Review: Benjamin Percy's Green Arrow · 4:15am Mar 31st, 2016
Benjamin Percy's run on Green Arrow has been one of the most radical changes made during the DCYou movement. It's been met with multiple critics but also praise, so it's safe to say the run that started in Green Arrow #41 has become a heavy base breaker. However, it has also met with comercial stability, being this the reason of Percy staying with the tittle after DC: Rebirth. I strongly believe this is a mistake, a very big one, and here's my reasons for it.
My first problem with Percy's run is that he ignored everything the previous arcs built. Now, I get the new DC is taking storytelling above continuity, but Percy's run not only ignores continuity, which is up to debate if it's a good or a bad thing, but he also ignores the spirit of the story, changing it to the point of being unrecognizable. The change between issues #40 and #41 is so radical it almost feels like a badly edited movie.
Speaking of, there's my other problem, the lack of focus, specially in the opening arc, where the POV shifts so much and so quickly that there are moments when it's hard to tell what's going on. That then translates to the plots. Some plots and subplots are really nonsensical, and even gratuitous. For example, the opening arc is about social discrimination and segregation. However, instead of treating it like a social problem that is the whole society's responsibility, Percy blames it all on a dehumanized villain. Racism are vampires, homosexual discrimination is blamed on a cult, drug trafficking is because of zombie and urban violence is a group of werewolves.
This is just plain moronic, as it dehumanizes said real life problems to a mockery level. It ends up taking away the social value from the story. Percy basically tells the readers that social problems aren't their fault, which reduces the impact and makes the message of awareness meaningless. And besides all of that, when it comes to social problems, the moral of Percy's run is "segregation=bad", something we all already know, so the story is not only meaningless, but pointless.
Another key problem in Percy's Green Arrow is how he approaches society, which ends up showing off he barely knows how people works. A smashing example of this is when Green Arrow talks about listening to the streets. Now, this could mean listening to the people he's protecting, know the people he's dedicating his life to, hear the vox populi. Or, as Percy did, it means listening to a random old woman for a prediction about his new dog that is a catalyst for an ancient curse. Yeah, okay.
Percy's failure at understanding human behavior is not limited to social conduct, but also to a personal level. There's this subplot reintroducing Tarantula to the NDCU. For the sake of argument, I'll ignore her previous character because it doesn't come to topic. Here, she treats Green Arrow like dirt while using him as a pawn at best and almost gets him killed due to pure selfishness. Despite it all, Oliver falls in love for her "because she's strong". There are way too many problems with it, but can be narrowed down to double standard on psychological abuse, saying that when a woman does it, it's to show how strong she is.
Now, have in mind that all of this is without mentioning the mayor story arc that started in the 2015 Annual, where Percy's apparent endgame happens; Green Arrow gets infected by lycanthropy, which is treated as a STD, specifically HIV/AIDS.
In all honesty, when I first read it, I could hardly believe it. I am grateful I was alone at that moment because I freaked out in a way that would have scared any sane human around. I've heard about characters and stories being raped and so far, I always saw it as an exaggeration. But after reading that Annual I know that raping a concept is possible.
Now, I get that some people defend that move as Percy "trying a different route for the character". However, there's a difference between taking a different route and what this series is doing. All of Percy's run has been a systematic elimination and/or displacement of the character, it's setting and its elements. I'm not denying he knows how to write, and if the price wasn't loosing one story for another, I would be praising because the writing is that good.
Past that Annual, the story becomes about a man turned monster, struggling against his own instincts and constantly battling to keep his humanity. Now, I won't deny that premise could be a great run and a magnificent rerailment of the werewolf's mythos. But it has nothing to do with Green Arrow, at all. Most of the time you need the narration to remind you that the main character is Oliver Queen. Green Arrow's 2015 Annual and issue #48 mark the point where the story stops even pretending it's about Green Arrow. If you don't believe me, here's a dialogue from the following issue #49:
Yes, that's Oliver Queen ignoring dozens of deaths just to say a cool phrase.
But overall, all of this ends up as one single problem: Benjamin Percy doesn't know what he's doing and neither cares.
I remember reading an interview Percy conceded to Newsarama where he explained himself. All of these changes, he says, has been to bring Green Arrow closer to the society he protects. From Percy's perspective, Oliver Queen has no reason to empathize with the less privileged because he's not one of them, basically following the "check your privilege" reasoning. This not only fails to represent how empathy works, but it also fails to do what Percy alleges it's meant to do. Oliver Queen doesn't become more socially aware after being infected by the unprivileged, but instead, the narrative shifts to a more enclosed focus that misses any reason to be aware of its surroundings.
Beyond my personal disdain for said so-called logic, there's the fact that Percy represents those who are socially unprivileged as a violent group whose goal is to infect anyone they can into their same condition, and that's another point. Poverty, race, sexuality, all of that is treated as a supernatural factors that separates people because they are infections that need to be fought, and not because they are problems our society has to face as a whole through education and acceptance.
This is Green Arrow's 75th anniversary. Seventy-five years of a character that has been constantly evolving ever since. From a Batman rip-off (Golden Age), to a parody of the genre (Silver Age), to a social commentary (Dennis O'Neil and Neal Adams), to deconstruction (Mike Grell), to reconstruction (Kevin Smith) and finally gaining an identity of its own altogether (Brad Meltzer, Judd Winnick and J.T. Krull). There's a very rich story and mythology behind the character and its setting, a lot of material that can be explored and has a lot to offer. And yet, instead of celebrating the character's longevity, this year will end up becoming the character's twilight and if this doesn't stop, its funeral.
A comic book character can die. Not in universe, but when its basic illusion is gone and the ideals that it stood for are forgotten, what's the difference between that and death?
Thank you.
Look, I come into Green Arrow from a less-than-stellar place. I'm a fan of Arrow. I'm not going to pretend that that is the greatest show ever made or anything - it most very certainly isn't- but it got me curious enough to pick up Green Arrow when Jeff Lemire was writing it.
And, again; Lemire's run is extremely uneven. The writing is, overall, alright, but the visuals really sold me on that book; enough so that I stuck around when that creative team left. the following six issue arc was horrible... but considering they were pretty much a fill-in team before the DC You relaunch, I was prepared to give them a pass.
But Percy? Everything I have heard about the guy's run has been awful. And I say 'heard' because I had to drop the book after the first three-issue three-parter, because it simply was not good enough.
The frustrating thing is, I feel like Green Arrow is a character who is becoming more relevant than ever. While a lot of people are becoming more socially conscious these days, that's been met by society becoming even more fractured and fragmented. In that kind of context, Green Arrow is a character who -much like the GA/GL run way back- could and should be used to examine and critique society... and it sounds like that's not happening.
(Or, at least, it is happening in such a heavy-handed fashion that it's hard to take the idea seriously).
Ditto on the mythology aspect, by the way. Aside from Emiko and Diggle, nothing from the latest runs has really stuck or become part of the Arrow-mythos... which is incredibly frustrating because how can you not see the inherent story potential of the Outsiders?
Considering Green Arrow's status these days, it baffles me that they don't seem to put any effort on maintaining a consistent quality on that title.
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To be honest, I really like Arrow and the fanbase it has growth. If anything, the Arrowverse has done a wonderful job in adapting the DCU outside the comics.
Ironically, I enjoyed the six issues mini-arc between Lemire and Percy's runs. It wasn't perfect and the narrative took a 180° turn, but at the same time it took concepts from the previous runs (Merlyn, Katana, Naomi), acknowledged Ollie's parts in other series (Green Lantern, Arsenal, the Justice League) and reintroduced some old!DCU concepts (Mia Dearden, Doctor Mid-Nite). I really enjoyed the return to form of the old comics.
Anyways, I think the best "social aware" Green Arrow runs (besides O'Neil and Adams' GL/GA) are either Judd Winick's stand-alone issues in Vol. III (specially the one where we get an actually good and mature story about HIV) or the closing issues of Vol. IV by James Patrick (full on social conduct and economy vs society). So, if you get your hands on any of them, I highly recommend the reading.
And trust me, we're all baffled that Percy didn't got the boot after the first mention of his "VIH werewolves" idea to the editors. And it's specially jarring when you investigate over his previous works and realize he's recycling his novel "Red Moon", so he's not even putting an effort here.
Anyways, thanks for reading and see you later in Actually, i'm Dead's incoming chapter.
P.D.: After I made this review, I took the reading again where I left, in issue #49. For fairness' sake, I decided to stick around till June, when the series ends. In issue #51 I found Oliver fighting his way in Africa, looking for a meta-human doctor who can cure him from licantropy. The doctor in question was being held by a warlord and his group; the Whites. Why the name? Because the warlord in question wants to do his own cultural appropriation on the west.
And there's where it hit me. The dehumanization of social problems, the protectionism and victimization, the constant "everyone white is evil or stupid" logic. Benjamin Percy has been writing all of this under SJW's logic!
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Funnily enough, I don't object to "HIV lycanthropy" as a concept. In fact, I might check out that book you mentioned, since I think there is something fascinating you could do with that.
As a foundation for Green Arrow though...? Green Wolf might be a fun run (Cap Wolf style) but it sound's ill-fitting.
I was gonna make some joke about how "of course" all white people are evil...but this is the internet. I fear joking would be lost in translation.
I wonder if the social issues are getting a push in reaction to the previous runs though. 'The Kingdom' six-parter had some social concious themes, but they weren't really foregrounded, and they were absent entirely in the Lemire run.
Doesn't excuse Percy's heavy-handedness, by any means, but might explain why he's so heavy with them.
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I think you just hit another problem; how serious is Percy taking himself.
Because, let's be honest, a werewolf Green Arrow used to sound like a kickass idea. I mean, DC already has Frankenstein and the Creature Commandos, not to mention the Doom Patrol and that time Batman used the Man-Bat serum to fight flying ninjas. The idea had an already existing, and honestly interesting, working ground. But in the same way that Superman fighting twin clones of Hitler, the execution ruined the idea.
Well, J. T. Krull tried to address the problems of the mass media culture and how "for the lulz" can become a dangerous trend. Same with Ann Noceti and the trans-modernism, as she managed to get one good and sharp issue about identity in a mass society and sub-cultures. The problem here is that none of them, and I suspect Percy neither, have had a clear narrative direction. As you say, the Kingdom arc had some commentary, but it was more of a plot excuse than anything. Although I do feel it was a healthy step in the right direction.
I get Percy may be trying to counter the lack of heavy social commentary and, to some extent, I wouldn't have minded if he has got a little preachy (Morrison's Animal Man was preachy as fragg and still one of DC's best). My problem is that Percy has no idea what he's talking about. I realized about it after the second arc (about drug cartels and zombies, because why the fragg no), and I remember Percy saying in an interview (probably to Newsarama) that he took the idea from a newspaper's article about drug cartel's brutality. However, the arc never addresses any of the causes or effects of said problem, and it could have been about anything else.
I would prefer heavy-handedness if it was informed heavy-handedness, but BP is like that guy at university who constantly comments on how hard is life in Uganda, but is unable to locate the country in a map and has no idea who is Kony or what is the LRA.