Review: Green Arrow #47

by Sean Blumenshine
0 comment

People will do anything for love.

This review contains spoilers.

Green Arrow #47 is written by Benjamin Percy with art by Fabrizio Fiorentino and Federico Dallocchio. In this issue, Green Arrow and Tarantula team up to take on the Skeleton cartel one last time.

GA_Cv47

The comic begins with Oliver being thrown in a cell with George, his dog, while Tarantula brings her sister home but decides she needs to help Ollie. We then see the backstory of the leader of the Skeleton cartel, Jefe. His son was born with cancer and when he couldn’t find help, he prayed. Au Punch, the God of Death, answered. He cured Jefe’s son but requires sacrifices. Jefe plans to sacrifice Oliver and George since their bones contain power due to them being Outsiders. However, Tarantula swoops in and saves them. Tarantula kisses Oliver before they take on the Skeleton cartel. Due to the failure of the sacrifice, Jefe’s son dies. When this happens, Jefe renounces Au Puch which results in his own death. The issue ends with Green Arrow and Tarantula kissing.

Positives

Jefe’s backstory makes this conflict so much more interesting. It gives this character a lot of humanity while still being despicably evil. What often makes these stories sometimes dull is the lack of a good villain or threat and Jefe manages to become interesting and intimidating here. I wish we had known about his motivations sooner.

I do like how much Oliver cares about his dog. While I do think this story was stretched out unnecessarily, it is sweet that Oliver would go to such lengths to save George.

Negatives

The issue begins with Oliver declaring his love for Tarantula in narration which I do not understand. It feels so random and out of nowhere. And he says that he loves her multiple times but I have no idea why. They really haven’t had that much interaction and much of it was hostile and it ended with her horribly betraying Oliver. What makes it worse is that she seems to feel the same way. The first thing she does when she arrives is make out with Ollie for a second and then they kiss at the end. I had no idea that I was looking at a blooming romance this whole time. We’ll see where the relationship goes, I guess, but I felt that it was really out of place and awkward.

Verdict

This is a solid conclusion to a story that I found to be fairly dull and uninteresting. This issue does fix some of my problems with this story and I enjoyed it but I do feel like this should have happened sooner. Additionally, the romance between Green Arrow and Tarantula is fairly forced and just random. I don’t have much else to say. This is a fun issue.

 

3outof5

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