Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino take another shot at The Emerald Archer this week in Green Arrow #24: Dissonance. Ollie and pals have to fight two of the newest threats to Seattle, in an enraged Count Vertigo, and the mysterious new player Richard Dragon in Seattle making waves in the crime world. How does it all work out this week?..well let’s just get into it. Oh, and we’re probably going to get into spoiler territory near the end of this review, so heads up on that.
It goes without saying that Sorrentino is likely the best part about this new run on Green Arrow, her splash pages being one part to the fantastic canvas she draws every month.
Her attention to detail in many places are absolutely fantastic, and she manages to have a style in Green Arrow that is both clean in a way, but almost abstract as well, and when the two styles meet you get one heck of a pretty picture to look at. For instance the fight between Shado and Richard Dragon is pretty fantastic, you really get a feel for every blow that lands, the pages feel like they have weight to them.
However, there isn’t much to be said about the rest of the book.
Most of Ollie’s supporting cast continues to be mostly unhelpful (aside from Shado) and fairly annoying (can’t wait for the love triangle between Ollie, Fyff, and Naomi).
Now, there’s a part of Lemire’s series as a whole that seems like it will fall short. What made the original relationship between Shado and Green Arrow interesting was that it was two conflicting ideologies, Shado was an assassin who believed her willingness to kill gave her an advantage over Ollie, and GA back then felt that taking any like was abhorrent. Now will Ollie not feeling anything about setting people on fire and exploding them (See Green Arrow #22) I’m not sure if Shado is going to do anything side from exacerbate Ollie’s pension for killing.
Back to the issue at hand there isn’t really much else to say, the ending to the fight between Count Veritgo and Green Arrow is fairly disappointing, it ends really quickly and doesn’t really leave any sense of satisfaction.
And last but not least another character has been introduced to the current run of Green Arrow, and if you’d rather not know or wish to be spoiled feel free to look away now…
You still here? Alright.
It’s Diggle.
That’s right, Ollie’s pal from the CW show Arrow is now part of the mainstream continuity. What does this mean for other characters bleeding into the show or bleeding into the comic? Only time will tell.
Verdict:
This was a fairly mediocre issue made only somewhat cool by the always ever enjoyable art from Andrea. Hopefully Lemire will start picking it up more and more, hopefully he won’t get bogged down with too many side characters, and show people what a truly great Green Arrow story can be like.
