Green Arrow #11 Review

Express Yourself

Written by: Benjamin Percy
Art by: Juan Ferreyra and Nate Piekos
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: November 16, 2016

I don't know about you, but the sudden appearance of the Trans Pacific Railway was a bit too much for me at the start of last issue, but by the end, I was getting used to it enough. Why?  Because there were more things to worry about in the story besides the engineering marvel that appeared out of nowhere.  Seriously, the story had more holes in it than a horse-trader's mule and we all know how crazy that can be, right?  So, going into this issue I had high hopes that not only would Ben Percy be able to give us a compelling story, but one that made everything we've already gooten make some better sense.  Is that what we got?  Let's find out...


The issue opened with Oliver giving the reader some narration about the reason for war and while it's no surprise that the answer was money, the way this series has become so heavy handed is a huge surprise and disappointment.  Maybe more of the later, come to think of it.

Everything continues with Dinah crying her and Ollie out of trouble while we see Eddie (the bad guy) making a bloody path through the Empire Express.  When Green Arrow catches up with the him, they fight (of course), but Eddie seems to win the day, or at least escape.  It was an okay fight, but I'm not sure why Eddie is so concerned with his height.  Us little guys have to stand...well, tall!  

Eddie left a parting gift, though, in the form of a bomb that explodes and sets up a "we've got to get out of here or die" situation that happens too suddenly to ever build any tension and is a bit too ridiculous for me to really care.

As water threatens to destroy everything, Dinah and Ollie escape via motorcycle while Diggle gets the train the hell out of there as well.  The art looks fantastic which is good because this story is cliched and paper thin.

The issue ends in Seattle where the Empire Express does it's best Silver Streak impression which looked cool, but had little consequences besides being business as usual for Broderick and Queen Industries.  By the way, how the hell (and when) did Broderick survive the sinking of the Inferno?  I hope we find out because seeing him here threw me out of the book while I tried to get my mind straight.

Did I mention that Hillary Clinton shows up?  No?  Well, she kind of does.  Again, it threw me out of the book, but at least it made me chuckle to myself.  After finding out Amin Mustafa is dead (we hardly knew ye), she declares the peace talks must continue while Broderick mumbles to himself about the war machine and Dinah and Oliver show up looking like badasses on their motorcycle.

Plain and simple, this was a bad issue of Green Arrow.  The lack of setup with the Empire Express doomed the story from the start and the whole Mustafa seeking world peace story went nowhere fast and again, had little to no setup.  Things just happened because they did and after the first couple of pages, I wasn't caring about any of it.  It's a shame because with a little background and setup, this could have been an interesting story.  As it was here, it 
wasn't.

I loved Juan Ferreyra's art so much.  His color work was excellent as usual and his pencils and panel layout were so great.  Really, his art is the only reason to pick this comic up and I must say, it might be worth it just to see how kickass he is.  Might be.

Bits and Pieces:

Ben Percy continues his story that started with a ridiculous premise and continued here by giving us no real information, but expecting us to care nonetheless.  I didn't care at all, but I did like Juan Ferreyra's art, but was it enough for me to give it high marks?  Check below for the answer.  Spoiler alert...It wasn't.

5.1/10