Most Wanted

Fresh back from vacation and it's another Wednesday! It was pretty slim this week, but that's to be expected with the awesomeness that was last week's haul. So, I reached out and bought something I didn't walk in the store expecting to take home. And ... it worked out well!

Green Arrow: Year One #1
Writer: Andy Diggle
Artist: Jock

I almost didn't pick this one up - it's a limited series that will almost certainly be available in trade format in six months or so - but it was a rather slow week for quality books (nothing could compare with last week), and it is only a 4-issue series, so the money I'd save by waiting really isn't that much. Plus, it's always nice to have a Diggle/Jock compilation (I loved The Losers). And as it turned out, it was (as of reading about half-way through my weekly stack) the best of the bunch.

This one starts with Tony... er, Ollie, the always-searching-for-his-next-thrill multi-jabillionaire playboy jackass, taking risks, gettin' drunk, hittin' on chicks and being all-in-all stupid. Then he builds a robot suit, sees the future that will inevitably come, and as a result uses his government influences to push through a particularly harsh piece of totalitarian legislature for the greater good of mankind. People die, some buildings get wrecked and then we have 6 new Avengers titles.

Oh, wait. I got confused.

Seriously, this is a great book. Not so much a re-telling (and honestly, Green Arrow's origin still works pretty well even after all these years), but more of a tightening of the character details and plot nuances as to how Tony got stranded on that island with only his bow to survive with. And that robot suit.

Diggle's dialog is, as usual, pretty dramatic. To me, it reads a bit heavy, but if you read it as lines delivered in a big action movie (which is not a slight - comics do work well that way), it's great. And it helps that his main character is pretty unreserved and over the top himself. And drunk. A lot. Anyway, Diggle writes very cinematically and needs to have a movie under his belt soon. Losers? Is that one on?

Jock's art is top notch. You gotta love this guy. His panel placement, in particular, is fantastic. This isn't a "dark" book, and I was curious how his heavy-lined scritchy style would play out with locations set in rich charity banquets, bright city mansions and the like. No worries. His jungle scenes are gonna rock. And that cover is amazing.

I've never really been a fan of Green Arrow. I could take him or leave him, really. And I hated the political spin they stuck on him in the 70s, though I understood it. Meh. Gimme more blond floozies and boxing glove arrows.

(And as an aside, I have a feeling - just a feeling, mind you - that Diggle and Jock are going to give us a few of both. It just seems to fit.)

But, I gotta say.. I really liked this first issue. And I will buy the rest. Recommended.

Most Wanted Panel:

Man, that's pretty right there...