Art By: Szymon Kudranski, Gabe Eltaeb, Dave Sharpe
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: May 4, 2016

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

Just another dog day afternoon for Green Arrow and I'm not saying that just because we left the last issue with our hero sporting a machete in the middle of his chest, but also because....... dude's a dog man...... or a werewolf.... or a Warg, whatever you want to go with, but his time may be up because I don't think that even Lon Chaney Jr.'s Wolfman could take a machete to the chest!  (if anyone calls me out about silver being the weakness of a werewolf, I'll kill ya!  I'm just being silly over here.)  So yeah, it looks like Oliver's time in Africa to find a cure for the Warg problem in Seattle didn't go as planned, especially since Deathstroke got a hold of Dr. Miracle in the last issue and is hell bent on taking him back to that old dying crusty dude, Jeffery Paragon so that he can collect his money and get the hell out of terrible rainy Seattle.  Let's see if Oliver can overcome death and get the crazy out of his city before they start throwing everyone into concentration camps, like they're doing with the Lukos infected people of the city.  Let's check it out.

Explain It!

Our issue begins with a miracle...... and that miracle is that the machete that Deathstroke used to stab Oliver was the same one that at the beginning of the previous issue, cut Dr. Miracle's tongue and still has some of the blood on it........ Thus, it not only cures Oliver's Warg-ism, but heals the stab wound itself as soon as Emiko pulls the blade out.  Goddamn, and here I thought it would be convenient that Dr. Miracle could cure anything on his own, but that's nowhere near as convenient as this blade being the deus ex machete of the story.  So yeah, Oliver is just healed up and now it's time to make his way back to Seattle to save Dr. Miracle........ and he even uses a plane that seems lost to time as his means of transportation.  I'm saying that Oliver is the luckiest mother fucker alive at this point because everything just keeps coming up Millhouse for him.  Dude needs to buy me some scratchers or a powerball ticket or something.  

A very strange part of this story that doesn't seem to have any bearing on anything is the fact that Mr. Paragon refuses to pay Deathstroke his full payment because he's seven hours past the deadline of Paragon and his agreement and I don't know if this is to show why Slade just lets Oliver pass and even hopes that he gets Dr. Miracle back when our hero finally shows up, but either way we all know that Slade is all about the money and doing the job he was hired to do so having him walk away once the job is over doesn't seem too far fetched.  Yeah, this issue is full of strange dialog and narration as it rushes its way towards a conclusion..... Hell, we even have our big showdown between the Wargs and the Patriots at the Lukos concentration camps and even that is ended abruptly as soon as Oliver shows up and decrees that he has a cure.  Dude even lets Marrock go in the end and we never see any kind of justice served for everything that the Patriots did throughout this story arc.

In the end, besides for the Warg stuff we already talked about, Green Arrow storms Paragon's mansion and simply cuts Dr. Miracle free.......... yeah, that's about it.  So as we close out this issue and this era of Green Arrow of the New 52/DCYou, we see Oliver just show up with a cure and the hateful people of Seattle are just as hateful as they were when this series started and there is no sense of any real kind of hope after everything we've been through with this series and as I stated before, no justice.  

That's it for Green Arrow until Rebirth and I have to tell you that this issue and really Ben Percy's run of Green Arrow feels like all it wanted to do was show you horror elements, like blood and guts instead of actually giving us a decent story.  Everything in this finale to our Warg story is rushed to a conclusion and all we get is Ollie being cured of his Lukos virus and little else.  All our bad guys seem to have gotten away with all the terrible shit they've done and bodies are just laying around shot up or torn to pieces....... But Green Arrow isn't a werewolf anymore so I guess that's the only thing we can chalk up as a win here because this is just dark for the sake of being dark........... and really, I guess there are no winners.  I really hope we get away from this horror feel of the book once Rebirth starts because I would really enjoy seeing Green Arrow act like a hero again.  As for the art, I've never really been a fan of this style, but it gets the job done and like I've said before, it kind of works for this book's feel.

Bits and Pieces:

Green Arrow continues to disappoint in its final issue before Rebirth smacks us in the face and even though Ben Percy remains writer in that Rebirth era of our character, I hope that we can get away from this horror feel of the book and get our hero actually acting like a hero again....... and serve some goddamn justice because none could be found here.  Everything feels rushed and nothing is satisfying by the time this book ends.  

3.5/10