Green Arrow and Black Canary #1

Fair Warning: Spoilers incoming

I had been putting off reading this comic for whatever reason. I picked up GA #75 and have read both the GA Year One series and the Black Canary 4 issue mini, along with all the Wedding crap, and to be honest, it was some of the more enjoyable comics I have read recently. So I am not sure where the reluctance came from. Maybe it was the horrible ending of the Wedding Special with BC stabbing Ollie in the neck as he was trying to kill her. Maybe it was overkill from so many issues of these two being released so quickly, with both mini-series being put out every two weeks instead of every four.

Whatever the reason, it was completely wrong. I just got done reading GA/BC #1 and I am hooked. I even liked Connor Hawke in this issue, despite him being easily my least favorite archer. I always felt he was a poorly placed plot contrivance in response to Kyle Rayner becoming GL, and an attempt to revive/renew the great GL/GA team-ups of the 70's.

The issue, which centers around proving that the dead Ollie is not the real Ollie, shows a darker side of Dinah Lance while she nearly kills some nameless faceless thugs. After that, they get right to the meat of the story and don't stop until the very last page. It's refreshing to have a writer who actually has something to say that fills 22 pages instead of the norm now-a-days which is to spread out an 8 page story into a full issue.

Which brings me to my next heaping of praise for this comic. The creative team is simply awesome. Judd Winick has not always been my favorite, he usually seems like just another comic book writer, but I like I said above, the pacing and the plot were spot on for this story. It helps when you have a good artist behind you, and he definitely does in Cliff Chiang. Chiang's artwork is very smooth and at times feels old fashioned despite being fresh. There aren't a whole lot of unnecessary lines, and he doesn't need to exaggerate the action in the scene, it is just there. If it sounds like I am gushing, it is because I am. I was in awe on the penciling and the coloring on this entire issue, it felt realistic, but cartoony at the same time. Don't know how, it just did.

Back to the story, with appearances by the entire JLA, and more specifically Batman and Hal Jordan helping to figure out the mystery, this issue sets up an all out attack on the Amazons that are holding Ollie hostage. I am not sure how he is there, since men can't set foot on the island, but no doubt the Amazons are in some deep shit. The old saying goes "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned" and something I was told once upon a time also fits, "Don't fuck with a woman on her wedding day". Or this happens.


Wow. Just wow.

CG