Some thoughts about Green Arrow 80th Anniversary Super Spectacular #1

The World's Greatest Archer has gotten several different adventures over the years.

No matter the era, no matter the incarnation, the Emerald Archer will fight his enemies despite of his own weakness and flaws, and each time he will have a different response for them.

So yeah, this is the special for me.

I have been loving all the different 80th Anniversary issues that DC has been releasing for a while now and I'm extremely happy they made one for Green Arrow, especially one that focuses on the different Ages of the character. Mind you, some of the stories don't quite work and I'm going to talk about them but the intention is definitely appreciated.

We open with a story written by Mariko Tamaki adequately suited in the Golden Age and while Tamaki has her flaws as a writer, I think she handled this section pretty well, particularly because of the dynamic between Ollie and Roy, the mannerism from that era considering that Ollie was an archeologist back then and even the heavy emphasis on crime bosses from that time. Javier Rodriguez simply NAILS the look of the theme and makes me realize he's an extremely flexible artist at doing so.

Then unfortunately we go to a section written by Tom Taylor and I know that Taylor can be a good writer in the right kind of book but I just hate, hate, hate his take on Ollie and how much of an everyman Taylor shows him as. Take for example this section suited in the Silver Age apparently where Ollie is training with Wildcat while Batman takes a jab at Ollie and Ollie doesn't respond back! He actually apologises to Ted if he sounded just as cocky as Bruce. You just can't get the character as badly as this. Eh, at least Dinah gets a decent portrayal here which is not much of a surprise since Taylor likes the character more. Nicola Scott's expressive characters are always pleasent to see.

Not a fan of Stephanie Phillips'... basically anything that she has written for DC so far so I didn't have high expectations for this but she surprised me by delivering a pretty solid story suited in the Bronze Age where at the very least she gets Ollie's personality better than Taylor (not a high bar mind you) and the plot about Ollie's guarding the Justice League Satellite reminds me of Grant Morrison's little arc with Connor Hawke in JLA. Chris Moneyham also gets the tone of such era, I really like the choices of artists here so far.

We can't have this special without Mike Grell of course and he delivers his classic Longbow Hunters work giving the right importance to both Dinah... and Shado because we all know that Ollie was cheating on Dinah with her. Well written and Grell's hasn't lost his talent as an artist either.

Ram V is here for some reason and he delivers basically a story of most of Ollie's life and is well-handled despite that the emphasis on Ollie and Dinah's relationship is not my thing. Christopher Mitten's clean artstyle was very solid.

I'm glad that Connor Hawke gets a segment here since his time as Green Arrow was very special and Brandon Thomas definitely gets the character by portraying him basically as a more competent version of Ollie as it should be (despite that Connor is not as good as an archer). Jorge Corona's rough style depicts the action scenes really well.

Devin Grayson offers a section about Roy Harper and I'm cool with this since Roy has the right to be Green Arrow as much as every other of Ollie's children and Grayson has an history with the character because of her Titans work (mind you, I always thought that Judd Winick wrote a better Roy than her but whatever). The retelling of Roy's life is nicely done and the inclusion of Liam is always appreciated despite that Ollie sounds off here. Max Fumiara's pencils are pretty detailed.

If there's something that represents the "Resurrection Era" of Green Arrow the most is probably Phil Hester and I'm really glad he's present in this special since he's also a pretty solid writer aside of being a fantastic artist. Depicting Ollie extremely on-point ("I cheat like a mother-" HA!), the rest of Arrow family is also appropriately portrayed (despite of not being really there, spoilers) and it was fantastic to see Mia Dearden again in a way. Well-written, greatly drawn and Hester doesn't take Onomatopeia as seriously as Kevin Smith. Bravo!

Then we go back to another story with a big emphasis on Ollie and Dinah's relationship *sigh*. Vita Ayala does a decent job though and she puts a more important focus on Dinah appropriately so. Laura Braga does pretty expressive characters.

And sadly we go back to (uuuuuggggghhhhh) Ben Percy's Rebirth era but credit where credit is due, he does a fine job here with less of the worst aspects of his run and an adequate focus on family. Otto Schmidt is the highlight here since his artwork is extremely beautiful and easily the best part of the whole tenure.

The bad aftertaste doesn't last though since JEFF LEMIRE IS BACK! With a story adequately titled "The Last Green Arrow Story" no less. Lemire plays with a lot of the somber concepts from his run and even gives a kinda fitting resolution for them. We just needed to have Andrea Sorrentino too and he simply delivers one of the most striking works in terms of storytelling. Easily one of the best segments for me.

Finally Larry O'Neil offers a section about the great late Dennis O'Neil giving a lot of importance to his life work, not only on Green Arrow but also for the rest of the DC characters. Very emotional and Jorge Fornes' creates a pretty good representation of it.

Overall, a rather impressive special despite of a couple hit and miss tales. Great work.