Absolute Green Arrow #2 – Pornsak Pichetshote, Writer; Rafael Albuquerque, Artist; Marcelo Maiolo, Colorist
Ray – 10/10
Ray: The first issue of this new Absolute series was one of the bloodiest debuts we’ve seen in a long time, with a masked serial killer hunting the powerful and corrupt. Brought into the middle of this was Dinah Lance, an MMA fighter turned private investigator out to solve the murder of her ex-lover Oliver Queen – who happened to be closely ties to the Green Arrow’s first victim, the sex trafficker Jubal Slade. Ollie and Dinah are one of the DCU’s most iconic love stories, but this is a world where this never could have worked out – not only is he dead, but he was always a little too closer to the corruption than he would have admitted, even if he had a limit his former friends didn’t. And now, all his former associated are suspects, starting with Mia Dearden – the troubled girl and expert hacker who Ollie took in years back only to lose her when he wouldn’t fully turn his back on Slade. The brutal match in the ring between Dinah and Mia shakes loose a lot of ugly truths.
One of them sends her on the trail of her next suspect – Connor Hawke, Ollie’s biracial son who he seemingly never actually interacted with, but now Connor has found himself in the middle of this hunt as one of Ollie’s primary heirs. The second major suspect, with Roy Harper still in the wind, Connor doesn’t react well to Dinah’s appearance – and is more than capable of protecting himself. But before they can sort out the truth, the Green Arrow shows up and strikes another blow against his targets, driving home that this is a series where there is truly nothing safe or sacred. I’m sure some of the rhetoric in this issue, particularly out of Mia’s mouth, will get a lot of people talking about certain real-world parallels, but this comic actually works really well justin the context of a superhero story. This is a world where the innocent are hunted and the guilty are more powerful than ever, and the heroes are often powerless to strike back – so villain tactics might be necessary to fight back.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes
