You know what this issue really made me miss about Green Arrow? His old trick arrows. I know some of them were utterly ridiculous (fountain pen arrow anyone?), but they were silly comic book fun and it was always entertaining to see what new ones he’d show up with. But most importantly, they prevented him for having to shoot at everyone with actual arrows. Between this issue and the last, there’s entirely too many people getting pierced by sharp metal points and way too much blood flying because of it. Maybe the trick arrows weren’t particularly realistic, but they resulted in a much more entertaining story, at least for me.
That’s really one of the biggest problems present here; everything is just too dark, gritty and violent, an oft-occurring problem of writer J.T. Krul of late from what I understand. I stated in the review of the last issue that the violence just has too much of presence and that I don’t much care for Green Arrow’s new position in life and that continues here. More people getting hit with arrows and more self-confinement to the forest. There is a slight revelation on the part of the new owner of Queen Industries, but I couldn’t really make myself care about it at all. The one part I did like was the inclusion of Hal Jordan into the story. While he ultimately doesn’t have a huge bearing on the plot, there are some nice moments of camaraderie between him and Ollie that feel genuine. My favorite part of their interaction was that Ollie actually smiled briefly due to it; it was just nice to have a little break from all his grimacing. The issue certainly ends on a cliffhanger that could prove interesting, but somehow I doubt it’ll actually be dealt with in a good way, but who knows, maybe I’ll be proved wrong.
I’m still not sure how I feel about Diogenes Neves’ art. At times he comes off as a truly talented penciller and at others his work looks so rushed and sloppy. Weirdly enough, it has a different feel to it than last issue. Where previously I called him a cross between Scott Kolins and Rags Morales, it now seems more like a cross between Jim Lee and Rags Morales. For some reason, this isn’t as much of a compliment as I would have thought. It looks downright sloppy at times and his characters end up in some very strange positions that don’t look quite natural. I do have to give credit to colorist Ulises Arreola though, for adding some truly vibrant colors that make the forest and especially the shades of green, pop. Neves has some real potential to become a great artist, but he needs to nail down his personal style and refine it first.
I’m starting to lose my interest in this book. If Krul can’t do something to make me care about these characters and make this new status quo more entertaining, then I’m going to be dropping this book soon. I get why Krul went this way with the plot, but it doesn’t make it anymore fun. I can’t make myself invest any interest in any of these characters and the fact that the events of the last two pages barely made care at all is a bad sign. This should have been a moment of surprise, but instead I felt little impact. The whole Queen Industries sub-plot is really pretty boring to me and I don’t see it improving much in the future. There were some decent character moments to be had, but for right now I only plan to stay for this first arc. There better be some amazing improvements if DC wants me to keep reading this books.
Overall: 5.5/10
No comments:
Post a Comment