This week, Team Arrow makes their escape from the Church of Blood. By Team Arrow, I mean Diggle and Oliver, since Felicity doesn’t go out on missions and Roy (who is needlessly on the cover of this issue) is still unconscious. As Oliver breaks away from his attackers, Blood goes to confront Diggle about their previous interest in Sebastian Blood. Oliver finds Diggle and they manage to escape only to be confronted by another foe: The Huntress.
Positives
Smoke-flechettes was a cool gadget to see. I love any expansions to Ollie’s tech gallery. Brother Blood’s religious rhetoric and speeches are a little cheesy at times, but they do work surprisingly well for the situation at hand. It frames the flow of the entire confrontation quite well. At first glance some of the action seems a little subdued for Arrow standards, but when you look back and remember Oliver has a broken arm (which can be easy to forget from how broken up our story is) it gets much better.
As always, the Suicide Squad backup was quite interesting, with the added bonus of getting some interaction with Lyla. Hopefully now that the squad is actually being called in, this will start really heating up.
Also, I never thought I’d be kind of excited to see Huntress. I’m not a big fan of she’s been in most episodes thus far. But, I’m hoping seeing her in this digital series will help her get moved to a better place in the Arrow world without spending too much time on non-essential time for developing her.
Negatives
Why did Hogue pull off his mask? It makes little sense, even if you paint him as confident. The Arrow is loose in his church and he’s going to reveal his identity to The Arrow’s captive friend? As fun as the escape was, it felt a little too clean.
In other news, our page or two talking about giving the homeless man mirakuru powers was a bit obnoxious. We don’t need a retread of Season 2. Let’s break some new ground here.
The Verdict
In spite of a few more aggravating moments, Arrow Season 2.5 #6 is one of the most on form issues we’ve had. Hopefully this is the start of some true momentum.
