Our second half of the first issue’s worth of story sees Arrow and not-yet-Arsenal finish taking down the drug plane. Plus, we get a few story threads set up while, more importantly, catching up on a lot of characters post-Season 2.
Ollie’s jumping from a plane to save Roy and attempting to get him back to the foundry for surgery. Diggle is again having to put his army medical training to use to save a friendly archer who has been shot. Felicity is using auto-pilot tech to help stop a drug gang. Laurel is watching over her comatose father. And a homeless man is being recruited to the Church of Blood.
All in a day’s work for Team Arrow, right?
Positives
This issue is still filled with a lot of what makes Arrow work, whether it is an awkward comment from Felicity or Oliver powering through a fairly substantial injury for the sake of other. The creators have said that this series will be filling in the time gap between season two and three and your characterizations and conversations in this section keep up with this thought. Everyone is pretty much where you would expect them to be as characters in the weeks following Slade’s attack on Starling. But, moments like Oliver choosing to watch over Roy through the night give strong promise of the changes that are coming. Also, more trick arrows. There can never be too many trick arrows.
Negative
It bothers me when Felicity and Diggle’s real names are used by Oliver in the field in front of bad guys that are conscious. I know it shouldn’t, but it does. There are just a few moments of slightly awkward dialogue, but nothing too jarring. Where the last issue succeeded on the great Team Arrow dynamic, this one loses out by jumping around to visit other characters and making the drug plane takedown a bit of an anticlimax.
The artwork is also off-putting at times. It is by no means bad (and I’ve heard that digital artists deadlines are quite intense) but the accuracy of some character to their tv-selves compared to the differences of others (namely Oliver himself) can throw you off at times.
Verdict
Arrow Season 2.5 isn’t anything too special yet. Fans of the show will enjoy getting an extra dose of their favorite characters. Now that we’ve had our little recap, hopefully our next installment gives us a good idea of the road ahead for Team Arrow.
