Black Lantern Green Arrow #30
Publisher: DC Comics
Writer: J.T. Krul
Artist: Diogenes Neves
Cover: Greg Horn
Release Date: 2/24/10
Green Arrow just got interesting again.
Remember all those Blackest Night tie-ins that were pretty “meh” and didn’t have much to do with the main plot of the event, aside from bringing back deceased characters that had strong emotional connections with the specific title’s main player(s)? Yeah, Black Lantern Green Arrow #30 written by J.T. Krul (Blackest Night: Titans, Soulfire) and stunningly drawn by Diogenes Neves (X-Men: Worlds Apart, New Mutants) is not one of those books.
I don’t want to give away too much here so you can enjoy it for yourself, but in Blackest Night #5, Nekron killed any hero who had previously experienced the kiss of death, and being a guy who likes lots of kisses from all sorts of different sources, Oliver Queen was on Nekron’s short list. Readers haven’t seen Ollie as a Black Lantern since then…until now! We’ve watched a slew of DC characters who were victim of the same deadly attack resolve their personal battles against the black rings in a matter of panels, like Wonder Woman and Kyle Rayner, but that’s not the case here.
In this issue, J.T. Krul plunges us into the mind war that rages between a black ring and its unwilling host in a struggle for dominance, and here it’s presented in a perfectly understandable and logical way. Nothing is rushed as the entire issue is one intense episode. Ollie faces inner demon after inner demon as his Black Lantern usurper taunts those closest to him in the most personal of ways, causing harm and pain on all sorts of levels.
The art by Diogenes Neves is absolutely gorgeous: the full page spread spotlighting Black Canary is jaw dropping and the heavy rain pouring down throughout the entire issue adds to the drama. I like Neves’ choice in how he depicts Black Lantern Green Arrow; unlike his Black Lantern counterparts, Ollie doesn’t look like a mangled corpse that’s been sitting in the ground for a few years. He just takes on a grey tone, and the choice works well with the clean style of the art. Props to colorist Chuck Pires who really does a solid job in making Neves’ work shine.
Whether you’ve been away from the Green Arrow/Black Canary title after Judd Winick left or haven’t been reading anything starring Green Arrow, Black Canary, and their extended family in awhile or were waiting for the right moment to read about any member of this family, then check this issue out; you’ll get your fix and be scratching for more! And if you’ve only been reading Blackest Night and were on the fence about this tie-in, consider me the guy who’s doing his damnedest to knock you off that fence. Check this one out or you’ll be kicking your own ass later for being silly.
Andy Liegl
andy@comicattack.net
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Well that’s…completely confusing.
But it looks pretty!
Looks really good. I’ll have to check out a few of these tie-ins after I buy the trade.
Forget about all the tie-ins, just check out this issue!! : P
do you have to be reading blackest night to understand what is happening in this issue? I’ve been trying to avoid it until the trades come out but have been pretty up to date on green arrow.
Not really, especially if you’re current on the series. But there’s no harm in waiting either.
Basically all you need to know before reading this one is that anyone who has died in the DCU has returned as a Black Lantern zombie.
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