Green Arrow #31 Review

I in Team

Written by: Ben Percy
Art by: Otto Schmidt and Nate Piekos of Blambot
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: September 20, 2017

The Hard Traveling Hero arc is coming to an end and while I love seeing books with cool guest stars, I think Ben Percy got a bit lost because of them.  The whole arc seemed to concentrate more on which member of the Justice League would show up and less about the story of Ollie taking down the Ninth Circle and clearing his name.  Maybe it all ties up in a nice big bow here.  Well, does it?  Let's find out...


We open with Ollie in a whole ton of trouble from last issue's cliffhanger.  He's in space without any suit since Hal's construct suit disappeared when Hal was knocked out by the Mecha-Burned bad guy.  After some monologuing about growing up and learning how to hold his breath, Ollie uses his noggin (and his bow and arrow) to save himself and start a brawl to end it all.

It seems so silly to think that the Burned soldier on the satellite is the same one that Ollie has run into in ever issue of this arc, but that's the case and while we almost get some information about him, instead we get some ridiculous action scene one-liners.

We then head off to Dinah and Emiko who continue to move at a snails pace after discovering Wendy Poole was alive and going to get her.  They finally get her away from the Underground Men and the Auctioneer, but that is really played off as a side note here as we concentrate more on Green Arrow.

After some back and forth between Ollie and the Burned, Oliver goes ham and the Sattelite blows up.  That wakes up Hal and sends the rest of the Justice League on alert as they fight to protect their respective cities from falling satellite debris.  That part feels way off as we were told last issue that the satellite was hidden above the Dark Side of the Moon.

Still, we get a pretty good scene with Oliver and Hal which makes up for a whole lot in this issue and seeing the Justice League doing what they do was good as well.  Now, spelling out that the Watchtower was on the Moon, wasn't great, but seeing Oliver get the invite to join the Justice League itself was.  Boy, this issue was a roller coaster ride of emotions (trademark - Reviewer's 101).

I won't say how that ends up, but the issue ends with some nice exchanges between Ollie and the Justice League, including a setup for the Teen Titans issue that came out a week ago.  Oh well, timing is a bitch.

This issue doesn't really do anything to address the problems I've had with this entire arc, but I couldn't help but enjoy it.  Ben Percy writes Oliver and Hal great together and seeing Ollie with the Justice League made me smile.  This is my favorite issue of the arc, but I am glad it is over.

Otto Schmidt's art is really good, but that's pretty much par for the course.  Schmidt shows he can handle all the characters Percy throws at him and the action flowed nice and smooth.  

Bits and Pieces:

While I still think the Hard Traveling Hero story lost it;s way under the weight of all the guest stars, this issue is the best of the bunch.  I still have a lot of unanswered questions, but this issue made me smile and that's something this book hasn't done in a while.

7.0/10