Some thoughts about Green Arrow #1

Where in the Multiverse is Oliver Queen?

After the Dark Crisis, Ollie has been stranded in a mysterious place while his family keep looking for him. However, he believes he has a mission to fulfill before they meet again.

Well, this is something that I've been anticipating for quite a while. This not only marks the return of a proper Green Arrow book since the extremely flawed Rebirth series ended but also brings Joshua Williamson to the table which initially gave me a bit of a mixed reaction. I like Williamson, I really love the amount of continuity he investigates whenever he writes any character but unfortunately, I haven't been particularly enamored with his previous work on the Green Arrow family as a whole, particularly with Oliver Queen since he barely touches the surface of who the character really is and gives a big emphasis on the relationship between Black Canary and him which is tiring at this point.

That being said, Williamson can be pretty creative when he puts some effort (His current work on Superman is a great example of that) and in fact, the beginning of this series is... fine but I don't know if that should be necessarily good or bad.

I already mentioned how Williamson hasn't delivered anything new about Ollie in the past and that doesn't really change here. What you expect from a stereotypical Green Arrow story is here and actually Williamson gives a big emphasis on the Arrow family which is appreciated but at times it seems mostly like pandering because the writer does bring most of the things that fans have been clamoring for a while (including the return of Roy's daughter Lian) but again, he doesn't explore much about it or offers anything innovative about their dynamic. 

I might be a bit harsh with Williamson here but I can't help but feeling like this is the kind of fanservice that someone like Ben Percy tried to do during his Rebirth work to compensate for the fact that everything else sucked (Although to be fair about Williamson, at least he doesn't take the Percy route of getting 90% of the cast wrong in a stupid story). Actually, the story itself might be the most interesting aspect of it since the it takes the protagonist to a cosmic scenario that is not familiar and presents an appropriate challenge for him.

Sean Izaakse handles the art and is very good looking thanks to the appealing character models and solid storytelling.

Is not a bad beginning and is mostly a set-up so the book could get more interesting later, just hope the Williamson is preparing more compelling material for the following issues.