The Stop Button
blogging by Andrew Wickliffe
Category: Green Arrow
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Much of the issue consists of Alfred whining to his daughter about being the only father she has left. Yes, the poor woman is distraught, but it’s like Moench couldn’t come up with anything else for Alfred to do. Whine or be an action hero. Similarly, Batman doesn’t have much to do. Moench doesn’t let…
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Doug Moench has two subplots going; it’s hard to say if one’s a B and the other’s a C, or if they’re both equally weighted. There’s a new crime boss in Gotham, at least Bullock thinks so and Gordon disagrees. Moench likes playing the two off each other quite a bit. Then there’s his Alfred…
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Some weirdness this issue. First off, Moench reveals Jason Todd doesn’t want to be called Robin either. It’s peculiar enough it doesn’t feel like more padding from Moench on the subject, even though it probably is just more fluff. Then there’s Commissioner Gordon. He’s back at work and he’s a complete jerk. Moench shows the…
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It’s an issue of inappropriate inking. Smith is so reductive on Colan’s Batman inks, the story loses any visceral impact. Instead, it becomes almost academic–seeing where Colan’s pencils have been too diluted for a page to work. The layouts are still fantastic, but not the finished art. Moench resolves his Gordon storyline–while still stoking the…
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Bob Smith is not the best inker for Colan. He reigns him in way too much. There’s still some great Colan panel layouts this issue though and his Joker has to be seen. Colan’s Joker is hideous with insanity, an awkwardly lump figure, not the usual anorexic. Every Joker panel is great in some way…
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One could just read this issue for the art. Alcala beautifully complements Gene Colan. He sort of brings out the lusciousness, but reigns it in just enough. Colan’s never too lush; Alcala is never reductive. The story’s not bad, but Moench doesn’t quite sell Jason Todd, detective. He investigates, but without any finesse. The scenes…
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This issue is weird. It’s great too–I wonder if Moench created Nocturna with Colan in mind, since she basically looks like a vampire–but it’s weird. There’s some action at the end, but the most striking parts of the comic aren’t the action scenes. Moench is serious about his rumination on darkness and he follows through…
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I try to be open-minded about Cavalieri and Cullins’s Green Arrow back-ups, but this one peeved me. Moench doesn’t get enough time with his Batman story–which is his fault for not pacing it out right–but come on. Who carries about Green Arrow’s lame villain? Though inker Frank Giacoia does ruin Cullins’s pencils in sometimes amusing…
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Gene Colan’s first issue on Detective (with Moench) is unexpected. There’s a dreamy, otherworldly, emotive quality to it. Harvey Bullock oozes repulsiveness; the symbolism becomes clear at the startling conclusion. Moench knows how to surprise–even if the cliffhanger isn’t exactly unexpected, its degree is a shock. The issue closes up–after Batman’s adventures with Man-Bat–the new…
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Doug Moench sure does like exposition this issue. Batman can’t stop thinking about all the problems in his life (though he manages not to detect Gordon’s heart problem). But there’s also the regular narrative exposition, which Moench overwrites. It makes me wonder if he’s gearing Detective towards a younger audience. He’s not particularly confident; he…
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If you illegally download, you want to watch psychopaths murder people. Krul makes the world so simple. I was shocked Ollie didn’t break the fourth wall to tell any comic book downloaders they were killing him. Then the comic ends with this lame “growing up” speech. Krul forgot to make Ollie Steve Jobs and turned…
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What a dumb comic. I mean, Krul’s a bad writer with bad dialogue and bad ideas. There’s nothing as strange as Ollie being Steve Jobs this issue, instead it’s Krul turning Paris Hilton into a supervillain. And then Green Arrow has a completely inappropriate conversation with her about whores or something. Maybe if the art…
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Okay, I’m not recommending Green Arrow, but it needs to be read to be believed. Oliver Queen is Steve Jobs as a superhero and blond and young and single. Really. He made a “Q-Pad” and a “Q-Phone” and he uses the profits from those devices to run around the globe fighting really lame supervillains as…
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Let me see if I can summarize the dumbest thing about this issue. DC hired Denny O’Neil to write a flashback to seventies Green Lantern—back when it was Green Lantern/Green Arrow, they let O’Neil turn in a script mostly about Green Arrow, then they hired Mike Grell to illustrate it—Grell being known as a Arrow,…
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Hmm. Young Dan Jurgens. Guess it’s why Bruce looks like Clark Kent without glasses. I’m curious to see Conway’s original script–he includes expository scene after expository scene, all the fill in space–and there only good scene is incomplete. Bruce breaks it off with Vicki by acting like a thoughtless ass, but it’s never made clear…
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Once again, if Bruce, Dick and Alfred weren’t stupid enough to leave the door unlocked with Vicki Vale, Jim Gordon and a bunch of strangers in Wayne Manor, they wouldn’t have to kill Jason Todd’s mom for finding out Bruce is Batman…. Oh, wait, some of that statement is incorrect. I guess they don’t decide…
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Batman kills Solomon Grundy at the end of this story. I wonder if it was easier for writers to do Grundy stories because he’s not human or alive so they could kill him off every time. There’s not even a real explanation of how he comes to Gotham. The issue’s okay. DeZuniga’s inks aren’t the…
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Starting the issue, I kept thinking Conway had already done a Batman versus the abominable snowman issue. Then I slowly came to realize it was a sequel to that issue I had already read. Maybe the Irv Novick art threw me off. Even with Marcos inking him, the art is painfully mediocre. The story’s kind…
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Good to know editorial disconnect isn’t something recent. Conway apparently hadn’t been reading the excellent Catwoman backups running in his issues of Batman and Detective because here he’s got her guest-starring and menacing Vicki Vale and acting… well, cat-shit crazy. Sadly, the issue features some of the best Vicki Vale writing Conway has done since…
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Wow, what a weak ending. The issue is mostly action, which makes it completely different than the previous three. And it’s weak action with an absurdly weak bad guy. But weak or not, Green Arrow still needs to bring in Black Canary and some CIA agent (they quickly and inexplicably disappear) because he can’t handle…
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At least in the eighties, people took the time to make the oil companies the bad guys. Now, when they’re even more clearly the bad guys, no one ever uses them. Except Syriana, I suppose, but I doubt Green Arrow’s solution will be to blow them all up. One can hope though. This issue just…
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I kept meaning to count panels per page, but I never paused and did it. I’m guessing the average page has twelve to sixteen panels. And it’s not a talking heads book. The amount of work von Eeden does here–the issue has town and country settings, not to mention some hallucinations–is incredible. Especially for a…
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I’m a Mike W. Barr fan from The Maze Agency, but none of his DC work has ever gotten me excited. The Outsiders, for example. But I’m really liking this Green Arrow series so far. First, it’s got a lot of story to it. It opens with an action sequence, does one flashback, then another…
The Stop Button 