Green Arrow #8 – Joshua Williamson, Writer; Phil Hester, Penciller; Eric Gapstur, Inker; Romulo Fajardo Jr, Colorist
Ray – 9/10
Ray: Last issue, with Ollie back in the present, Williamson teased the return of one of Ollie’s most famous villains—the sound-effect-themed serial killer Onomatopoeia. With Ollie and Connor on the trail of Roy, the killer ambushed them at their home—and as the issue reveals, seemingly killed Ollie with several bullets to the chest. Connor is out for revenge, and this story feels a lot like one of the older-school noir comics that fill up Green Arrow’s back catalog. With that in mind, it makes sense that we have a new but very familiar artist on board—Phil Hester, who was the first person to draw this villain way back when. Connor is a character who by definition is one of the most benevolent, most pacifist heroes—so watching him out for revenge is a jarring experience. We get the feeling that something is not exactly right here, but it’s very entertaining to watch us get there.
This is a much smaller-scale story than Green Arrow has been involved in during the last year, and it calls back to Winick’s run in particular—with the presence of Brick, the infamous crimelord from Star City who has been working with Onomatopoeia to take advantage of the vacuum created by Amanda Waller’s war on superheroes. It all comes down to a tense showdown on a boat with a brilliant two-page splash page between Connor and the assassin that ends in a wildly unexpected way—until the big reveal comes. I knew how this issue was going to end, but I did not get the execution that Williamson and Hester pulled off. This was a great change of pace for the series, with a truly unexpected cliffhanger as well that puts the hunt for Roy Harper in a completely new light. This series has now been expanded to an ongoing, and it’s been so good that it’s richly deserved.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
