Reviewer: “Starman†Matt Morrison
Story Title: On The Waterfront (Black Circle: Urban Knights, Part Four)
Written by: Judd Winick
Penciled by: Charlie Adlard
Inked by: Charlie Adlard
Colored by: Titjana Wood
Lettered by: Jack Morelli
Editor: Bob Schreck
Publisher: DC Comics
Reviewing Green Arrow and Green Lantern has become almost tragically comic for me. I find myself struggling to find new criticisms of this mini-series as all the same problems keep coming back. I’m almost tempted to just post links to my reviews of the first three parts of this six-part story and say “Repeat As Neededâ€.
But you all deserve better than that. So generous bloke I am, I will risk looking repetitive and redundant to explain the specific flaws with this particular issue.
Adlard’s artwork is still over-inked. He still has no sense of visual storytelling. And he still makes more “just plain wrong†mistakes in the art. Case in point: last time I mentioned how Kyle is flying around in space without any energy field around him, yet he made a nice green spacesuit for his new space cop friend Amon Sur. This time, not only is he still flying around space unprotected… he is now making YELLOW energy constructs. Either that or something got screwed up, as Kyle uses a yellow device to track an alien spaceship and Amon Sur comments. “Amazing. The Green Lantern ring is truly one of the greatest assets that a warrior could have in all the galaxy.†Amazing indeed…
Amon himself is a sticking point. Played right, I think the character would be a great addition to the series. As is, I think Ollie’s premonitions of something not being right about him were dead on and that by the end of the series, it will turn out that Amon is working for the Black Circle and may even be someone in a disguise, with a story tailor-made to win Kyle’s sympathy.
The characterization is still way off. The plot has been recycled from better stories. And I have to question if six issues was REALLY necessary, since not much happens in this chapter to advance the plot. The only thing that saves it, oddly enough, is the fight scenes and Ollie Queen’s wisecracks.
The ultimate tragedy of this series is that these two writers are very good individually, but are unable to build off of each other’s work in individual chapters. Perhaps if Rabb and Winick had co-written each issue this would have been better. As is, the whole thing is a mess and I can’t wait for them to move on to doing their own individual plots.
