Green Arrow is the king of DC’s B-list, and has been for decades. Green Arrow has been around since the Golden Age of Comics, first created to be a mixture of Batman and Robin Hood, down to the kid sidekick and the Arrowcave. Green Arrow would fade away as the Golden Age went on, but came back in the Silver Age, leading to Green Arrow becoming one of DC’s most beloved heroes. Green Arrow has had a lot of ups and downs since then — he was even killed during the ’90s, when DC was all about replacing their icons with new versions, and was replaced by his heretofore unrevealed son Connor Hawke — but he’s stayed a big part of the DC Multiverse, playing an important role in many of DC’s most beloved events. Green Arrow is a legend, and that’s all there is to it.
Green Arrow has survived the test of time for many reasons, and has starred in some amazing stories. While Green Arrow doesn’t have the same pedigree of brilliant stories that other DC characters have, the trick arrow shooting vigilante does have some amazing tales of his own. These are the best Green Arrow stories out there, and they’ll remind everyone why they love Oliver Queen.
7) “Crawling Through the Wreckage”
Infinite Crisis changed the course of the DC Universe. It planted the seeds for the return of DC Multiverse and brought back a lot of Silver and Bronze Age ideas to the publisher. After Infinite Crisis ended, readers got a time jump in the form of “One Year Later”, with the comics all taking place a year after Infinite Crisis. This hyped readers for weekly series 52, and dropped all-new status quos on DC’s greatest heroes. Green Arrow got a blockbuster story to kick off his “One Year Later” life — “Crawling Through the Wreckage”, by Judd Winick and Scott McDaniel. In the intervening year, Oliver Queen became the mayor of Star City. Deathstroke, wanting revenge for Green Arrow sticking an arrow in his eye in Identity Crisis, targets Queen, leading the hero to try to out-strategize Deathstroke. “Crawling Through the Wreckage” is a stone-cold banger, showing off new sides of Green Arrow. It’s a mostly forgotten book, but it deserves its place as one of the best Green Arrow stories ever.
6) “Sounds of Violence”
The ’00s were an amazing time to be a comic fan. The industry had survived the tribulations of the ’90s and was trying to rebuild from it. A boatload of brilliant creators started putting out some amazing comics, and DC had some surprises for fans that no one saw coming. One of these was the return of Oliver Queen. Queen was killed in Green Arrow (Vol. 2) #100, and replaced by his son Connor Hawke. Connor’s tenure as Green Arrow was pretty popular, so fans didn’t really expect Ollie to return. Filmmaker Kevin Smith and artist Phil Hester brought the character back (more on that next) and “Sounds of Violence” was the second story from the team. “Sounds of Violence” pit Green Arrow against an all-new villain: Onomatopoeia. The silent villain, who spoke in sound effects (hence the name), struck at Queen and his family, injuring Connor Hawke, and making Ollie’s battle against him intensely personal. Smith and Hester were an amazing team; while Smith is known for somewhat juvenile humor, he’s also a master of emotion, and that comes through on every page. Hester’s Green Arrow art is amazing, stylized and fluid, and Onomatopoeia’s design is perfect. “Sounds of Violence” is peak Green Arrow.
5) “Quiver”
Once upon a time, Kevin Smith wanted a challenge when it came to his next comic project. The filmmaker had started his comic career telling stories about his View Askewniverse at Oni Press, then went to Marvel and helped launch the Marvel Knights line with artists Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti on the book Daredevil. Daredevil became a bestseller, but Daredevil was somewhat popular — even back then, Daredevil had a reputation for being in amazing stories. Smith wanted a true challenge and that led him to Green Arrow. Smith and artist Phil Hester were tapped for the book, which kicked off with the ten-part story “Quiver”. “Quiver” revealed that Hal Jordan, before sacrificing himself to restart the sun in Final Night, had brought back Oliver Queen, albeit without his soul. Queen’s return to Star City saw him become a target of a forgotten DC character, who wants to take the body Oliver Queen for himself and gives Ollie a new sidekick. “Quiver” can be pretty edgy — it’s an early ’00s comic, a period that created some of the edgiest comics ever, and it’s written by Kevin Smith, who was known for pushing the envelope with his work — but that doesn’t change just how great it is. Smith and Hester create an iconic Green Arrow comic, one that any fan will love.
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4) “Night Olympics”
Alan Moore is generally believed to be the greatest writer in the history of the comic medium. Moore began his career in the UK and was brought to the US for Saga of the Swamp Thing, a book that changed comics forever. Moore became a hot writer and he ended up writing way more DC characters than most fans realize. While everyone knows he got to write Superman, Batman, and Swamp Thing, he also has an awesome two part of Green Arrow story called “Night Olympics”, with artist Klaus Janson. It was published as a back-up story in Detective Comics #550-551. Green Arrow and Black Canary are targeted by Pete Lomax, who was trying to prove that he was a better archer than Green Arrow. The short story is a brilliant game of cat and mouse between Green Arrow and Lomax. This Moore gem was forgotten for years, rarely if ever talked about when fans brought up either Green Arrow or Alan Moore. It was included in DC Universe: The Stories of Alan Moore, a collected edition that contained Moore stories both well-known and relatively unknown, and a whole new generation of readers fell in love with it. Moore and Janson make a fantastic team, and judging from just how good “Night Olympics” is, it’s a shame they didn’t get to work together more.
3) Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters
Green Arrow went without a solo series for years by the time that Crisis on Infinite Earths changed the DC Multiverse into the DC Universe. Many characters were getting all new leases on life back then, with reboots for Supeman, Batman, Wonder Woman, the Legion of Superheroes, the Flash, and many more creating an all-new DC. Green Arrow eventually got in on this, when writer/artist Mike Grell dropped Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters on readers. This three issue story brought Green Arrow back, playing him as a slightly beyond his prime vigilante, and gave him an all-new status quo. There are some classic Green Arrow story elements in The Longbow Hunters — Ollie proposing to Black Canary, Ollie getting a new costume, Ollie not being able to live up to his heroic reputation — and it introduces a character that would have a huge effect on the Green Arrow mythos, Shado. Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters took advantage of the mature readers comic revolution to give fans a more violent Green Arrow, which definitely felt right for the version of Ollie that Grell was using. Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters is a legendary DC story, using nostalgic and all-new ideas to bring Green Arrow back to prominence in the post-Crisis DC Universe.
2) “The Archer’s Quest”
Novelist Brad Meltzer went to college with comic writer — and MTV’s The Real World Season Three star — Judd Winick. Winick got Meltzer in the door at DC and his first DC title was the hottest DC book of the ’00s — Green Arrow. The aforementioned Smith/Hester run was massively popular, with basically everyone pulling the stories at their local comics store. Meltzer was, luckily, a huge fan of Green Arrow and teamed with Hester for the brilliant “The Archer’s Quest”. Ollie asks former sidekick Roy Harper to go on a road trip with him, where they take a trip through their shared superhero career, finding important objects from Queen’s time as a member of the superhero community, and fighting disparate villains like Catman and Solomon Grundy. “The Archer’s Quest” is a beautiful synthesis of top-tier superhero action and heartbreaking pathos as readers realize why Ollie when on his quest… and then the even more heartrendng truth that reveals. “The Archer’s Quest” is something special, and it will stay fans for years after they read it.
1) Green Lantern/Green Arrow
Writer Denny O’Neil and artist Neal Adams are two of the greatest legends in the history of the comic industry. O’Neil brought a maturity and pathos to his work that was rare at DC in the Silver and Bronze Age. He never talked down to his audience and gave readers stories that would grow with them as they got older. Meanwhile, Neal Adams stands tall as one of the greatest comic artists of all time — he’s one of the few artists who can actually be considered a creative force on par with Jack Kirby — and basically every artist that came after him was influenced by his work. The two of them teamed up for Green Lantern/Green Arrow, taking two characters that were on the lower end of the popularity spectrum in 1970 and giving them stories that are considered some of the best in the history of the comic medium. The O’Neil/Adams run dealt with heavy real world themes like racism and drug addiction, all while giving readers the kind of superhero action they weren’t getting anywhere else. DC has kept this book in print for decades now, making it very easy to find, and it’s easily the greatest Green Arrow comic ever.
What’s your favorite Green Arrow story? Sound off in the comments below.
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