Reviewer: Ben Morse
Story Title: “City Walls pt. 6: …come tumbling down…â€
Written by: Judd Winick
Penciled by: Phil Hester
Inked by: Andre Parks
Colored by: Guy Major
Lettered by: Clem Robins
Editor: Bob Schreck
Publisher: DC Comics
After a nice start to the Judd Winick era with “Straight Shooter,†Green Arrow quickly became a book that I bought only because it generally fell on a week in which nothing else I liked came out. “City Walls†started out decently enough, the Arrow family cleaning up the emotional mess of the previous arc and then going up against The Riddler, but by chapter three, it felt like things had ground to a halt (as I noted in a previous review). Many wrote off the arc entirely because Winick ended up eschewing The Riddler for nameless demons as the villains halfway through. But in the concluding chapter, Winick may not have succeeded in redeeming an entire arc that seemed as if it could have been told in three parts, but he did accomplish a solidly entertaining issue that paves the way for some interesting stories to come.
The crux of the issue is a Braveheart-esque war between the makeshift army of cops and mobsters that GA has assembled and the demon hordes. I’m a huge fan of big fight movies like The Last Samurai and Troy (to use recent examples), but obviously this is a feat much easier to pull off in a movie than in a comic book. Sure comic books provide you with an unlimited budget and carte blanche on “special effects,†but it’s a lot harder to hold a reader’s attention on several pages without dialogue with pictures that don’t move than it is to entertain a moviegoer watching real people or CGI doing nasty things to one another. It’s a testament to artist Phil Hester, who often gets (in my opinion unjustly) criticized for having too simple a style, that the extended battle scenes in this issue are riveting and every bit as entertaining as the dialogue-ridden pages. Hester’s battle vignettes have power and his trademark use of shadows and simple angles makes you stop and take as much time to look at the pictures as you do to read the story.
Lost in the backlash over Winick using demons as the bad guy du jour yet again in books in which they don’t belong (he’s already gone this route in Outsiders and kind of already in this title as well) is the fact that the nature of the demons (they appear and kill anybody who commits any crime whatsoever or any act of aggression, no matter how small) is really quite clever and leads to some interesting situations. The way Ollie finds to at least temporarily circumvent the demons is equally clever. While I wouldn’t want to see these guys as recurring villains, they are a reminder that Winick is writing a very sophisticated book here despite what can appear to be somewhat juvenile trappings.
The real story, of course, is in the actions and choices of Mia Dearden, the teenage former prostitute Ollie has taken under his wing. The point has been driven home throughout Winick’s run that Ollie is hyper-paranoid about keeping Mia out of harm’s way (understandable as the guy has seen his share of kids in costumes hit bad spots, including his adopted son Roy Harper, Speedy/Arsenal, getting addicted to heroin) and her insistence on getting involved in GA’s world came to a head last issue as he finally relented and allowed her to become part of the fight because he needed her archery skills. Winick has done a good job in letting the readers figure out that Mia is in way over her head before she does. She finally figures it out at the end of this issue and while the moment is one readers may see coming, it’s pivotal nonetheless.
Between “Straight Shooter†and this arc, Winick is really putting Ollie through his paces, not unlike what Frank Miller once did to Daredevil and what Devin Grayson is currently doing to Nightwing; I think this is a good direction to go in. Oliver Queen is a very complex character, exaggerated in so many ways and yet perhaps the most human of the DC heroes. For the first couple of years after his return from the dead, it was fun to see Ollie at his comedic best under the guiding hand of Kevin Smith. Brad Meltzer grounded GA’s adventures, but his “Archer’s Quest†felt very self-contained. Now Winick is putting Ollie though hell and it’s much more interesting to read than when Superman or Captain America has the rug pulled out from under them because Ollie is a very real very human guy and we feel for him.
I’ve read online interviews with Winick and he plans to continue heading in this direction, bringing Ollie to rock bottom before letting him claw his way out. “City Walls†may have stalled out mid-way, but now that it’s over, I can say without doubt it will have consequences for every member of “Team Arrow†and I look forward to seeing how they deal with them…as long as there are no demons involved.
