Adam Graham's Blog: Christians and Superheroes - Posts Tagged "silver-age-comics"

Showcase Presents: Green Arrow by Jack Kirby

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This book collects all the short Green Arrow stories in Adventure Comics and World's Finest from 1958-64 as well as his first appearance as a member of the Justice League in Justice League of America #4, a guest appearance as the young Oliver Queen in the Superboy Strip, and three appearances in the Brave and the Bold team up. This takes a look at the Silver Age Green Arrow prior to his rebirth as a left wing ideology in the 1970s.

Like many features of the era, most of these Green Arrow suffered from a strict page count limit. of 6 or 7 pages that gave little time for development. Only the last four appearances in World's Finest got up to 10 pages and those felt like padded six page stories. The guest appearance were interesting but Green Arrow's role was often variable and he ended up out classed at every turn.

The stories aren't bad, but they really aren't all that memorable either following the pattern of the Green Arrow and Speedy firing trick arrows to save the day. The nutty trick arrows were a great feature, but the writers never did enough to make this work. Mostly, the Green Arrow came off as a poor man's Batman.

The book had some highlights. Among the short stories were the Miss Arrowette features. Probably of all the wannabe female crimefighters to "plague" male Superheroes in the early 1960s, the most over the top sexist portrayal was that of Miss Arrowette who had made her own trick arrows around things like hair style or the mascara arrow. She was probably the most entertaining character in the book. The 60 pages of Jack Kirby stories are also pretty god.

The other guest appearances are fun for good writing, not actually for Green Arrow's appearances which are lackluster. The one exception to this is a 1969 guest appearance in Brave and the Bold which debuted the modern Green Arrow look. The character's personality and income status hadn't changed. The Green Arrow was given a fair shake. The art by Neal Adams is fantastic and contrasts nicely with the art in the previous issue which was more of a traditional silver age Batman story.

Overall, the book gives good reason for the Green Arrow's radical 1970s makeover. Without it, there's no way the character would be around today because prior to his radicalization, there just wasn't much of a character there.



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