Customer Reviews

Green Arrow: Moving Targets (Green Arrow, Volume 6)

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Collecting comics #40-50, this is the 6th graphic novel featuring Green Arrow. Unfortunately, it's one of the weakest to date.

A big part of this is the fact that the art team changes half-way through the book, and the contrast is so jarring as to make it difficult to continue reading. After the sophisticated, clean lines of Phil Hester and Ande Parks, the work of Tom Fowler, etc. comes across as cartoonish in the worst possible sense. The characters whose appearence we've become familiar with during the entire run of the series suddenly seem to be clownish caricatures of themselves.

The writing is a bit better--the story is fast-paced, if a bit fragmented, with plenty of twists and turns and a large number of new and returning villains for Team Arrow to overcome.

There is also a significant subplot involving one of the supporting characters--but I won't go into that here, since it would definitely be a spoiler for the book. (Regular readers of online comics discussion boards will already know what I'm talking about.)

Overall, a decent effort, but hardly the best book in the series so far.

Warning: If you've ignored national media for the last year, you may read some spoilers below...

So why write a review for Green Arrow: Moving Targets you ask? Is it the excellent writing? Perhaps the exquisite art? None of the above; but, don't get me wrong, both are adequate, perhaps even above average in the comic book world. No, the reason I'm writing this review is because Judd Winick (some of you may remember him from an early season of MTV's The Real World) has written an HIV positive character into the DC mythos.

Green Arrow's had some hard luck with his sidekicks. His first junior superhero named Roy Harper, aka Speedy, became a drug addict ironically enough. Well, Speedy cleaned up his act and is now a full grown superhero called Arsenal. Then, Green Arrow discovered he had an illegitimate son named Connor Hawke, who, after dad died, took over the role of Green Arrow. Well, I won't bog things down with explanation, but the first Green Arrow returned from the dead and now works side-by-side with his son, but not as a sidekick, as a partner.

Enter Mia Dearden. She was a fifteen-year-old prostitute that Green Arrow took off the streets and gave a home as introduced by writer Kevin Smith. Winick decided to take things a step further and revealed she was HIV positive from her days as a prostitute. Although pestering Green Arrow to let her become his sidekick long before her discovery, Green Arrow finally gave in, granting her the control over her own life she desperately needed, and so Speedy was reborn.

Now, despite some obvious issues I have with this plot (How do you rationalize a teenage girl with HIV working as a vigilante who uses a bow and arrows? Why did she have to contract HIV by prostituting? Not everyone with HIV acquired it through "illicit behavior," you know?), I will grant Winick credit with treating it as sensibly as one can in the comic book genre. He kept Mia strong and assertive, without crossing into sanctimonious territory. Not only that, but Mia's story is more sub-plot to the overall story taking place in Moving Targets. That overall plot, by the way, paled in comparison to Mia's plight.

So, would I recommend Green Arrow generally? No, I wouldn't, though Meltzer's Green Arrow: The Archer's Quest was excellent. But, I would give Green Arrow: Moving Targets a read simply to witness a writer introduce a rather pioneering character into the conservative universe of DC.

~Scott William Foley, author of Souls Triumphant

Do you believe that Oliver Queen - a man who came of age in the swinging 60's/70's and was reportedly quite active in the Free Love-making - can make it into the 21st century without knowing about AIDS and HIV, much less having contracted it?

Do you believe he requires a lecture on the subject that appears to have been taken word-for-word from the kind of comic books you got handed in the 4th grade?

If so, you're probably the key audience for this book. If not, you probably paid attention during your health class or already read "Pedro and Me". Which is a much better book even if you ignore the blatant female exploitation in this title. It isn't enough for Winick that Mia is an ex-prostitute with an abusive father - he writes a past as a drug-user into her background as well.... a past that had never been hinted at before and would likely have come up.