Green Arrow #32

Writers: Benjamin Percy and Joshua Williamson

Artist: Juan Ferreyra

Letterer: Deron Bennett

This is the final issue of Metal's first crossover, apparently the first of two, with a second one coming in November between the Justice League title and Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps. With this issue, I finally understand the intent between these tie-in stories. The final page of this issue asks us to look to Metal #3 to see the effects of this crossover. I appreciate that Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo wanted to keep the event short at a brisk six issues, and I'm curious to see if this whole story builds in a natural way in addition to the Dark Multiverse Batmen one-shots. Only time will tell.

As for this issue, it definitely felt like it was written by two people. Obviously I'm no absolute authority since I'm a mere critic and not privy to behind-the-scenes information most of the time, but it felt like Benjamin Percy wrote the first half while Joshua Williamson wrote the second half, with the latter half reading a lot better. The reason I feel this at all is because at this point I'm very familiar with Percy's writing style, and his typical metaphorical hand is all over the first few pages. After a certain point, the story becomes more nicely paced and I was very invested in the events of the story.

I've been reading Green Arrow and Nightwing, so the events of the final few pages feel more established to me than to someone who might just be jumping on. Green Arrow is dealing with the fact that Batman has placed so much trust in him, and Nightwing is dealing with strange visions that tie back to a short Simon Hurt story a dozen or so issues ago. It's stacked very well on top of each other and I had a great time reading it.

The art is brilliant. Juan Ferreyra is very visibly having a great time with this story. For reference, the past few issues have dealt with the Batman Who Laughs handing out magic metallic cards to some of Gotham's villains for them to remake the city in their image. Ferreyra infuses this concept into the very form of the story, as some panels are in the shape of these cards. One of the pages also has the Batman Who Laughs' disgustingly long and thin finger right in the corner, suggesting him holding a card and hence being in control of the situation. It's thematic and is ingrained in the very essence of the story, and these touches are what make Ferreyra one of the best artists in the industry.

The final portion of the story is a whole load of fun, but I had to slog through the initial story beats before getting there. The divide between these two sections feels very evident in that we have two writers credited here, but the art is just so fantastically stellar.