I have always found Green Arrow to be one of the more intriguing characters in the DC Universe. Even the most charitable interpretation of the character's origin can't avoid the fact that he was originally just an archery themed Batman rip-off replete with billionaire secret identity, Arrowcave and uncomfortably young sidekick (this is no knock on the character really, considering Batman himself started as a Shadow rip-off). Given that he was just a less popular Batman, and that the decline in comics sales after WWII meant even Batman himself was struggling to stay popular, it's not surprising that Green Arrow sort of shunted off into the background of the universe, appearing in the occasional team-up comic or B-story. Pretty much since that time it has never seemed like DC has really known what to do with the guy.
Almost every comic book hero is open to interpretation an has a personality dictated entirely by the writer at the time (lord knows one only needs to watch any random sampling of Batman movies to get that), but Green Arrow in particular has been re-invented more times than I can count. The 70s saw him lose his fortune and be re-invented as a radical leftist, fighting on behalf of the disenfranchised in the team up series Green Arrow/Green Lantern. After the characters popularity waned once more the late 80s/early 90s saw him reintroduced in the prestige graphic novel The Longbow Hunters where he was re-envisioned again as a hardcore vigilante unafraid to use lethal force, most often pitted against serial killers and drug dealers. While he still fought largely on behalf of the disenfranchised, his politics were less vocal. The New 52 version of the character (which I particularly loathed) was a young, wise-cracking, tech-savvy owner of a tech company who relied heavily on quips and gadgets, like a bow-wielding Tony Stark. When fans rejected that version of the character he was later re-written by Andrew Kreisberg, one of the writers of the Arrow tv show, to be more like the scowly low-rent Batman Ollie is on the CW every week.
These constant re-imaginings of the character are not unique to Green Arrow, but he is generally hit more than others. Unlike Batman, who in every interpretation is based out of Gotham, has Alfred, has Gotham City, has the same origin story, etc, Green Arrow is sometime in Seattle, sometimes in Star City, sometimes a killer and sometimes not, is a poor anarchist or a billionaire playboy. His supporting cast changes constantly, with the New 52 even removing his 30 year old relationship with Black Canary. All of this leaves the question of Oliver Queen really is and what should the character stand for?
Green Arrow: Rebirth has given us a pretty good answer, actually. While not breaking with the New 52 continuity entirely, this series has given us Oliver Queen, back in the classic goatee, once more with Black Canary, and trying to make amends for the previous 5 years of douchebaggery (for lack of a better term). This Oliver is both considerably less gloomy than more recent versions, with friendly banter often exchanged between him and Black Canary, as well as his half-sister and sidekick Red Arrow, and his supporting tech/Oracle parallel Henry. John Diggle is held-over from the New 52 version that introduced the TV character into the comics canon as Oliver's former bodyguard turned partner. The group works well together and yet has their ups and downs, and the bond between them isn't quite the diehard familial loyalty of the Bat-family, for example. It works wells for a flawed hero with a checkered past like Oliver to have a team that may not always be willing to follow his lead.
The book also attempts to do some repairing of the Oliver/Roy relationship, something that has been needed for a long time. It always strikes me as weird sometimes how Roy hasn't even been Oliver's sidekick for 40 years in the real world, and there's never really been a serious attempt to reunite him with Oliver in some capacity. Dick Grayson was replaced as Robin in the 70s, for example, but as Nightwing he's always been around Batman in some fashion, and is still the sidekick that Batman trusts the most, unlike Roy, who is usually regarded as a failure by Oliver and ignored to the point that some younger fans might not know that Roy was ever Green Arrow's sidekick. This book does a good job of having Oliver own up to the fact that much of Roy's "failures" as a sidekick can be attributed to Oliver's failures as a mentor, and while they aren't exactly partners again by the end of the arc they are at least on good terms.
In addition to establishing a much lighter Oliver with his own interesting team of allies, the book has attempted to re-instill Oliver's former leftist politics after decades of DC playing down that aspect of the character. This has been the only place where I have been disappointed in the book so far. Where this book errs is in confusing a law and order liberal with an actual radical leftist.
In the original Green Arrow/Green Lantern comic, Oliver was not a liberal while Hal was a conservative; Ollie was a radical wanting to fight injustice and tear down systems of oppression wherever he found them while Hal was more of a traditional liberal putting his faith in incremental progress and the law. In Rebirth, for example, we see the allegedly radical Oliver go to a pipeline protest similar to the real-world DAPL protests, where he is outraged that the local sheriff has brought in hired goons to attack the protestors. It's important to note however that Oliver is not outraged by the pipeline as much as he is the attacks on innocent protestors. He goes so far as to note that "the pipeline is legal, but so is protesting." What kind of both sides-ism nonsense is that? Since when does an allegedly radical leftist vigilante that makes the extrajudicial decision to shoot people with arrows care about the legality of things? Even worse, Oliver knows the pipeline is being built by his former company which has been taken over by a literal cabal of supervillains. His refusal to act against the pipeline itself instead of just those attacking pipeline protestors is disheartening.
To some people this is probably a rather petty nit to pick, and I'll agree that the author seems well-meaning and the book overall has a lot of important messages about tolerance and justice and the danger of unchecked capitalistic greed that need (personified by a hilariously obvious Trump parody mayor that literally sells the city of Seattle to Queen Consolidated). This is nowhere near as heinous as Nick Spencer making Captain America into a Nazi, for example. Alas, the perfect Green Arrow book in my mind would have had Oliver cry about the law protecting only the oppressors whilst launching a giant exploding arrow right into that pipeline and walking away from the explosion. Even Frank Miller, crazy fascist that he is, understood the importance of Radical Left-Wing Oliver. Until I get that perfect Green Arrow story, however, Green Arrow: Rebirth isn't a bad start.
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