A Queen’s Tainted Legacy — Reviewing ‘Absolute Green Arrow’ #2

The billionaire-killing Green Arrow has struck again, and the mystery of their motives and identity have gotten more complicated. Dinah Lance must wrestle with the legacy of the murdered Oliver Queen, as more suspects enter the game.

More blood is spilled in the second chapter of this redefining miniseries from Pornsak Pichetshote, Rafael Albuquerque, Marcelo Maiolo, and Jeff Powell.

-SPOILERS FOLLOW-

Wrapping the usual trappings of who Green Arrow is as a character — the progressive rich guy — into a murder mystery is just a beyond solid idea. One might say it’s absolutely perfect as a premise, if they were willing to play with words that way.

What Pichetshote is doing here is some inspired work. I often write about how telling any sort of mystery story in the standard superhero comic book format is tough. That’s because it is, and when creators are able to pull it off, that deserves to be cheered. Engaging readers in ways that make them want to keep reading and find the solution to the mystery, month after month, is quite the feat (especially with the way that most other things scratch a more instant gratification itch prevalent in modern society).

We’re not closer to figuring out who is behind this mask, or why they are doing what they are doing. But I don’t actually care that much that we’re still not that close yet. Dinah digging through the pieces as we meet altered versions of Green Arrow characters is so very engaging. Mia Dearden gets spotlight here, as a bad ass fighter who has specific connections to Queen. We also get the Absolute version of Connor Hawke, for a moment, before he joins the growing number of bodies.

A massive chunk of what makes this series work is the artistic choice. Dark rough textures are part of the package with Albuquerque, who manages to make things so sketchy and hard to look upon but with so much detail and dynamic energy through and through. Atmospherically he sets the tone that this is not a story for the light hearted or light of heart, eschewing many of the usual elements born of doing superhero comics to do something somewhat all it’s own.

We’re seeing people die, as expected, and be maimed in this story. The immediacy of this is always felt, even as Albuquerque makes sure to keep the gore and visuals at a neutral level. Essentially, I’m talking about how even with the brutality of the story, it’s not an overwhelming sickening thing. Bloody but not overly gory, to put it even simpler.

Also, I gotta love when panels shift and cover one another, or expand to become a 12 panel page or something else, following the momentum and kinetic energy of the moment into different formats.

This atmosphere is also boosted and setup with the color palette provided by Maiolo. He keeps things very moody and tense with more toned down and darker colors at play through most of it. leaving some of the more sharp vibrant colors for particular moments. Giving them the push to stand above others for a bit. I love the choices at times to just go with particular colors as full filters, whether there is or isn’t much to the panel background.

A tip of the cap though to the panel color and format choices. Sometimes the background is empty or sparse, again adding to the feeling I mentioned above with Albuquerque’s art style. Not to mention there’s great choices for the green filter over flashbacks that we have going on. It adds a nice way to differentiate the times visually, but also sticking with elements evocative of the main character’s aesthetics.

There’s a lot of narration and talking to be had here, it is a mystery after all. Fowler does a splendid job of making sure the bigger moments of narration aren’t too dominant over a scene, achieving the right sort of flow that we want to see in these situations. Adding to that is the great usages of modifications which keep the voices, their emotional energy, and uniqueness front and center at all times.

Absolute Green Arrow #2 is now available from DC Comics.