Art by: Sean Izaakse, Phil Hester, Eric Gapstur
Colors by: Romulo Fajardo Jr.
Letters by: Troy Peteri
Cover art by: Sean Izaakse
Cover price: $3.99
Release date: April 23, 2024
Green Arrow #11 ends Ollie's quest to steal the Sanctuary records for Amanda Waller, but a last-minute change in plans sends Ollie into the future to face his oldest foe.
Is Green Arrow #11 Good?
Wait, if this is the penultimate issue of Joshua Williamson's run, does that mean Malcolm Merlyn was the big villain the entire time? With one issue left in the arc, it's unclear if Williamson has a killer finale in the works, or if his reputation as a writer who can't stick the landing will be proven once again.
When last we left Oliver "Ollie" Queen, aka Green Arrow, readers were treated to an issue-long family reunion when Ollie headed to the Great White North to retrieve the Sanctuary Mask from an abandoned League base. The issue ended with Ollie and Roy Harper fighting against hard light holograms of the Justice League, which were created to keep the Sanctuary Mask safe.
Now, the entire Green Arrow family joins to fight the faux Justice League and steal the mask. When Ollie signals Waller that he has the goods, he insists on payment before turning the mask over, which means a face-to-face with Malcolm Merlyn. Waller complies by teleporting Ollie to the future, where Merlyn waited for years after finding his way out of the Time vortex where he was trapped.
Before the enemies duke it out, we're treated to a flashback covering the broad strokes of Ollie and Merlyn's relationship since its inception. When the flashback is done we learn Merlyn bided his time by learning all he can about everyone via the Sanctuary Mask, and he uses the data to unleash an army of hard light holograms, composed of Ollie's Arrow family, against the Emerald Archer.
What's great about Green Arrow #11? The Sanctuary Mask is quite a dangerous plot device when placed in the wrong hands. Trapping Merlyn for years in the future gives the longstanding villain plenty of time to plan, train, and devise terrible ways to harm Ollie, so the general setup makes sense.
What's not so great about Green Arrow #11? Everything related to and surrounding Amanda Waller is poorly executed. Why would Waller go through all this trouble to get her hands on the Sanctuary Mask, only to teleport Ollie to the future while he still has it? Why is Waller dealing with Merlyn at all when any stealth operative could do what Merlyn has done? If Waller knew Merlyn was in the Future, why did she leave him there when he had a future version of the Sanctuary Mask in his possession for years?
The more you dig into Waller's involvement, the less it makes sense.
How's the Art? Normally, multiple artists on a single-issue floppy is a red flag, but it makes sense and works here. Hester's style suits the flashback motif well by giving Ollie's early years a nostalgic vibe, and Izaakse's action scenes look great in the present.
About The Reviewer: Gabriel Hernandez is the Publisher & EIC of ComicalOpinions.com, a comics review site dedicated to indie, small, and mid-sized publishers.
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Bits and Pieces:
Green Arrow #11 delivers an action-packed issue with the extended Arrow Family fighting a hard light Justice League to get Amanda Waller's prize. The action sequences are fun, the twists are intriguing, and Ollie is up against the wall in this penultimate issue to the arc's finale. That said, everything surrounding Amanda Waller makes little sense or seems needlessly complicated.
6.8/10
I genuinely have nothing against Williamson, my criticisms are for his writing only, so when I say I don't think this series ever managed to set itself up properly to even contemplate landing it well enough, I am saying it with disappointment because I do think Williamson used to write more strongly and again, this is a criticism of his work, not his character or person. That panel where Merlyn just walked in GA's bedroom to inject a tracker in his neck was the breaking point. Where do I begin with how immersion shattering and non sensical this whole plan is if he wanted to make Ollie suffer by taking his family away or have them defeat him? ( let me not even begin with the absurdity of Merlyn just being able to walk in like that when GA would have better security in this day and age on account of all the enemies he has made and all the technology available to him, and if he could, Ollie or his family not being dead At this point. How would a seasoned fighter sleep through an injection to the NECK anyway cause it would make sense if merlyn just killed ollie there since then it would be too late for a reaction understandably so that could happen and Ollie wouldn't be faulted but he didn't and only injected something so how did Ollie not wake up????
ReplyDeleteif this is something that could be done, if you are going to give vulnerability to your characters, fair enough, but then you would have to explain this not happening hundred times over with the lives they are leading) if Merlyn just straight up consulted a magic user (ironic), his plan would have made more sense but this series has been bound by this needless desire to explain the whole weird timeline of the GA family by making it nonsense and convoluted, introducing unwise plot devices like the dimesnion/time jumping the family does when it doesn't line up with either waller or merlyn's plans. Sad thing is it's not a small thing to ignore to get to better stories, this premise has been the whole plot for the entirety of this series. You can't ignore it by virtue of just reading the issues. They should have just gone with the whole timeline is readjusting itself that Geoff Johns or Adams went with in their books. It makes more sense than this and takes way less time cause honestly this mystery was not interesting in the first place, getting the family back was just the first step, the readers want them to interact properly and like I said on top of that, the answer to that mystery is just ridiculous so you can't have that consolation. 4.5/10
Bonus: also what was the point of the JL holograms? They just were in the background and nerfed badly so the characters would shoot something at them, if they weren't going to show the fight with JL and the different ways the family have to counter their specific powers, then what was the point of the set up? Was it just a cliffhanger? Or was it cause if they showed the fight it would have been near impossible for GA even with the help of his family to defeat JL, even an AI simulated one, without any preparation beforehand to counter them? And wasn't that supposed to be the defence for Sanctuary, using people's deep hangups against them? So why didn't it bring the family then when it was under attack? Also look, I know we need drama, but there can be drama drived from good writing, not Ollie just refusing to fight holograms of his family who are obviously not his family. It's just childish to go with the logic that GA can't even fight an AI replication of his family when he knows they are just some programming and he doesn't have the logical explanation of being under a hallucinogen or magic that would compromise his mind so he can't not see them as family or that his emotions are out of control. It doesn't work as drama especially when you consider instead of having merlyn bring real counterparts of GA family from multiverse(he already has op technology like it)that are maybe evil or brainwashed to fight him, his genius plan was just to have some AI fake them fighting GA and specifically after telling him exactly what they actually are. his plan to kill GA after all this effort was to just take this AI device that was recently made to have replicas of his family kill him? Off the top of my head I can think of ten more ways he could have had a family member kill ollie, either by accident or mind control. I am not expecting an earth shattering plan here but we read 11 issues for this? Are they not just holograms modeled after the patterns the AI has gathered from the counseling sessions, am I mistaken? Cause I am pretty sure they are just GA themed version of the JL holograms at the beginning. All in all I am not trying to be mean here, just want to give constructive criticism that would hopefully help someone.
Delete*btw by "tracker" I meant the device that made the phasing out stuff happen, just didn't want to type out this everytime. I know it's used so that the family would not be near. Just to clarify
DeleteThank you Sir. I agree with you review. Williamson is not a bad writer but everything related to Amanda Waller in this issue feels rushed and overplayed now ruining Green Arrow's story. I must say Williamson's name alone got me to read this issue but I hope the finale wraps better than the last few issues.
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