#Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters

[natesune]

The Landscape work for this page is so beautiful golly.

[lesbianspeedy]

whats this? ITS ARROWFAM AS REDUCTRESS HEADLINES PART FOUR

[greenarrow-core]

I guess it's Ollie's birthday today.

43(Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters #2)

44(Green Arrow(1988) #10)

45(Green Arrow(1988) #21)

47(Green Arrow(1988) #51)

Ollie missed his birthday while traveling the world because Dinah wasn't there to remind him.

48(Green Arrow(1988) #63)

By the end of Grell's run, he was probably 49, but without Dinah in the end of the run, he just didn't catch on to that.

[balu8]

Mike Grell:Green Arrow and Shado

[strawberrytalia]

“I once said you haven’t the eyes of a killer. They’ve changed…as you have. You can never go back. Nor can I.”

[comicchannel]

DC Multiverse DC Direct Green Arrow (Longbow Hunter) - McFarlane Toys

Link para compra BR: *Possível importar pelo Link abaixo

Buy here: https://amzn.to/3KfAenY

[sebeth]

Today Is The First Day Of The Rest Of His Life

[fancyfade]

ok im deleting my pointlessly confrontational tags and just making my own post: its always so weird to see people count Longbow Hunters and TKJ as like. TKJ is so awful and Longbow Hunters is so good when like. Both used a woman being hurt to make a man sad. Both cared way more about the male heroes than the female heroes.

The only difference is that Alan Moore did not write the follow-up to Babs being hurt so we got actual focus on her and her feelings, and her calling out the various characters and sexist writers, but the person in charge of writing Dinah's follow up was the same guy who wrote her being hurt make a man sad, and it shows so very very much.

[dogwithglasses]

i know a person died but like. the outline with the arrow through it feels a little cartoonish to me. would they really draw the arrow like that

[machetelanding]

[fancyfade]

this comic needs an "unfortunately" option

[zahri-melitor]

Hi! Do you have any recommendations for Black Canary stories? Been wanting to learn more about her and I'm not sure where to start/what's assured to be worthwhile.

Hah! I do have Black Canary recommendations, but they also come with a lot of asterisks. Loving Dinah is one of those situations where you spend a lot of time going 'UNFORTUNATELY'.

Where do you want to start?

If you want a story highly focused on Dinah herself?

If you want something you can pick up and fall in love with her without needing context (Dinah has SO much context), get yourself to Black Canary and Zatanna: Bloodspell. It’s probably the only title with ‘Black Canary’ in the name that I can recommend unequivocally without any asterisks.

Personally I have a massive soft spot for Black Canary 1993 (this is vol 2), which vibeswise has Ollie being terrible, Ray’s hopeless crush on Dinah, the first ever Dinah-Babs-Dick-Helena team up and some really fun art design. Unfortunately, it is incredibly written in the early 1990s and so needs warnings for, among other things “this contains a white slavery storyline”.

I do recommend Black Canary: The Best of the Best. Tom King’s doing pretty well at explaining context for everything happening in this story.

If you’re interested in Dinah with Ollie?

Start Grell’s run on Green Arrow at The Longbow Hunters and go from there into Green Arrow 1987. This is probably the most classic period of their relationship that everyone later will reflect back onto. I will however flag that Dinah gets assaulted, badly, during this run, and the fallout focuses far more on the effect that has on Ollie than Dinah herself.

Read Quiver (Green Arrow #1-12 2001) if you want to understand Dinah’s reaction to Ollie’s resurrection.

Go from the Wedding Planner and Wedding Specials 2007 and then read Green Arrow/Black Canary 2007 for at least Winick’s run (#1-14). A lot of people don’t like this run because of what it does to Connor, but if you are down for Dinah and Ollie shenanigans and silliness and banter, I find it highly entertaining.

If you want Dinah and Barbara together?

Start with Dixon’s run on Birds of Prey (the first oneshot is officially entitled “Birds of Prey: Black Canary/Oracle #1”, or just go for Birds of Prey #1 1999) if you want more James Bond missions where Dinah is Bond and Babs is her controller

Start with Simone’s run on Birds of Prey 1999 (it starts at #56) if you prefer Dinah leading a spec ops team for Barbara with a lot of complicated women having complicated friendships.

Dinah with Roy and Lian?

Arsenal 1998. It’s only four issues and it’s just delightful characterisation of the three of them together.

If you want a current run (and don’t want to risk Tom King until the run finishes)?

If you want to read current stories, I would suggest the Birds of Prey 2023 run with Kelly Thompson is probably a slightly better starting point for Dinah than the Green Arrow 2023 run with Joshua Williamson, but you’ll get the gist of Dinah’s two biggest relationships (with Ollie and with Babs) from checking out both.

If you want Dinah’s backstory?

The DC YA graphic novel, Black Canary: Ignite, is reasonably solid in terms of giving context to Dinah Sr, Larry Lance and Dinah Jr relationships with each other. It’s not canonical and it very much picks up the vibes of Black Canary 2014, but it’s probably the best early years version of Dinah that’s been written so far. And again, it’s conveniently stand alone.

Otherwise, some general advice:

Dinah in Green Arrow books tends to be very much playing second fiddle to Ollie

I wish I could recommend more of the Black Canary runs, but 1991 is slight and mostly Dinah being pissed at Ollie, 2007 was used as an excuse to write Dinah’s supporting characters out of the narrative in favour of Ollie’s, and 2014 has striking art but is a version of Dinah that not only has very little to do with other appearances, but gets retconned at the end of the run.

Dinah’s got solid runs in various Justice League books and the JSA revival in 1999, if you want her in bigger team books

[lesbianspeedy]

Hey, I went through many of your Oliver Queen posts despite never having read a comic about him, and now I really want to start. Which ones are your favourites/good ones to start with? I think he's about to become my favourite guy, but I want to cement it. Thanks!

nervously scrolling through my own blog to see if ive made one before so i dont have to use my brain (im so happy to know u became interested from my posts omg dadposting worked) (these are listed in order of release and like technically you can read them in said order if u want full context. but like. if one takes your fancy more than others go for it. comics are for fun not rules. i practically read them in reverse order when i first started lmfao)

Green Arrow: Year One, great origin story, great place to start, well written, in character, yippee

Green Lantern/Green Arrow old but gold, some of the most iconic green arrow stories out there, and pretty much the entire foundation for his characterisation (they are still very Of The Times though in some areas so proceed with caution) Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters + Green Arrow (1988) #1-75 darker themes, grittier setting, ollie and dinah both go through a lot, they own a flower shop together also thats fun. but, of course, a pretty long commitment, read just longbow hunters to get a feel of if you'd want to read grell's whole run Green Arrow: Quiver aka the first arc of green arrow (2001) yay u can meet mia thats so cool yippee also just a good story, the next couple arcs are also fun, when winick takes over the run i personally feel deep unadultered hatred for most of his choices but like. i still read all of it so. go wild (if u read this before any other stuff then some references will fly over your head but tldr omg ollie was dead now he isnt whaaaaat)

if you're looking for a good ongoing i would really recommend the current green arrow run from #18 onwards (you can read the stuff before but. unless you read ga stuff and get really into his family i. cant in good conscience recommend that shithole)

fun bonuses: green arrow: stranded cute lil elseword story where kid ollie gets stranded instead of adult ollie, surprisingly in character for a book aimed at like tweens

green arrow 80th anniversary special lots of ollie (+ family) oneshots, a few misses for me but mostly hits!

[balu8]

Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters #2

by Mike Grell; Lurene Haines; Julia Lacquement and Ken Bruzenak

DC

[greenarrow-core]

Found it, and it was actually an interview I've seen before.

Before that he even goes on about how he never made Dinah lose her Canary Cry, to him superpowers just didn't exist in his world.

"I never considered myself bound to the continuity of other writers, whatever they were doing." - Mike Grell

One thing that stayed with me when I did a review over Ollie and killing is that Ollie only starts killing casually in issue 11 of Grell's run, which is, as we learn later, when Shado r him. (Sometimes I just don't feel like writing that word)

It's as if it broke him.

Tho Grell wrote Ollie choosing to kill in Longbow Hunters earlier to write things in his own way(he did that aware of the last O'Neil/Adams GL/GA story), he would take 11 issues before actually writing Ollie going all out.

2 others things to notice here:

Notice how Grell did not ignore previous characterization and stories, he just created an event to justify the changes. Very different from how many writers do.

Grell's GA killing is just part of his style, even Black Canary and The Question were killing. At the same time Grell wrote The Question in his The Brave and The Bold killing, O'Neil's Question wasn't killing. Grell has multiple times stated that part of his agreement to write Green Arrow was that it would happen on Earth-Grell. (Unfortunately, the source for this is a followr on fb that heard Grell saying it in person, so no online sources, if you have any source for this, please share).

[royboyfanpage]

Hi, I love your page! What are your thoughts on Roy and Connor's relationship?

Hi! Thank you so much, I'm glad you like my posts :) and thank you sososo much for this ask, I love Roy and Connor's relationship and I'm glad I have an opportunity to talk about them. Sorry it's taken me all day to answer, but here you go :)

Short answer? That's his little brother.

Long answer?

I know that "fanon Batfam is canon Arrowfam" is tired and overused, but I really do think that, especially with Roy and Connor, there is some truth to it. While they haven't had too many interactions in canon, there's still a clear arc their relationship takes which I really like.

I don't like Chuck Dixon's Green Arrow run, obviously he's a shitty person but also his writing just isn't for me, but one of the few parts of it I did enjoy was Connor's first meeting with Roy in Green Arrow (1988) #97, prior to Ollie's death. It first establishes one of the most present themes in their relationship, which is the differences in relation to Ollie, and the contrasting experiences of being their father's sons. Roy's the son who grew up with Ollie, he knows him personally, the good and the bad, but his status as Ollie's son is still constantly in question, you can see it back in Longbow Hunters, Ollie calls Roy his son but still denies that that word has meaning ("Roy's a hell of a kid, but he's not mine. Not really.") Whereas Connor, there's never been any doubt that he's Ollie's son, he's his flesh and blood, but he never knew Ollie until he was already in adulthood. He knows Oliver Queen through magazines, but not personally. That's why when Ollie storms off after finding out he's Connor's dad Connor's shocked, but Roy isn't surprised when he hears that from Connor. He knows Ollie, and he knows how his fears of commitment would make him act. While this is only a minor theme of those specific issues where they first met, Roy helping Connor understand what it means to be Oliver Queen's son is one of my favourite parts of their later interaction.

After Ollie's death, there is some tension between Roy and Connor, particularly around Connor joining the JLA in Ollie's place and becoming the new Green Arrow, first mentioned in Teen Titans (1996) #12-

-which is later expanded on in Arsenal #2.

This is really the first time we see Roy and Connor have a heart to heart, and it shows Roy's inferiority complex. Due to tumblr photo limit I can't show more pages for this, but I think the one I chose is the most poignant because, at least in my eyes, it shows the insecurities both of them have in terms of their relation to Ollie, and how each of them address that. Roy's loud, he'll openly speak his mind and say what he feels, and that's why it's primarily about him (that and that it's his mini and Connor's a guest). Roy openly admits feeling inferior to Connor in his position as Ollie's son, even after Ollie's death. Connor, he's quieter about it, and gets spoken over by Roy before he can actually talk about his feelings (which is a pretty consistent problem Connor faces where people expect him to listen but not talk). But you can still see it in his body language, the shadow over his face looking downwards, and while he isn't allowed to finish his sentence you can still tell what he's about to say, that Roy's more of Ollie's son than he is. They both know that the other hasn't actually done anything, but they're not to blame for each feeling their own individual emotions.

They also address the topic of legacy in relation to Ollie in #3, and how there's this unspoken standard to live up to that neither of them ever really can. Roy's Ollie's mentee, his protege, he should be Ollie's legacy, and yet he's not Green Arrow, he's not in the JLA, and he's still coming in second place. Whereas Connor, he is Green Arrow, he's Ollie's legacy, he's in the JLA, but he's a better martial artist than archer.

I wish they'd gotten more opportunities to interact while Ollie was dead because there was SO much potential for them during that period, but alas.

And now, I get to talk about one of my top five comics ever: Boys' Night Out, Green Arrow (2001) #32. Yeah, sure, the whole issue only happened because Ollie wanted Connor out of the house, but it's also the first comic to really explore the brotherly relationship between them, particularly in terms of Roy being older. Roy takes Connor bookshopping despite his own boredom-

-And then takes him to a strip club, where they have another heart to heart.

This page specifically is so important to me, because it's one of the few instances where Connor's actually being heard. Particularly in the 2000s but also in the 90s, a lot of Connor's character was defined by him being the voice of reason, the one who'll talk people down and listen to their problems, which ignores the fact that he's actually a pretty young guy, usually younger than the people he's helping (I suck with ages, I'm pretty sure he was 18 when he was first introduced which, by rough estimate using the Lian Method, would make him around 20-22 in the 2000s). I'm not saying that diminishes his emotional intelligence, he's clearly very emotionally intelligent, but it is a lot of pressure to put on someone that young to constantly be the one holding his family together. That's why I think this whole issue is so important for Connor, it's his chance to actually just be, and Roy's the best person for that. Despite what some fanon and canon characterisations suggest, Roy is absolutely not emotionally immature. Hell, you could make a pretty solid argument that part of the reason he took Connor to a strip club in the first place was to bring up the issue of Connor's sexuality. While asexuality wasn't as popularised as a term back then as it is today, the idea of Connor being queer was very present during Green Arrow (2001), albeit often used as a punchline, and while they're there Connor even gets referred to as a "friend of Madonna" by one of the workers. And while in Roy's head Connor was either gay or just had a low libido at that time, his "you're you and Ollie loves you" speech could very easily be interpreted as acceptance of his sexuality, even before Connor himself had figured it out. It acknowledges that, while Connor's good at helping other people work through their own problems, he's still a young person struggling with his identity, not understanding why he's so different to those around him, even his father. And Roy picks up on that, and tells him that it doesn't matter who or what he is, that what matters most is he's Connor, and him being Connor is enough to warrant love and support.

But Roy also doesn't treat Connor any differently to how he'd treat anyone else. When Connor says something Roy disagrees with, he calls him out

And I think Roy's treatment of Connor as an equal is very important. He doesn't depend on him or treat him like he's this pinnacle of wisdom, but he also doesn't coddle him and treat him like a baby. He calls his ass out, when he needs to! Roy's still a very loud and outspoken person, and he's not gonna change that because he and Connor had a heart to heart. I feel like a big problem with a lot of characters who enter into a family dynamic is that sometimes their writers change who they are at their core in order to have them fit into a specific role in the nuclear family, and while yeah, Roy's absolutely playing the role of an older brother in this issue, he's still Roy Harper, which I think is crucial. And conversely, Connor also calls Roy out when he does something he doesn't like!

I'm running low on the photo limit so apologies for the quality of this collage, and I couldn't fit it in frame but for context Roy just knocked out a robber who Connor was trying to talk down. Connor explains to Roy his reasonings, and Roy apologises! I think this also highlights the differences in terms of their characters. They're both very protective of their families, but Roy tends to act first whereas Connor thinks things through. Roy saw Connor with a gun pointed at him and immediately took action, which contrasts Connor's reaction when Roy gets shot in Outsiders #6

Connor's more of a rational thinker in times of crisis, and he tends to try and think things through and avoid rash decisions, whereas Roy's very much an immediate responder if his family's at stake.

And then it ends with them actually acknowledging each other as brothers!

The ending of Boys' Night Out is so important to me, honestly, and it demonstrates one of the most important features of their relationship- trying to figure out what brotherhood means. There's not a big hug at the end, there doesn't need to be. Just an acknowledgement that they're in each others lives, that they're brothers, and it doesn't matter what that means. It's cool. I adore this issue so much, I had to make like half the post about it because it's so good and it's such a good example of why filler issues are needed. Sure, Williamson's run has it's sweet moments, but an issue like this where two characters just get to interact in a low stake scenario will always be so much more impactful than one hug in a big event.

So, yeah, I think my short answer sums it up pretty well. They're the brothers ever.