Review: Arrow Season 2.5 #4

The stunning origin of Brother Blood!  Watch the story of how Hogue took on the mantle of Brother Blood!  In other words:  sit through multiple pages replicating scenes from the show, several pages that are show scenes with slightly more context, and catch roughly two (non-Suicide Squad) pages of material actually taking place in the context of Season 2.5

Actually relevant information regarding Hogue taking over:  Hogue was there when Blood was killed.  He let him die, instead of shooting Rochev in the head, and took the Blood mask.

In Suicide Squad news, Waller has the Presidential go-ahead to send the squad into Khandaq.

Positives

I love the tone of the Suicide Squad backup, no matter how short it is.  I’m still hoping it winds up as a spin-off mini-series, but this is not the place for that discussion.

I’m glad to see they are, in a sense, addressing the whole blatantly non-secretive behavior of Felicity and Diggle in Season 2.  This could be a fun and interesting story, if it ever really gets going.

It is interesting to see the writers using the comic as a way to give us some extra context in our Arrow episodes.  Hopefully future outings won’t be so much context.

Negatives

Not only is this just not stunning, but this issue was almost worse than filler.  While it is showing off some previously funny scenes, they are still old scenes.  There is so very little new to see her, that it feels like a huge drag.

Verdict

Arrow Season 2.5 #3, is not a technically bad issue.  In fact, someone who hadn’t seen the last few Arrow episodes in Season 2 might really enjoy the writing in this issue.  But, points off for being a complete and total rehash.  For those who’ve seen the show, no need to bother, really.