The NEW OFFICIAL Green Arrow Thread!

[Anubis]

Uh oh. So he's a Schivo? I smell social commentary coming on. To pull the plug or not to pull the plug.....

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Well, it is Winick and I'm sure Mia's wearing thin even to him.

 

[sinewave]

Uh oh. So he's a Schivo? I smell social commentary coming on. To pull the plug or not to pull the plug.....

i heard hugo strange diagnosed him as not being in a persistent vegetative state after watching a brief video of him post-op.

 

[BrianWilly]

Zatanna: "Pu ekaw."

And we're done.

For the love of God; these people live in a world where God's number is listed in most of their fave fives. Please don't turn this into One More Day part 2.

 

[sinewave]

Zatanna: "Pu ekaw."

And we're done.

she's too busy getting male strippers to "!ybab, ffo ti ekat".

 

[hippie_hunter]

Uh oh. So he's a Schivo? I smell social commentary coming on. To pull the plug or not to pull the plug.....

Look on the bright side, Winick is moving on past AIDS and homosexuality

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Zatanna: "Pu ekaw."

And we're done.

For the love of God; these people live in a world where God's number is listed in most of their fave fives. Please don't turn this into One More Day part 2.

It'd be a shame if they did, given that Winick actually did pretty well reminding us of that fact at the beginning of this issue. No way to get a dying person to a hospital in time? Call the Superman delivery service!

 

[SLVRSR4]

I was really enjoying this comic up until the latest miniseries and then they do this to Connor.

 

[chris moore]

Looks like we're not really giving this book a chance. Sure they shot Connor and mindwiped him, but at least by the end of this issue and after demonstrating quite nicely how much Ollie wants to be a good dad and not just settle for being Connor's dad, they thicken the plot and lead us towards a resolution for Connor and the 'why the crap does Winick kill everyone' notion. Still, the spontaneous wedding right after Ollie saying he never wants to leave Connor's side again was a bit groaning of a poorly written page. Seemed just to serve Winicks plot of establishing Ollies love for Connor by giving up being GA, then moments later relighting Ollies need to be GA...

Didnt care much for the art I'm afraid. Where'd Chiang go? I loved the reveal of Ollies new look in #3, but I dread to think how bad it'd look in the style we had this month.

 

[chris moore]

And one really big question - GINGER OLLIE!?

How the hell does editorial miss that Ollie's hair has been coloured ginger in two books by this penciller now? I assume its not Coelho who's responsible for telling the colorist to go orange, but it is a coinkydink.

 

[WompuM]

My shop didnt get the issue. Damn shipping delays.

 

[Darthphere]

And one really big question - GINGER OLLIE!?

How the hell does editorial miss that Ollie's hair has been coloured ginger in two books by this penciller now? I assume its not Coelho who's responsible for telling the colorist to go orange, but it is a coinkydink.

Yes, it's safe to assume that the penciller was responsible for a coloring snafu and not let's say, the colorist.

 

[WompuM]

there aren't enough rolly eyes in the world.

 

[Darthphere]

I need one big one.

 

[WompuM]

There's a good .gif of a big rolly eyes barfy out a bunch of small rolly eyes in the TDK boards i think.

 

[Darthphere]

Bring it to me.

 

[WompuM]

I'll look. It might be the smallville boards. I dont wanna get lost there.

 

[Darthphere]

You shall be rewarded for this quest.

 

[BrianWilly]

What do I win?

 

[sinewave]

i liked the art and the story was alright. i'm still pissed about connor, but it'll work itself out eventually. i'm cautiously optimistic with this book, so far.

 

[WompuM]

God damn you brianywilly.

 

[chris moore]

I did say the penciller presumably had nothing to do with the colour choices - I was just sayin that I've seen this guy do two GA books now, and on both occasions Ollie was ginger. But all others he's blatantly blonde. Rolly eyes a bit much cheers

 

[Manic]

Connor had better be okay by the end of this whole mess. Not to mention I want them to freaking resolve who and what hit him from the clouds.

 

[CLARKY]

I found last issue really boring. Poor Ollie, he did bad things, what a shame. Now he's going to be a good daddy sugar. The only part I liked was the wedding and the end. The art didn't help. I prefer Chiang.

 

[BrianWilly]

Green Arrow and Black Canary #5
ANAL CONTINUITY WITH A CONTINUITY ****E.

Winick says: As a child, Connor was harrassed and bullied for his ethnicity, and reacted violently due to "impulse control and rage issues."
Actual continuity says: Connor was harassed and bullied as a child, but only because he had a fat allowance and was a bit preppie. Any racial overtones were absent (though obviously not out of the question). And he kicked their asses because he was good at fighting, not because he had anger problems.

Winick says: Connor's mother sent him to the ashram to help him channel his anger.
Actual continuity says: It was Connor's idea to go to the ashram, and only because he wanted to learn the ways of a warrior/archer. His mom, the hippie, just thought that it was cool. She had no idea that Oliver had ever been to the same place.

Winick says: Connor went to the ashram as an adolescent, not from birth.
Actual continuity says: This is true! Connor went when he was thirteen and left with Ollie five years later. This is something that Winick thankfully hits the bullseye on, as opposed to pretty much every other writer who seems to be under the impression that he was left at the temple doorstep as a baby or something.

Man, I do appreciate what Winick is doing. I get where he's coming from and it does make sense. And the setup of those scenes makes me think that he definitely read the same exact past issues that I did...which, in way, makes his arbitrary retcons all the more irritating. That's really all that there is to it: retcons are irritating. They're irritating when the writer in question does them out of ignorance, and they're just as irritating when the writer in question does them in full awareness.

The punchline, of course, is that I'm 300% certain that they're only irritating to me, and that anyone who hasn't meticulously studied Connor's chronology -- which would be every other person here, I imagine -- simply thought that this was a decent backstory with a lot of dramatic impetus. And it is. Taken on its own, taken in this issue and the context of this series, those retcons made for very good scenes. It made for a very good issue.

I guess it just goes back to the age-old retcon question: how much is too much? How far back is far back enough? How many years do we get to hang onto the "validity" of a scene or a characterization before it becomes fair game for whichever writer to start twisting it around or negating it outright? In ten or fifteen years, are we going to have some random writer completely redo this very thing we're reading right now, GA&BC#5, to fit whatever new and "dramatic" flashbacking revelation is appropriate for that particular story arc? I mean, if every story has an expiration date, then what's the expiration date for stories we're reading today? When should I go ahead and say, "alright I'm done enjoying this particular tale from the past; go ahead and revoke it now"?

That feels wrong to me, the idea that at any moment, any past story could just be undone or altered. It has always felt wrong, and I imagine that it always will.

Which is not, for better or for worse, to say that this was a bad issue because of it. Not necessarily.

(8 out of 10)