Green Arrow #44 Review

Writers: Julie and Shawna Benson

Artist: Javier Fernandez

Colourist: John Kalisz

Letterer: Deron Bennett

I was mostly excited for this run based on the last issue but a lot of my excitement has dulled out. For many reasons.

From the get go, I felt bombarded as a reader. There was too much dialogue and it took me a good while to get through the first few pages, which should have been an exciting car chase but instead was very sluggish to get through. And boring.

While the idea of the Citizen seemed kind of exciting, here he’s dealing with characters I’m not even familiar with who the Bensons don’t even properly introduce, so the stakes aren’t there. The concept of the Citizen also outing Oliver’s crimes was interesting but writers are constantly going back to Oliver doing bad things before becoming Green Arrow, and that rings hollow to me and just isn’t engaging.

The art is pretty nice though. Javier Fernandez keeps his art light until he uses his usual shading which really emphasises action and movement for me. John Kalisz’s colours complement the lightness of most of the book.

My excitement for the book has essentially vanished, so now it’s up to the Bensons to really wow me with these next few issues.