Attempted Redemption
Green Arrow's got a fairly nice Zero Issue cover, Ivan Reis draws perhaps the best version of the new Green Arrow. Plus I like the blur effect on the arrows, and the sheen on all the armor.
Freddie Williams II's interior art is really not what I had expected from it. I've seen him do art drastically different on three different series', and this one doesn't seem to totally match any of those. It most resembles his most recent work on Captain Atom, but the inking and coloring are nothing alike. I definitely think Ann Nocenti's script is fairly responsible for the overall shortcomings of the visuals because, like with Harvey Tolibao's art, it uses a ridiculous overabundance of close shots, making things feel too restricted and claustrophobic.
Every aspect of this issue relating DIRECTLY to Green Arrow is pretty much excellent. Iron Eagle is a REALLY dumb villain, even for a throwaway character. He's not meant to be a totally stupid joke villain, he's still a REALLY serious threat, except he's just so close to ridiculously campy.
There also appears to be a completely rebooted origin for Merlyn, and while the setup for him as a nemesis for Green Arrow is good, it's a weird completely different direction.
The New 52's Green Arrow origin paints Ollie as a rich man with a casual interest in archery, transformed into the hero he is today through a heavy disaster of his own making. I get some vibes of Kevin Smith's Green Hornet, but without Kato, and with greater guilt. He's a goofball with too much money, and sure he's getting archery lessons, but that only makes him so good. He only becomes TRULY great at archery when a tsunami of tragedy hits him, and one that is legitimately entirely his own fault. It is after that we get a summary of the previously established time on a desert island, where he unintentionally escapes the bustle of modern life to tap into the pure essence of archery,
I would've liked to see more of his time on the island, but instead we get an odd, out of place scene establishing Roy Harper's origin. His story basically just comes and goes without establishing any kind of relevance to the story or the rest of the series. It's a GOOD scene, but it just doesn't really give itself any purpose.
In Conclusion: 4/5
Maybe more of a 3.75, but this series needs all the numbers it can get, because it so rarely escapes being so gosh darn awful. This issue had it's pitfalls, but overall there were a lot of nice things about it. Ollie has an intensely powerful tragedy that comes about as quite a shock when it happens. Tragedy seems to be a requirement for the superhero genre, and it's easy to just go with the first basic version; but Ann Nocenti gives a really intense internal tragedy by having just about every bit of it be Green Arrow's own fault. His attempt at atonement isn't misguided.
