Batman and Robin Annual #2 (DC)

writer: Peter J. Tomasi
artist: Doug Mahnke, Patrick Gleason

I've mentioned a few times here how much I love Peter Tomasi's Batman and Robin.  It got to the point last year where I was ready to name it to the top of the 2013 QB50 (it ended up settling for fourth), which makes it from this point a perennial contender for that spot, however long the run lasts (hopefully a good bit longer).

It's one of those series that I want to add in its entirety to my trade collection, and in fact is at the moment how I've been reading it (not quickly enough, but it's an excellent way to savor the work all the same).  Every so often, though, I dip back into the individual releases, and this annual seemed like as good a time as any to do so again.

The story brings Damian back.  Damian, the son of Bruce Wayne and Talia al Ghul, was famously (or infamously, depending on who you listen to) killed off by creator Grant Morrison last year in the run-up to the conclusion to both Batman Incorporated and his Batman run in general.  Any new Damian story, then, is bound to be notable.

This one isn't really a Damian story at all, but a Dick Grayson one, looking back at his debut as the first Robin.  Since Dick's glories days are firmly in the Golden Age, and readers are far more familiar with his Teen Titans transition period or his Nightwing years (I'm still wondering how I feel about the Forever Evil developments), anytime there's a new Dick Grayson/Robin story, it's pretty much the same as a new Damian story these days.  One of the famous examples from years past is Batman Chronicles: The Gauntlet, a one-shot from 1997 (that's how infrequent it is), although there has also been Batman: Dark Victory and All Star Batman and Robin, the Boy Wonder (which angered fans because it portrayed Batman as...grim; no, really), neither of which was as direct a focus on him, though.

Add this one to the mix.  And it kind of leaves you begging for more.  Sometimes in comics, which are often hard-pressed to move on with the careers of superheroes, you end up with a situation where progress has been made and suddenly you realize there's still more to tell about that earlier period.  It's all well and good if you're Batman, but if you're Robin?  You're kind of screwed.

Tomasi's Batman and Robin has always been more of a Robin (and Batman) than anything, the lost Robin solo series that remembers Robin sometimes is most distinctive in association with his old partner.  With the loss of Damian, the series has become not so much a team-up book, but a series that explores Batman in relation with other characters.  Lately that character has been Two-Face (I've been savoring the prospect of reading that one, all at once, the way I read the first arc of the series, by accident, but that's exactly how it should be enjoyed, all at once).  For the annual, Robin gets to return.

And so, this is a Year One story for Robin, Dick Grayson's version.  Nightwing is known as a Spider-man kind of guy, always cracking jokes.  It can sometimes be easy to forget that he was like that as Robin, too.  That means, in essence, he was hardly the grim crusader Batman tends to be, and consequently that Batman probably had a hard time dealing with that.  Tomasi gets that.  He gets everything.  That's what makes his Batman so great.

The way Damian is incorporated acknowledges that he is technically dead and so not able to be an active participant.  I love these little reminders Tomasi is able to do.  In a few months, a new storyline in the series will feature Batman and Damian all over again, but with another twist.  (It will also feature Frankenstein, the Grant Morrison, Seven Soldiers of Victory version.  I still can't believe he had his own New 52 series.  I still can't believe I never read it.  I will have to correct that.)

Tomasi also has room to create an interesting villain in the story, a Dick Grayson foe, Tusk.  I'd love to see that whole story expanded.  Maybe Tomasi will do that some day.  Hopefully!

Also noteworthy, besides the assist from regular collaborator (and fellow Batman and Robin saint) Patrick Gleason, is the art of Doug Mahnke.  Mahnke is best known recently for his Green Lantern collaboration with Geoff Johns.  For some reason, even though he became one of the go-to guys during that run, Mahnke's name never really became especially elevated.  The fact that he's illustrating an annual is at once awesome because it's for Batman and Robin, and also a little worrying.  Surely the guy deserves another high profile assignment.

It's especially nice to see a distinctive style from Manhke in the issue, one that's different enough from his Green Lantern work that you might almost not even know it's the same artist, but still very much the same remarkable talent.

Maybe this is a way of saying that if Gleason isn't available for an issue of Batman and Robin, it's Mahnke we'll get instead?  Because that would be nice.  Because Gleason and Tomasi are too perfect together to settle for something worse.  Mahnke isn't worse.  He's almost as perfect a match for Tomasi as Gleason.  And that's pretty awesome to see.

Even if you're not obsessed with Batman and Robin like I am, I think this annual is easy to recommend, to see Dick Grayson as Robin, and to see Damian once again in that role, too.

Cover via Comic Book Database.

Batman '66 #5 (DC)

writer: Jeff Parker
art: Ruben Procopio, Colleen Coover

When I was a kid, I was a big fan of the Adam West Batman.  It was the whole reason I became obsessed with Robin, why when I referenced the Boy Wonder to 1989 people who suddenly knew only the Tim Burton Batman, they had no idea who I was talking about, because there was no room for Robin in Burton's Gothic landscape.

Just as there was suddenly no room for West's Batman.  By the time of Joel Schumacher's Batman, this had become painfully obvious.  It's the whole reason movies have to take superheroes more or less seriously these days ("more or less" because Tony Stark and Joss Whedon and a bunch of their friends take considerable liberties).

Does this mean there really isn't room for the so-called Camp Crusader?  All of a sudden there does seem to be room again.  The West Batman is finally going to be released on DVD.  And there's Batman '66, a digital-first series DC has been releasing since last fall and subsequently publishing in print.

Does it work?

Actually, you know what, it really does.  It's not even all that different from the famed Bruce Timm/Paul Dini animated Batman from the '90s.  This may be the most shocking admission ever made on the Internet.  Remember this moment for posterity.

The Timm/Dini Batman famously grafted as much of the Burton Batman as it could into its adventures.  If you remember the theme music, you may know the most obvious element of this Dark Knight exchange program.  It was the Timm/Dini Batman who first acquired a Robin, and then Robin showed up in the movies, too.

Famously, Batgirl first appeared in the West Batman.  She appears in the backup feature from this issue, too, matching wits with Catwoman (the Eartha Kitt version!).  The lead features Sandman, not the Wesley Dodds or Neil Gaiman version, but very much the West Batman version, only with trippier storytelling, more visual, than was possible on 1960s TV (unless you had chemical enhancement).

The best moment in the comic when Sandman makes this comment: "Even if he's a popular athlete, why would I care about such trivia?  He only matters because he's Batman."

It comes in the classic moment of any West Batman story, when the villain has Batman and Robin safely under wraps (for the moment).  It seemingly happened in every West Batman story.  Yet the West Batman only existed as Bruce Wayne when he needed to...um...I'll get back to you on that.  Simply put, Bruce Wayne didn't really matter.

If Batman existed only in his own right, wouldn't it make equal sense for his adventures to be as outlandish as the West Batman presented them?

So it's probably safe to read these comics.

Cover via Comic Book Database.

Secret Avengers #11 (Marvel)

writer: Ed Brisson
artist: Luke Ross

Part of the "Infinity" crossover, which involves Thanos (the Big Chin at the end of The Avengers movie) and the Inhumans (which are an even more sadsack version of the X-Men who never even had the good sense to be popular among fans), this is also one of many Avengers comics that are more or less interchangeable, despite various titles.

(Really, I have no idea why Marvel does that.  Brian Michael Bendis could get away with it when he was writing the Avengers, because he was writing a thousand different Avengers books.  But if you have multiple writers working on them, you ought to be able to differentiate a little better than "Jonathan Hickman, not Jonathan Hickman."  It's just not good enough to slap "Avengers" into the title and then do the same general story with all of them.)

The Secret Avengers were originally concocted after Steve Rogers had temporarily bought the mortal coil, and then came back to find Bucky Barnes, the erstwhile Winter Soldier, was doing a pretty good job as Captain America.  Since Steve wasn't about to just slap on another superheroic identity, he instead became an unmasked agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., and subsequently put together...another team of Avengers.  There were the New Avengers and the Mighty Avengers at the same time, and other than one of them being sanctioned (from the continuing effects of Civil War) and the other not, they did the same kind of fighting all the same.

Because Maria Hill is heavily featured in this series, you know it's all but a S.H.I.E.L.D. series.  Because there's actually a S.H.I.E.L.D. series on TV, I'd suggest it would make a ton more sense to name this series after that and not just as another Avengers title.

But what do I know?

The story frets over Inhumans, and Maria Hill frets over not being active in the field, and the villain character frets over being misunderstood.  Besides Hill there's also the new Nick Fury, who is exactly like the Ultimate Nick Fury but not like the original Nick Fury (read: he's exactly like the movie Nick Fury, which is one of the more unfortunate shoehorning jobs in recent comics history) as well as dear Phil Coulson.  The whole lineup's there, Marvel.  Why pretend otherwise?

Actually, other than random moments of superpowers, this isn't even an Avengers title.  Only its cover suggests that.  But you'd be hard-pressed to assume otherwise.  Just rename.  Or reboot again.  Because Marvel loves it some reboot.  Because this is not an Avengers series at all.  Maybe the storytelling isn't so sharp right now, but with a little more confidence in the concept, there's no reason why this has to be such a...secret.

Oh, I get it.

Cover via Comic Book Database.

Digitally Speaking...#7 "The Darkness"

FCBD 2011 The Darkness 2: The Confession #1 (Top Cow)
Previously in this column I spoke about how terrible an example another Top Cow offering from Free Comic Book Day had been.  This would be more or less the opposite case.  This one's actually pretty good, and what's more, helps makes sense of a comic book property until that had only managed to baffle me.

The Darkness is Top Cow's second best known property after Witchblade.  That alone seems to have been its reason for continued existence, because otherwise it never really distinguished itself as a concept, other than the fact that it was a horror property in the general vein of Todd McFarlane's Spawn, anchored to a mob figure with the unfortunate name of Jackie Estacado (which remains one of the worst comic book names ever).  Simpy put, I never understood it at all.  I thought it was just another example of dumb nonsense from people who wanted to create something new in superhero storytelling but really had no idea how to do it.  (After all, until the Yancy Butler TV series, Witchblade was most distinguished by her relative lack of clothing, which really only identified her with all the other '90s "bad girls," until Ron Marz came along and expanded on the mythology, which has led to the whole Artifacts concept that DC borrowed for Aquaman's new allies the Others, who are soon to receive their own ongoing series.)

Besides "Jackie Estacado," "The Darkness" was also a fairly dubious moniker.  What did it mean?  Again, I never had any idea.  The concept simply existed.  It was never explained, except in the most general ways.  No wonder it never found the same mainstream success as Witchblade.

Except, maybe it does deserve a better fate.  And perhaps it would even make a better TV series.  Actually, it probably would.  In the current TV landscape, The Darkness would make perfect sense.

Thanks to this comic, even the concept does.

It's still not perfect.  Jackie has long hair.  He always has.  Like everyone else I've seen plenty of gangster movies.  I've never seen one with a character who has long hair, which is kind of the opposite of the tough guy image.  The closest equivalent would be Robert Rodriquez's Mariachi character who appeared in three films, but he's Mexican and was portrayed by Antonion Banderas in two of them.  Jackie isn't Mexican.  He seems to be vaguely of New York lineage, but one of the continuing weaknesses of the concept is that all of the gangster elements are pretty standards elements.  The free comic's story includes a version of the classic Crow story of dedicating a career to a lost love, which is another element not usually associated with tough guys.

But the concept of the Darkness itself begins to shine in this release.  This is the first time I read anything about its mythology, and that in itself is pretty interesting.  It's the elemental evil from biblical creation, distilled into demonic form and passed on from generation to generation as a curse.  Jackie has his possession explained to him by his grandfather, which if written by James Robinson would be iconic but is instead just another relatively untapped element of Darkness lore.

The success of this comic in explaining an otherwise obscure concept makes it clear that in the right hands Jackie and his Darkness could really work, not just because a small company needs it to but because it works on its own.

Comics Recap #7: Odds & Ends Part 2

I finally got through all the comics I bought around the holidays, so I haven't been reading as many lately.  Here are a few I did pick up:

Golden Age Captain America Vol 1 by Joe Simon & Jack Kirby:  Golden Age comics are fun to read sometimes.  It was a simpler time back then when plots and characters were kept simple because they were intended mostly for kids.  In this case we get the humble origin of Captain America, when he was actually a man IN time.  The actual origin of his powers is almost an afterthought in the first issue.  There's no thought given to why Steve Rogers is there to get the serum or where he comes from or who his parents are or anything like that.  He's just there and gets injected with a serum that makes him superhuman and then a saboteur kills the doctor before Cap stops him.

Despite the famous cover of Cap punching Hitler, he actually does almost no fighting overseas.  The focus of the book is on Nazi saboteurs.  Private Steve Rogers operates out of an Army camp in New Jersey with his young pal Bucky and either the bad guys come to them or they read something in the newspaper and go investigate.  There's no government oversight or Nick Fury or any kind of direction to it.  Steve's army life seems pulled from Beetle Bailey for the most part.  In a bit of irony, the main female character's name is Betty Ross, the same name used for the Hulk's girlfriend about 25 years later.  Anyway, one of these saboteurs is the Red Skull who is just some guy in a red sweatsuit with a swastika on it and who wears a red skull mask.  The first time he appears there's a Scooby-Doo ending where they pull off the mask to see who he really is.

It's all very simplistic and yet campy fun, like watching Superfriends or Adam West Batman.  And for the $3.99 I certainly got my money's worth because each issue has at least 3 illustrated stories plus a "novelette" written by some guy named Stan Lee.  And there are two back-up comics featuring Tuk the Cave-boy and the Hurricane, who is a Greek god who fights the devil.  On a side note, for people who make disparaging remarks about Batman and Robin's relationship, Steve and Bucky actually share an army tent, where they sleep only inches apart.  Modern cynicism would have a lot of fun with that.  (4/5)

X-Men Season 1 by Dennis Hopeless:  This is basically a reboot of the original Stan Lee version of the X-Men, when they all had matching yellow-and-black suits like the ones they used in the First Class movie.  Only this is set in present day.  It has the familiar set-up where Charles Xavier wants to show the world mutants aren't dangerous so he rounds up five of them to make a superhero team.  There's Cyclops with his optic blasts, Angel with his wings, Ice Man with ice powers (duh), Beast with his um beast powers, and Marvel Girl (Jean Grey) with her telekinesis.  They do battle with Magneto--and with each other.  If Marvel ever wanted to do a teen-oriented show as DC has done (and continues to do) this would be a good place to start because there's a lot of teen angst mixed in with all the punching and optic blasting.  It mostly comes in two forms:  worry about fitting in with the outside world and crushing on someone, often someone on the team.  Like any reboot it's mostly familiar but fresh enough not to feel like a complete rerun. (3.5/5)

Punisher Enter the War Zone by Greg Rucka:  This was apparently the end of Rucka's run with the Punisher so he decides to go out with a bang by pitting Frank Castle against the Avengers.  After the Punisher steals one of Spider-Man's web shooters and uses it to help escape from a tight spot, Spidey convinces the Avengers they should finally go after the Punisher.  If they really went after him at full-bore it wouldn't be much of a fight.  To drag it on through five issues they first send Black Widow after him, but she gives up when the Punisher leads her to rescue a bunch of enslaved kids in Africa.  Then Thor goes to pound a few ales with him and convince him to quit, but he doesn't.  So finally the whole team gets involved, but Castle has a few surprises in store for them.  It was OK but really feels like it was playing with loaded dice since the whole thing could have been wrapped up in one issue.  I mean all that needed to happen was Thor shows up and fries him some lightning or pounds him into paste with his hammer.  And since it mostly focuses on the Avengers, I think the Punisher has maybe ten lines (other than grunts or screams or whatever) through the whole thing.  So not exactly a character building exercise there.  Anyway, I'm sure by now the Punisher has escaped from the Avengers's clutches so it really doesn't mean a lot.  (3/5)

X-Men: Curse of the Mutants by Victor Gischler:  A while back I read the Namor portion of this storyline since it was on sale.  When they put the main story on sale, I figured I might as well buy it.  The set up for this is that San Francisco is beset by vampires led by Dracula's son, who has taken the vampire throne by chopping off the old man's head.  His idea is that by teaming up, vampires and mutants can take over the world.  What should be an epic showdown between vampires and mutants turns out to be a turkey shoot, so really after four issues building it up it ends with a sad trumpet sound or maybe that loser music from the Price is Right.  But I guess it is pretty obvious when you have guys who need to bite people in the neck going up against people who can turn their skin to metal or diamond or stone.  Blade joins in on the vampire slaying fun, though he's not a mutant.  I'm not sure what the title is even supposed to mean since there's really no "curse" in this.  Anyway, it was kind of disappointing. (3/5)

Reading Comics #117 "Just Who is Hal Jordan, Anyway?"

So, just who is Hal Jordan, anyway?

The answer seems simple enough for comic book readers.  He's Green Lantern.  For diligent readers, he's the second Green Lantern, who debuted in 1959's Showcase #22, the second of the signature DC Silver Age icons to reinvent a classic Golden Age persona.  Unlike Barry Allen's Flash, Hal Jordan represented a radical departure from the original model, introducing a whole corps of space cops, an entirely new superhero concept, one that is still seldom duplicated (Marvel's Nova Corps is the rare exception).

This has made Hal and the Green Lanterns themselves a little hard to identify in the same iconic way as other superheroes like Batman and Spider-Man.  Hal's origin is mostly one of luck.  After the previous protector of the space sector of which Earth is a part is mortally wounded, his ring is sent to the nearest ideal candidate, who turns out to be test pilot Hal Jordan.

Since the whole concept of test pilots lost its romantic allure when its brightest era gave way to the dawn of space exploration, Hal's primary human occupation has been one of the many challenges the character has faced over the years.  The 2011 movie version based a portion of Hal's appeal on the continuing legacy of Top Gun, a movie released twenty-five years earlier.  The comics have softened the transition by emphasizing Hal's military experience (which to my mind would be more relevant if he had war memories such as the Mogadishu crisis featured in the film Black Hawk Down).

That particular aspect of Hal's background is also another of the many elements that may be more of a stumbling block for new fans than anything.  There are many competing characters in Green Lantern's own mythology.  As previously noted, there's a whole corps of fellow space cops, and there have been to date four other humans.  One of them is John Stewart.

John may actually lay claim to being the most famous mainstream Green Lantern after his prominent role in the Justice League cartoons.  Being one of the rare black superheroes, John is also in a unique position to represent something other than strictly being Green Lantern.  For that reason, there have been arguments that if Green Lantern should become relevant to the mainstream again, it ought to be in the form of John Stewart and not Hal Jordan.  John has been depicted as both soldier and architect.  He also briefly worked for rival space cop agency the Darkstars.

Besides John there's also hothead Guy Gardner, who at times has been a comic figure but has also branched into his own mythology.  Although John was the first one to gain his own spin-off series (the short-lived Green Lantern: Mosaic), Guy had one for longer, which was eventually retitled Warrior (when someone realized that, incredibly, no superhero had ever claimed that name before).  Guy has worn the green ring, a yellow ring, and had independent powers granted to him by alien DNA.  When the entire corps was wiped out for a time, there was Kyle Rayner.  Recently there was also introduced Simon Baz, who represents the modern world of the war on terrorism.  (No human Green Lantern has ever been a woman, unless you count the stint by the Golden Age version's daughter Jade; plenty of aliens have been, however.)

Really, what distinguishes Hal?  Some comic book fans argue, very little.  The failure of the 2011 film would seem to support that.

The ring worn by a Green Lantern channels willpower, allowing its bearer to create whatever they can imagine with green energy.  The conceit of a magical ring is rare in comics, but common in literature, famously in J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.  A Green Lantern must have great willpower and also have the ability to overcome fear.

In Green Lantern lore, fear became represented by the rival yellow ring, eventually wielded by Hal Jordan's mentor and one-time friend, Sinestro.  (When Guy had it, he used it more as an alternate to his lost green ring than as a weapon of fear.)  There are a number of other rings, including the red ring (representing rage), the violet ring (representing love), the blue ring (representing hope), the indigo ring (representing compassion), the orange ring (representing greed), the black ring (representing death), and the white ring (representing life, as well as the so-called "one ring to rule them all").

So what makes Hal special, other than being the first of these new Green Lanterns?  Plenty.

Hal is the rebel who also represents the mainstream, the challenge to authority who is nonetheless routinely considered himself an authority.  His initiation into the Green Lantern Corps was not without controversy.  Sinestro worked alongside his predecessor, Abin Sur, and never considered Hal worthy to wear the same ring.  On Earth, Hal is just another superhero.  In space, he's just another Green Lantern.  And yet, Hal never let either of those ignominious descriptions limit himself.  It was his effort to combine both these roles that led him to have such a rough relationship with the Guardians of the Universe, the Oans who created the corps.

John and Guy only became Green Lanterns themselves because Hal frequently stepped away from his responsibilities.  Kyle became at that time the last of them after Hal became possessed by the fear entity Parallax and went on a murderous rampage.  Simon inherited the ring after the Guardians awarded it to a reformed Sinestro, who subsequently lost it.

Hal's legacy as Green Lantern, then, is one of the few erratic superhero careers, one that is as much defined by his deeds as his efforts to avoid performing them.  His ambivalence is informed by a tortured relationship with Carol Ferris.  All comic book characters have tortured romantic relationships, but Hal and Carol's remains unique.  They are former working colleagues, former boss (Carol) and employee (Hal), and even rivals (Carol was the first of the Star Sapphires, after gaining possession of a violet ring early in Hal's career).  To this day they have never resolved their conflicts.

Hal's relationships often define him, moreso than any other solo character.  John and Guy were both alternates, and Hal met both of them before passing the ring to them (both eventually got their own and became regular contemporaries, as did Kyle).  His relationship with Sinestro is one of the most unique in comics: former friends, former mortal enemies, former grudging allies.  Hal is also defined by his relationship with Green Arrow.  The two were presented in a classic series of stories featured social commentary as natural opposites.

As a character with apparently no definable characteristics, Hal has managed to carve out quite an independent role for himself, a true maverick in a medium that often plays at the type but more often succeeds in presenting variations on the same lone wolf archetype.  Hal has always been different.  He never really struggled with the role of Green Lantern so much as what it represented.  He was doubtful about his place in the grand scheme, and found it hard to reconcile with what he had known before being drafted into the role, infinitely capable and equally skeptical.

The 2011 film is more representative than fans might think.  Part of its relative failure was Hal's lack of mainstream pedigree, as well as the fact that superhero movies in the twenty-first century most succeed when represented as distinct brands.  There's Batman, Superman, the X-Men, Spider-Man, and the Avengers, the most successful of the genre.  When you stray from them, the results are always erratic. Green Lantern was no different.

Fans less familiar with the Green Lantern comics often have a hard time reconciling with Hal Jordan's selection over John Stewart for the honor of being the one represented in the film.  To them, as with general audiences who had never heard of the concept, everything was totally new.  Apparently it didn't work, but I thought it did.  Often a failure is the result of something that seems to too limited in its appeal.  Superman Returns, for instance, was deemed as too reliant on the legacy of movies that at that point were two decades old.  Green Lantern had nothing to do with Christopher Nolan's films, or anything else.  It was in a bubble, right when it was much cooler to be connected to something else.

It tried to explain everything about Hal, and everything about the Green Lantern concept itself.  To someone like me, who was already familiar with both and very much enjoyed the effort, it made total sense.  To others, it was a cluttered mess.

So what to do with Green Lantern in other movies?  The suggestion goes, ignore the 2011 film and move forward with something new.  John Stewart, obviously, so some say.  The beauty of the Green Lantern concept is that you can do it both ways, and it would make total sense.  You could have the same continuity, have your John Stewart, and still return to Ryan Reynolds' Hal, use them both at the same time, in any number of combinations.

Green Lantern as a property has never been hugely popular.  It was always more of a cult thing.  Consequently, the mythology expanded beyond the norm for superheroes.  It wasn't until Geoff Johns came around in 2004 and brought Hal back that the character and franchise became truly important to DC, where it now stands as a cornerstone of the New 52 (with Green Lantern, Green Lantern Corps, Green Lantern: New Guardians, Red Lanterns, Larfleeze, and soon Sinestro all present as monthly publications, with plenty of room for more).  It was this expansion that gave birth to the mainstream credibility the 2011 film represented as an initial offering.

With a little more momentum, Hal Jordan won't need to be explained anymore.  As a character who can easily identify with the struggles of an ordinary human and the responsibilities of being a superhero, his storytelling potential is limitless and really is only beginning to be explored, more than fifty years in the making.  In fact, all his supposed weaknesses are strengths, which Hal's publishing history has proven time and again.

Who is Hal Jordan?  Someone any self-respecting comic book fan ought to know.  And now you know why.

Review: Arrow

Marc Guggenheim and company have done what many others, including geek apostle Kevin Smith, have failed to do:  make Green Arrow cool.  In the comic book world Green Arrow was kind of like Aquaman in a character who's been around for a while but wasn't all that highly regarded and only sporadically was able to keep his own comic book title.  He's the kind of character who'd show up for a Justice League comic or two but wasn't really part of the first-string team most of the time.  In the '70s he was actually attached to the Green Lantern title as sort of a foil for the square Hal Jordan.  He was largely known for having a variety of trick arrows like a boxing glove one and so forth.

With "Arrow" the Robin Hood-esque character gets the Christopher Nolan treatment.  After 5 years on a deserted island, billionaire playboy Oliver Queen returns to Starling City on a mission to take out a group of rich jerks who've been screwing over the little people.  He of course does this in flamboyant, impractical fashion by running around in a green hooded costume and shooting arrows at people who are armed with guns.  When not dealing with "the list," he tries to reconnect with his mother, sister, and friends.

That's how it starts but gradually more comic book elements are introduced into the storyline.  As well what seems at first like a simple Robinson Crusoe story on the island turns into a Lost-esque saga.  And like Spider-Man he keeps revealing himself to people.  It starts with his bodyguard John Diggle and then a nerdy IT girl named Felicity and then his best friend.

Really by halfway through the first season the original concept of the show--killing people on "the list"--gradually takes a backseat to more superhero-type fare like going after drug dealers and arms dealers and the like, which made the intro to every episode increasingly irrelevant.  I don't find that all that bad of a thing as the evolution of the story is fairly natural.  It's a lot less jarring than say this fifth season of "Archer" where the creator of the series decided to burn everything down and turn the whole thing into "Breaking Bad."  It seems only natural that eventually Oliver would have to branch out because when you set yourself up as the city's protector you can't be so narrowly focused as to miss all the terrible "normal" crime going on under your nose.

The problem with the show is something that I complained about with my Scarlet Knight series of books.  It's that the series is picking up too many characters, which makes some like Diggle increasingly irrelevant as new people are brought in.  Oliver's best friend Tommy became so irrelevant in the first season he had to be dealt with--perhaps permanently.  Plus you end up with all these loose plot threads all over the place as you have all these different villains, some of whom aren't seen for weeks.  It can be hard to keep track of everything.

In a way the show is a victim of its own success as DC has seen it as a way to springboard other new series like a Flash series due out next fall.  In some ways I preferred the simplicity of the early first season episodes, but as I have learned it's hard to keep a series that simple.  Especially with a weekly series you have to have twists and turns to keep viewers interested.

There are sometimes some logical problems, like I'm pretty sure an 18-year-old can't operate a nightclub that serves alcohol.  I mean by all rights they shouldn't even be able to admit her.  Plus you have Oliver's indiscriminate boner; by now he's screwed (or wanted to) every woman on the show except his mom and sister--there's something for next season!  I mean it starts out he loves Laurel, but oh wait he loves her sister Sara too and really he could love Felicity but he doesn't want to screw up their friendship and just for fun let's have a quickie with Summer Glau.  I don't know how he gets any crime fighting done at all!

Even though there are more comic book elements being introduced, so far they've done a good job keeping with the "hyperrealism" of the Nolan Batman movies.  Oliver does have trick arrows but instead of a boxing glove he has ones with explosives or listening devices, or ropes, stuff that's not all that inconceivable.  It definitely provides the superhero action people were probably hoping for with "Agents of SHIELD."  I really wish though they could wrap up the whole island thing soon because it's been dragging on for two years now.  I wish they could have kept that part simple where he lands on the island meets Friday who teaches him how to survive and eventually gets rescued.  Then there's more time to focus on the present.

I keep mentioning the Nolan Batman movies and in fact the series doesn't shy away from the Batman comparisons, especially now that they've included a notable Batman villain featured in the first and third Nolan movies.  Besides that there's the whole idea that he's a billionaire playboy who owns a big company and in public pretends to be a dumbass while at night he dresses up in a costume to beat up criminals but eschews guns and killing people--the latter in the second season at least.  Now he's even got a sidekick!  All he needs is a spotlight with an arrow on it.

Perhaps the highest praise I can give is that the show has managed to crack my TV watching schedule.  Only a handful of current shows can say that.

That is all.