Customer Reviews

Green Arrow: Quiver (Green Arrow (Graphic Novels))

5 star:		(35)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Kevin Smith has an inability to meet deadlines with regard to comics published monthly. Just ask comicbook shop owners and fans of recent comics like "Spider-man and the Black Cat." Why then, do readers not just give up on his works? Because the man is a very talented creator, and "Green Arrow: Quiver" is Kevin Smith at his best. This book is a compilation of Smith's first story arc as the writer on the "Green Arrow" comic book. Smith literally resurrected the Green Arrow character and the Green Arrow comic book with this masterful arc.

So often in comic universes, characters killed off - only to be brought back to life. Readers have become almost de-sensitized to these deaths only because they know that eventually the character will be brought back, and a weak explanation will be offered that explains away the "death." Here, the Green Arrow is brought back from the dead, but Smith's familiarity with the supernatural lend this resurrection much more credence than most other stories in which dead heroes are given a new lease on life. The scenes in which Oliver Queen (Green Arrow) learns what had happened to him reminded me of something out of one of those old "Twilight Zone" episodes, yet Smith made all of it so plausible.

Smith's name and his storytelling abilities are the marquee draw here, but Phil Hester's pencils have made their mark on the Emerald Archer. Hester, whose work in this book is slightly more realistic looking than the Justice League cartoon on the Cartoon Network (this is not a slam, by the way), has truly made the Green Arrow his character. Rarely in my short history as a comic book reader have I strongly associated an artist with one of his characters. I will forever associate Hester with the Green Arrow, much like I associate Jack Kirby with the Fantastic Four, Steve Ditko, Romita, Sr. and Jr. with Spider-man, and John Byrne with the X-Men. In short, I can't imagine what the book would look like without his touch.

"Green Arrow: Quiver" is the best of what comic books are all about. I won't spend much time on the plot because I don't want to spoil it for anyone who plans to purchase this book. All you need to know is this: The Green Arrow has come back to life, and he must learn how he ended up where he is now - did he really die? How did he return? What the heck is going on? Add to this the fact the Ollie's family and extended family must also deal with his "resurrection," and you've got yourself a first-rate tale. Oh, yeah, and there is a bad-guy killing kids that needs to be captured, too! The book is full of great story-telling, great art, and the list of guest-stars like Superman, Batman, The Spectre, Etrigan the Demon, etc. is as long as Giant Man's sleeve! If you've been away from comics for a while, or if you do not usually buy trade compilations, reach into your wallet and give this one a try. You will be glad you did, and you may find yourself making a weekly trip to the local comic shop a regular part of your routine!

This is the 4th TPB collecting the new Green Arrow; I just wanted to help clear up any confusion anyone might have when looking around at the trades and trying to figure out what happened with the missing issues.

The TPBs collect:

Issues #1-10: "Quiver"
Issues #11-15: "Sounds of Violence"
Issues #16-21: "Archer's Quest"
Issues #26-31: "Straight Shooter"

Issue #22 was a stand alone story, and Issues 23, 24 and 25 were part of a crossover story with Green Lantern's book, which does not seem to be released in trade form at this date.

AS to whether any of these are worth reading - they definitely are. I started collecting the book simply because Kevin Smith resurrected the character and based on his movies and his work on the Daredevil character, I gave it a shot. Oliver Queen quickly became my favorite DC comic character, with great apologies to the Bat, but the writers have just done a great job with this character.

First up let say I've been a Marvel Universe guy most of my disturbingly long comic book life. I've dropped into the DCU enough to keep tabs on the major characters and the big events (Zero Hour, Death (ha) of Superman) but I've never been a strict follower of DC contiuity. Certainly I knew only the basics about the Green Arrow - he was Robin Hood, he hung out with Hal Jordan's Green Lantern. Oh, and apparaently he died.

But on the strength of Kevin Smith's name I gave this a go. And man was it worth it. In the intro Smith mentions he copped some flak about using too much DC continuity, making it too hard for the casual reader. Well, I am that casual reader and I had no problem with the story at all. Sure things were referred to, and I probably didn't get every single reference but it certainly didn't detract from the enjoyment. This is a great story, well told.

Oliver Queen is a great character, no-nonsense, cynical and fun, and the cameos from the other DC big hitters who thought he was dead are great. Yes, it's wordy but the words are great. The humour is strong and the drama is emotional. It's more adult than a lot of super hero comics and darker in it's themes. Probably not for younger readers.

Not every issue has action but I hardly cared, so strong was the story. I wasn't entirely sure about the artwork by Ande Parks and Phil Hester at first (I like a more realistic style of penciling generally) but I ended up loving it. Minor cavil: How about publishing the covers as full pages instead of four to a page in a cover gallery? Especially covers this good.

The best compliment I can give this collection is that I'm not only going right out to chase more of this new Green Arrow, but I'm also hunting down the classic Arrow of the past as well. If are an Arrow-head past or present, or just like terrifically entertaining super hero tales well told then don't miss this.

The best way to describe this is it's Oliver Queen's journey though the supernatural and DC continuity. He just came back to life, doesn't know he was dead, thinks he just finished his "hard-traveling" with Green Lantern and believes it's still the 70's, er, 80's. It features loads of guest stars: Batman, Arsenal, Black Canary, Conner Hawke, Deadman, Hal Jordan, Aquaman, Black Manta, Jason Blood/Etrigan, Spoiler, Superman, the rest of the JLA, a character from Smith's CLERKS cartoon and some I wouldn't want to spoil here. There's more than a fair bit of quasi-theology, continuity, and in-jokes (much like Smith's movies) but if your into that stuff or if it at least it doesn't go over your head then your in for a real treat. I don't think that this includes Green Arrow #11 which is too bad since it provides a great epilogue for the story, oh well.

I am not a particular fan of Kevin Smith's film work, but I absolutely love much of his comics work, and the ten issues collected in "Green Arrow: Quiver" represent his finest hour.

Oliver Queen, aka the Green Arrow, was created in the Golden Age of superheroes as an arrow-themed Batman ripoff (which Smith humourously acknowledges here), and survived thanks to the patronage of his creator, Mort Weisinger, eventually joining the Silver Age Justice League of America. Circa 1970, Denny O'Neill suggested that what the character really needed was a personality, and recreated Queen as a socialist crusader, and paired him with Green Lantern in a series of famous adventures. Later on, Mike Grell reinvented him as a Punisher-esque figure in a grim series, before being unceremoniously killed off in the early 90s, part of a wave of replacement characters that emerged at DC in that period (although Queen's replacement was one of the few meant to be permanent). Dead for a few years, he finds himself returned to life in this stellar story by fan Kevin Smith.

One can clearly see Smith's love for the DC Universe in every detail of this comic; this is a true epic, spanning the streets of Star City to the JLA's Lunar Watchtower to the gates of Heaven itself, and Smith mixes these disparate elements flawlessly. In bringing Ollie back, Smith clearly has an eye towards his more liberal O'Neill incarnation, rather than the Grell interpretation of the character, and includes commentary about the different eras of superhero comics (although this is somewhat incongruous with some of Smith's other work in the field; his "Daredevil" and "Black Cat" stories take a lot of 'grim and gritty' elements at face value).

This is a very busy comic; Smith includes a lot of dialogue, and a lot of narration; the latter is going out of style, but Smith somehow avoids becoming a latter-day Chris Claremont (which Claremont himself sadly failed to avoid), and the narration works, for the most part). His dialogue is replete with references to pop culture (and a few too many oral sex jokes), but captures the characters well. Smith makes a prominent addition to the Arrow family by introducing Mia Dearden, who will eventually become the second Speedy, and deserves plaudits for not killing off the second Green Arrow to make room for the return of the first.

All in all, a brilliant piece of work, one of my favourite DC stories.

Everyone else has hit it on the head, but allow me to reiterate: this book is fantastic. Collecting issues 1-10 of the re-launched Green Arrow series, this sees the intricate but ingenious return of Oliver Queen from the dead.

Being dead, to be sure, is a very touchy subject and returning from it can be controversial but these ten issues tell it very well and very sensibly with respect to all the characters involved.

Not only that, there are plenty of nods to the hat of the DC Universe. Making references to many kinds of ACCESSIBLE history, this book is a love letter to the DC Universe and all its characters; it's a love letter to Oliver Queen as a bleeding heart liberal and a struggling father, a love letter to his supporting cast (his son, his ex-lover, a new sidekick, a new friend) and a love letter to his relationships (with his ex-lover, Batman, Aquaman, his son, et cetera!)

And in the end, it's a love letter to the fans. This is a comic book that masterfully succeeds at being a comic book, and you'd do yourself a favor to pick it up.

Ten years...it's been ten years since I've read a comic book. I'm 28 years old now, but I remember that one of my favourite past times when I was a teen was reading comic books. Batman, Superman, Green Lantern (aka Hal Jordan), the Flash (aka Barry Allen)...I remember them all. I also remember discovering the Crisis of Infinite Earths, and finding out how DC management had used that mini-series as an excuse to kill off or change the histories of my favourite heroes. I resolved never to read another DC Comic book until the powers-that-be had changed their editorial direction.

Over the years, I would keep track of events in the DC Universe, and watch as the body count of dead superheroes continued to rise. It seemed that each time a DC Comic book needed a boost in ratings they would kill off a superhero. Eclipso, the War of the Gods, Armageddon 2001...and finally Zero Hour - they all had their share of superheroic deaths. As far as I was concerned, in Zero Hour, DC Comics had hit it's lowest point. I was appalled when I heard that DC were using this mini-series as an excuse to turn one of DC's most beloved heroes - Hal Jordan (Green Lantern), into a godlike super-villain. Shortly afterwards they killed Oliver Queen, the original Green Arrow. Along with Hal Jordan, I felt that the Green Arrow represented all that was good about DC Comics. As far as I was concerned, from that point on there was no turning back.

However, in 2001, all that began to change. I'd heard that Grant Morrison had been hired by DC Comics to revive the Justice League of America in 1997, and that this team wasn't a group of second-stringers (like Justice League International), but would comprise all of DC Comics most powerful heroes. And then I'd heard that Chuck Dixon had been busy writing stories for a new Robin, and Peter David was writing stories for Young Justice. It looked as though DC Comics had finally turned a corner. With the advent of the new millenium, they were returning to what they did best - writing superhero adventures, and turning away from the high body-count and apocalyptic events of past years.

The final event that got me interested in reading DC Comics again, was the news that Kevin Smith (the creator of Dogma and Chasing Amy) would be writing a new Green Arrow comic. I'd assumed that they were referring to Connor Hawke, Oliver Queen's illegitimate son and his successor. But no, they were referring to Oliver Queen - they were going to revive the original GA, and re-introduce him to the DC Universe. About a year after the saga had been published, I picked up the entire collection as a hardcover - and I was pleasantly surprised by what I found.

The new Green Arrow comics are a combination of sweet nostalgia and the pleasant shock of the new. A recently revived Oliver Queen (Green Arrow) finds himself back in Star City, with no memory of any events in the last ten years of his life. The monumental events in "The Longbow Hunters", the "Zero Hour" crisis...as far as he's concerned, none of these things ever happened. As a result, this is the Ollie Queen we all knew and loved from the seventies - the man who believed that "all police are blue fascists". Welcome back, Oliver.

Part of the fun is seeing Ollie's reactions to the changes that have taken place over the last ten years. His encounter with Aquaman during a battle with the Black Manta. His first meeting with the brand-new Justice League, and the most important event in the book - his encounter with Hal Jordan, who is now the Spectre. All the events take place in the new DC Universe, but they're written in a style that many fans of Neal Adams and Dennis O'Neil will find very familiar. Kevin Smith even uses "Hard Travelling Heroes" as the title of one of the issues. Along with the plotline and characterisation, his dialogue is to die for. For instance, the dialogue during Green Arrow's first encounter with the new Spectre (aka Hal Jordan) -

Oliver: Yeah, right! You? The original wet blanket himself? Brother, you're more averse to change than a money clip! What'd you do -- make your mask bigger? Let your sideburns go a little gray? What's the big surprise?
Spectre: Yes, I'd say "big" is the operative word here.
Oliver: ...
Spectre: Imagine that. I've left the little motor-mouth speechless. Someone alert the media.

It's dialogue like that, that makes this story so entertaining. It's obvious that Kevin Smith has a huge amount of affection for these characters. Best of all, we get to see cameos from all the major players in the DC Universe - Superman, the Flash, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman. Aquaman, Batman, Arsenal (Roy Harper, Green Arrow's original sidekick), Black Canary and Connor Hawke - they all have major parts to play in this book. It's wonderful seeing what Kevin Smith does with these superheroes that we've known and loved for so long. His characterisations are spot-on - Batman is and always will be the badass, Aquaman and Hal Jordan are Oliver's best buddies, and Black Canary still has a soft spot for Oliver Queen, even after all these years.

Quiver isn't just another well-written comic book story. For me, it's the magical and miraculous resurrection of all that is great and good about reading comic books. It's a rebirth of the spirit of adventure that seems to have been missing from DC comic books for a very, very long time. Welcome back, Green Arrow. Welcome back, DC Comics.

Who would have thought that a 1970s-style Green Arrow - complete with the famous (or infamous) boxing glove arrows - could have fit so seamlessly into a modern, realistic-style story of serial killers and child abusers? Who would have thought that a story featuring villains drawn from the ranks of demons, realistically-depicted satanists and child predators, could still have space to be often humorous, inspirational, and sexy, without coming off tasteless? Who would have thought that Oliver Queen - blown to a million pieces back in Green Arrow (1st ongoing series) # 100, could be brought back in a way that was credible? The now legendary "Quiver" arc (reprinting the first ten issues of the current Green Arrow ongoing series) managed all this and much more, spinning out one of the greatest stories of all time.

In the midst of a hunt for the Star City serial killer dubbed 'the Star City Slayer', Green Arrow Oliver Queen mysteriously re-appears in his old stomping grounds of Star City as a vigilante, amnesiac, derelict, who seems to have no memory of the last ten years of his life prior to his death. Taken in my a man named Stanley, who he rescued from some street attackers, and becoming sort of a surrogate - what? uncle? big brother? to a teenage girl named Mia who he rescued from a brutal pimp, Ollie sets to work as protector of Star City as if he'd been gone no more than a matter of weeks. Which apparantly, as far as Oliver knows, is all he has been gone. Things get weirder from there.

A Lot of characters (some Extremely unexpected) and a lot of concepts and a lot of DC Universe history are woven into the tale as it progresses, for, although this is a Green Arrow-centered story, it expands until it's also a pivotal tale of the whole DCU. "Quiver" goes very deep into the territories of the spiritual, the metaphysical, the theological and 'nature-of-life'/nature-of-existance'-style philosophy. Is it successful on that front? In my opinion, extremely. To my personal way of thinking, it nails a lot of things dead on; there are other points that I feel probably aren't accurate compared to reality but make for fascinating, thought-provoking reading. There are few tales - comics, novels, movies, etc. - that are willing to explore the concepts Quiver goes into so boldly. For those who like discussing books in large groups or book-club settings, this volume would make a great choice.

The dialogue is brilliant, the action authentic, the art - although different from what I usually go for - masterfully done. There are more priceless and memorable moments in here than you can shake a stick - or a longbow - at. "Green Arrow: Quiver" is a must-have for anybody remotely into the DC Universe (except wee tots; it's pretty dark), and the kind of story that could turn a non comic reader full tilt into a major fan. An outstanding collection.

I was a little skeptic when I bought this, not really knowing a whole lot about Oliver Queen/Green Arrow. Who ever, upon reading it I was extremely happy with the book. The story starts off 10 years after the death of Green Arrow. Star City is pretty much in need of old Ollie, and amazingly, he saves an old man (Ollie's soon to be 'friend' Stan Dover) and the story picks up from there. We are then taken thru a wild ride of Ollie coming back to life, death, and back to life. Along the way, we run into many guest stars (you can never really have too many, can you?) such as the usual Black Canary and Arsenal of course. Also, we met up with Aquaman, the JLA, Batman, Etragan, and the Spectre.

Smith can tell a story no doubt, and this is no exception. He takes Ollie from a forgotten character to a very strong and potent person in the DCU. Smith uses very good dialouge and good story telling to make this very wonderful and fantastic read. I highly recomend this to anyone who enjoys any DCU comic and Batman fans. So, in short buy with confidence.

I happen to think this is a great jump on point for any reader, it explains all of the characters, and their relationship with Oliver. I had only heard of Green Arrow before reading this Trade by Kevin Smith, whos' dialogue was not overtly crude, with moments of somewhat "dirty" things. I love how the story deve3loped, and the plot twists it had, i really wish smith would write more comics.