Review: Green Arrow Vol. 1- Midas Touch

Quick Summary

Pros: Green Arrow himself is a fun character most of the time.

Cons: The main story isn’t interesting at all. Every villain is boring and forgettable. The message in each storyline feels pointless. The artwork is lifeless and lacks detail.

Overall: This is not a good Green Arrow story and isn’t really that good of a story in general. There is nothing here to keep readers interested or to drive the story forward in any entertaining way. Instead the book just progresses forward, relying completely on Oliver Queen being a charming lead, until its abrupt and confusing end. There is little here for comic fans and definitely not enough to recommend this book.

Story

Green Arrow Vol. 1: The Midas Touch, tells two Green Arrow stories so devoid of interest and character development that readers will leave them wondering why they even exist in the first place. The villains are instantly forgettable, the dialogue and character interactions seem out of place, and every message the book makes is mishandled. The only redeeming quality of the work is that Oliver Queen himself is an enjoyable hero, though even his presence is hampered by the book’s numerous secondary characters.

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The first three issues of this book tell Oliver’s fight against a gang of criminals who appear to commit crime for the fame it brings them. They post videos of their adventures online and receive encouragement from their fans in doing so. This is clearly an attempt to make the book more “modern” and “cool” in order to fit with the overall theme of the New 52. Green Arrow is eventually able to take them all down without too much of a problem, all while showing readers a variety of his trademark arrows in the process, which might be the best part of these issues.

This story arc appears to be a thinly veiled criticism of social media and online communities in general, as video game violence and torrent communities are brought up. However, the message is so detached from reality that it looses all impact. There are real world online problems, like cyberbullying and sex trafficking, that could have been addressed here, but instead a vague outrage at the moral degradation of society is focused on instead. It all feels like a disgruntled argument about “kids today” made by someone who doesn’t actually understand what “kids today” are even like.

The second arc has a bit more structure and appeal, as the same cast of villains are maintained throughout all three issues. It follows a deformed man and his robot, who both have a grudge against Oliver Queen. They are smarter and more physically intimidating that the previous villains, thus making for a slightly more interesting fight. However, they are still defeated without too much of a struggle and end the story in a cliffhanger moment which, due to creative teams shifting, ends up never being addressed again in this series.

While the first arc struggled with creating a profound message, this arc struggles in creating any message at all. The villains show up with some vague vendetta against Oliver Queen but are dismissed before this can be fully explained. There are hints that they exist to address environmentalism or some misjudgment from Oliver’s past but nothing concrete or explicit confirms this. Instead this feels like a cheap part one to a part two that will never come.

Herein lies one of the book’s biggest problems: the villains. There isn’t a single villain here who feels memorable or special in any way at all. The book’s first half is so packed with villains that readers barely have enough time to learn their names before they are put away and the second half is finished without any real resolution. Put simply, the villains in this book are so boring that they manage to bring down the whole story with them.

While on the subject of problems, it is worth point out the book’s insistence on having a constant commentary from Green Arrow’s team during nearly every scene. While Oliver’s quips can be entertaining, his team is far less so and ends up being more annoying than anything else. It is a distracting writing tactic that also hampers the story.
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Art

The art throughout this collection is a disappointment to put it lightly. Dan Jurgens does some nice paneling and even pulls out a few promising splash pages here and there. This is, unfortunately, overshadowed entirely by the overall lack of detail and surprising number of errors throughout the book; this includes depictions of Oliver Queen’s neck being as long as his head and tables that are only as tall as character’s knees. In addition, almost every action sequence feels incredibly stale and lifeless. Characters jump through windows and over building but fail to convey any motion. This book’s artwork ends up being as poor as the writing.

Continuity

Green Arrow Vol. 1: The Midas Touch starts the Green Arrow New 52 series. This means that this is the first volume in a brand new continuity, so there are not many references to previous books or Green Arrow’s history. This makes it a great starting point for new fans.

The story here continues in Green Arrow Vol. 2: Triple Threat.

This volume also makes a reference to another comic book, detailed below.

• The “Holland Incident” is mentioned. This is a reference to an event that is first shown in Swamp Thing Vol. 1: Raise Them Bones.