Green Arrow: Rebirth is Almost the Perfect Green Arrow Book

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?

Things I Read This Week: Suicide Squad #24, and Why DC Needs to Embrace Amanda Waller Being the Villain

I know there are never any truly new ideas in comics but man Tunguska sure looks like Holocaust from Age of Apocalypse

I have really enjoyed the Suicide Squad Rebirth title. They've done a good job of changing the roster and look of the team to appeal to fans of the movie (and restoring Rick Flag to his role of leader of the squad for the first time in the modern continuity) while honoring the pre-existing comics continuity of the team and its personalities. The current arc has been very good, and has seen the Suicide Squad battling a mysterious organization called The People, which has been forming its own suicide squads made up of metahumans from various countries.

A few issues ago Waller found herself face to face with the director of The People, a man named Karla who explained to Waller that The People represented just that: ordinary human beings, who wanted to reclaim their planet from the metahumans who Karla says have ripped control of the planet away from the people. Instead of seeking to destroy Waller and her Suicide Squad, as originally thought, he was actually hoping to recruit her to his side and use her group to help capture all of the other metas, including the Justice League. We didn't see Waller's answer, but the next issue had her sending the team on a mission to battle Batman and Killer Frost (currently redeemed and acting as part of Batman's Justice League of America team) and bring Frost back into captivity, leaving the viewer to assume that Waller has agreed with Karla's proposal.

I for one, am 100% down with this. The fact that one should never lose sight of when dealing with Amanda Waller is that she is and should be the goddamn worst. She is hyper-competent, and her ultimate aims as far as the defense of the United States against all threats foreign and domestic, meta or otherwise, are sometimes defensible, but she should still be someone you do not ever root for. Her tragic backstory is just that, tragic, but it is not an excuse for the levels of horrible she is willing to be in order to achieve her goals. It is important to remember that the Suicide Squad is called just that because she views all of the metas under her command as expendable and would happily sacrifice any one of them, and she utilizes them mostly because she realizes that metahuman threats are beyond the scope of traditional law enforcement or military responses. In other words, she is exactly the person to whom Karla's proposal would be most appealing.

Origin-al Sin: Why this Joker Origin Movie is a Terrible F*&king Idea. Also That's a Pun, Which is A Kind of Joke, and he's the Jok-

So if you haven't heard the news by now, Warner Brothers is supposedly trying to put together a "hard boiled" (as opposed to all of the lighthearted Jokers we've had in the past) origin story for the Joker, produced by Martin Scorsese and inspired by the style of his 80s crime dramas.

This is a terrible f--king idea for many reasons. I won't even go into my usual rant on how Warner Brothers biggest problem is that they still do not understand or care about any of the stable of DC characters they have (as evidenced by how they undersold and showed zero faith in Wonder Woman and seemed shocked as hell that it succeeded like it did), and thus they are forever trying to reboot the only characters who have ever made them money before (Batman, Joker, etc). Just looking beyond the fact that DC has roughly 5 million characters who could make excellent vehicles for solo films if the company only believed in them the way Marvel believed in a talking tree, here are four reasons this is a terrible idea just because of how badly it misunderstands the character of the Joker:

In Defense of The Dark Knight Rises on its Fifth Anniversary

I always find it amusing when I remember that The Dark Knight Rises made over a billion dollars and currently holds an 87% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, because public opinion turned harder on that movie than America on second term George W Bush. Ask most people nowadays their opinion on that movie and prepare for a hyperbolic, Cracked inspired verbal listicle of all of the ways in which it is now The Worst Movie Evar^TM, at least until they get to telling you how their 40^th viewing of The Force Awakens is the one that really showed them how that movie is the worstest ever.

So why the heel turn on this initially well-received and definitely financially successful movie? Probably because most people enjoyed that movie the first time they saw it, and then at some point realized it was dumber than a sack of hammers in a lot of ways. “WE WERE TRICKED”, they cried, and then it was time to get out the torches.

Here’s the thing: The Dark Knight Rises is, for all intents and purposes, a loud, flawed, clunky, stupid movie. It relies entirely on emotional manipulation, convenient plot contrivances, and a lot of smoke and thunder, and it falls apart logically upon any cross-examination. I still love it unreservedly.

There is a moment in The Dark Knight Rises that I always point to when pressed as to why I love and defend the movie. It’s not Anne Hathaway’s Catwoman (though she is excellent), nor is it any of Bane’s big set pieces (though they are excellent), nor is it even the final montage that left me a sobbing mess in the theater and left my wife trying to make it look like she wasn’t actually with the big crying bearded man. It’s just before that montage, as Batman tries to carry the Batman ’66 inspired Giant Macguffin Bomb (I don’t care if it wasn’t actually inspired by Batman ’66, I believe what I believe) out to sea. It’s the moment when all of the kids on the school bus duck from an explosion, afraid their end is at hand, and one of the kids shouts “no, it’s Batman!” and points excitedly as the Bat flies through the explosion and heads out to sea, saving the city and seemingly sacrificing himself. It’s a moment that is a literal “look, up in the sky! It’s SupermanBatman” moment in a movie and franchise that had defined itself largely through its grounded, “realistic”, supposedly “dark” take on a superhero. It might initially seem a bit out of place, yet to me it was the best Batman-as-Superhero moment in movie history.