Thursday, July 2, 2015

Green Arrow #42 Review and *SPOILERS*

Written By: Ben Percy
Art By: Patrick Zircher, Gabe Eltaeb

Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: July 1, 2015


The Future of Law Enforcement, The ED-209......... Er, I Mean The Panopticon 


*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

It's time to head back to Seattle to see what our Emerald Archer is going to do about the string of murders that have been taking place in his city, apparently perpetrated by a racist vampire...... Yeah, I haven't seen any fangs or anything, but there's certainly a Lost Boys feel to him, that's for sure.  So we've got that going on and Oliver Queen being terrible at his job...... you know his actual job, not the one that requires a mask....... or maybe you think it's the other way around.  Nonetheless, Oliver Queen really should have been paying attention to the board meeting when Queen Industries decided to merge with a despicable dude, who we then found out was working with that Klu Klux Klampire.  Hopefully, Green Arrow gets his shit together here and puts an end to the awfulness that's been going on Seattle.  Let's check it out.

Explain It!:

Our issue begins with that weird ass disfigured street woman that we got a peek at last issue.  She's just all out on the street in a market area, up on her soap box talking about the night birds and how they'll come down from the clouds and get you........which of course scares a little girl who happens to be in the area listening and while this scene really does nothing but set the tone of the book, it really pissed me off.  Not because of the dialog or the crazy lady preacher her gospel...... no, it was because of the awful parenting of that little girl.  Instead of maybe holding the girl's hand and moving along, the mother simply lets her daughter listen and tells her that she shouldn't worry because it's like the story of Chicken Little.......if she was a decent parent, she would have simply moved on and they wouldn't have been there when we learn the fate of the dog fighting kingpin "Big Dog", since we saw him all captured by the possible vampire last issue and witnessed him getting bleach poured all over him and down his throat.  Right next to where the mother and daughter are, we see Big Dog fall out of the sky and smash into the ground..........terrible parenting.  So the street is rife with crime and dog fighting kingpins falling from the sky and our hero is busy taking a wolf that was injured the night before home so that he can patch the animal up.......... and I don't know.... have an Arrow Wolf?  So with Green Arrow playing vet, who's going to be crime bustin' that makes us feel good?  Why a giant, scary, fucking robot that's who.


In the last issue, we had a Mr. Zimm merging his Panopticon design with Queen Industries' resources and here, the very next day, we have Mr. Zimm at the police station, showing off the future of law enforcement to all the officers....... where we then immediately see the robot look like it kills a homeless kid that stole a cheeseburger from someone...... Holy Shit!  Out of nowhere, it seems like Panopticons are in full deployment taking down the crime in the city and while it doesn't look like anyone being apprehended dies........ it certainly looked like that homeless kid got torn apart by the shadow being cast.  With the news of the robots cleaning up the streets by profiling and tentacled force, Oliver Queen is furious that his company had something to do with it.......... only problem is, Oliver Queen was too preoccupied in his own little world when he decided to "okay" the deal.  That's right Oliver, all of this is your fault.


As our issue ends, Green Arrow means to search out the Panopticon factory and shut them down, while the possible vampire confronts peaceful protesters with an army of Panopticon robots.  As our issue closes, Oliver finds himself led right into a trap, where Mr. Zimm is piloting a Panopticon and plans on getting Green Arrow out of the way and from where this issue leaves off, he might just do it.


That's it for this issue of Green Arrow and man did shit escalate quickly in Seattle.  Last issue we were just dealing with a strange spree of murders and talking about the idea of Panopitcons and here they're in full effect....... and I can't help but feel like Ben Percy accidentally turned in the issue that was supposed to come after this one instead.  Shit just jumps forward out of nowhere even though there wasn't any time for all of this to go down........ Plus they're giant tentacled robots.  I could understand a villain creating something like this and turning it loose on our hero and the city, but for the police force to order a baker's dozen of them out of nowhere is just odd........ and a bit silly.  Especially when we began with a possible supernatural murder mystery and ended up here only one issue later.  Maybe Ben Percy will pull it all together in the end and I'll have to eat my jerk off words, but right now I'm not feeling this Green Arrow.  On the plus side though, where I didn't dig Patrick Zircher's art last issue, it kind of grew on me here and I'm thankful for that because I'm not used to not liking anything from Patty Z.  

Bits and Pieces:

This story arc might be one of the oddest I've ever seen and really comes off like Ben Percy didn't know what he wanted to write about and just threw a bunch of stuff together.  I am happy though that the art seems to be better in this issue than the last....... or possibly, I'm just getting used to it, but either way I dig it.  I have no idea where this story can go from here, but with any luck, it will all come together.  

5.5/10

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