[Editor’s note: This review may contain spoilers.]
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Artist: Juan Ferreyra
Summary
Green Arrow and Diggle confront the Inferno in order to rescue Black Canary.
Positives
The cover by Juan Ferreyra is dynamite. Ollie and Dinah diving into a crowd of Inferno henchmen ready to kick their asses is 27 different flavors of awesome. It’s also well laid out with the structures towering over them nearly caving them in. Ferreyra uses the space of the cover well.
The interior art by Ferreyra is excellent as usual. I don’t have much else to say about it than what I’ve said in my previous reviews. The art is dynamic, detailed, intense and a thrill to look at. There is one particular stand out moment for me. When Dinah and Ollie reunite, the color scheme changes from its usual dark palette to a glowing yellow before being brought back to reality. It’s a nice touch.
Emiko’s story plays out well here. I give writer Benjamin Percy a lot of credit for how ambiguous he made her seem. I genuinely was not sure whose side she was on until this issue.
Percy writes a lot of good dialogue here. Diggle, in particular, has a lot of fun lines throughout. I hope Percy keeps writing Diggle because I enjoy this new characterization of him quite a bit.
When I reviewed the previous issue, I complained that Dinah got kidnapped so easily and became a damsel in distress. It turns out that I am stupid and did not see that Percy was creating a parallel to The Longbow Hunters. In that story, Dinah is infamously brutalized and tortured. Here, Dinah is not a victim and gets to show what happens to the idiots who try to make her one. It is glorious.
When this story first started, I assumed the kidnapped people were simply victims of human trafficking. That is still true and what the story is about. However, what the people are actually being kidnapped for is quite different than what I thought and it’s effective. Percy and Ferreyra know how to create an eerie tone and they do it quite well here.
Negatives
I am not sure how I feel about the ending. It’s two different cliffhangers and I didn’t find them all that satisfying. That could easily change once I see where Percy is going with this but neither really interested me that much.
Verdict
I enjoyed this issue quite a bit. The art is spectacular, the writing is fun and engaging and its characters are well defined and enjoyable to read about. The ending left me feeling a little cold but it could easily go somewhere interesting. I recommend checking this issue out; it’s a good time.
