Green Arrow #9 – Joshua Williamson, Writer; Sean Izaakse, Artist; Romulo Fajardo Jr, Colorist
Ray – 9/10
Ray: Now that Green Arrow is back from his sojourn through time, he’s being given a crash course in the state of things in the world right now—from the Justice League being disbanded, to Amanda Waller’s new organization declaring war on metahumans, to Roy being missing—and originally being thought to have been kidnapped by Waller, but now revealed to be working for her. Of course, with Waller, those two are often one and the same. As Peacemaker and Peacewrecker dismantle the League’s old headquarters—with the help of some seriously obscure cameos—Ollie begins a high-octane break-in of Waller’s base—and quickly runs into trouble. It’s not long before he’s discovered by a mysterious armored assassin who seems to know him, and quickly dismantles Ollie’s defenses. It’s not long before Green Arrow finds himself in exactly the same place Roy was—defenseless, chained, and at Waller’s mercy.
I haven’t been the most positive about how Waller is being portrayed now—she seems to be a one-dimensional villain in many portrayals, rather than the ruthless and nuanced figure that we’ve seen from writers like John Ostrander in the past. Fortunately, while Williamson is still writing her as (and in many ways set her up as) the biggest villain in the DCU right now, he’s also able to peel things back a little and show what hides behind the scenes. Waller isn’t simply pulling a takeover of the DCU like Norman Osborn did at the competition for the sake of evil—she views that takeover as a necessary evil against something much bigger coming. What is that “much bigger”? It’s left ambiguous now, but I’m guessing that Williamson will be getting into it. What we know now is that Waller has another arrow in her quiver—and Williamson ends this issue by going back to one of the last plot points I ever expected to see revisited. Talk about taking a big swing.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
