[Editor’s note: This review may contain spoilers.]
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Artists: Eleonora Carlini, Carlos Rodriguez, Gus Vazquez & Hi-Fi
Summary
Green Arrow battles the Arrow Killer and discovers his identity.
Positives
The cover is spectacular. The breaking glass creates a wonderful visual effect and Oliver looks great. I like the colors quite a bit as well. It’s an image that will grab people, I think.
The art is drawn by Eleonora Carlini, Carlos Rodriguez and Gus Vazquez with colors by Hi-Fi. Their work is great throughout the issue. Carlini, Rodriguez and Vazquez are a great team; all of the characters look great. They’re defined and expressive. The action looks cool and dynamic. And Hi-Fi is one of my favorite artists in the industry right now so I love the color work in this issue.
I really enjoy Dinah going undercover as a cop. It’s fun to see her be a detective and use some of her skills from Birds of Prey in this story.
As I said earlier, the action is really fun. There are a lot of really cool moves from both Oliver and the Arrow Killer. It feels like an even match which is always nice. I also like the football arena as a setting. It’s always neat for a fight.
Negatives
The identity of the Arrow Killer is a disappointment to me. In the last issue, a list of suspects was given and none of the people on that list is the Arrow Killer. That’s cheating in my opinion. It reminds of Friday the 13th. In that original film, there were a couple of suspects that could be the killer but it ends up being a character we didn’t know existed until the reveal. It takes the fun out of the mystery and I feel the same way here. I have another complaint about it but talking about it would give away who the Killer is. It has to do with the comic potentially not having enough of its own identity. I could easily be proven wrong depending on what Benjamin Percy does with it but I’m somewhat apprehensive.
The Arrow Killer attempts to kill a cop in order to frame Green Arrow again which would be okay except every other cop can see that it’s the Arrow Killer who fires the arrow. And he loudly proclaims that he hopes they frame Green Arrow for it. His entire plan is somewhat undone at least from the perspective of the law. Maybe the Killer hopes that the citizens will still believe it’s Green Arrow but a lot of the citizens at the game saw the Arrow Killer as well. He’s kind of careless in this issue.
Verdict
Overall, this is an enjoyable read. The art is fantastic and really fun to look at. The action is cool and Black Canary has a nice part to play that I really had fun with it. The identity of the Arrow Killer is a little disappointing to me but it could go somewhere interesting.
