GREEN ARROW: QUIVER

By: Tony Whitt
Review Date: Tuesday, April 02, 2002

A word of advice about reading GREEN ARROW: QUIVER: don't read the introduction by Kevin Smith before you read this book. Smith's ramblings on how difficult it is to actually shoot an arrow, his endless plugs for his movies and comic shop, and his seemingly bottomless self-esteem might be enough to put you off reading this book. It also doesn't help that he goes on for so long about how fans initially hated his book and how he's turned out to be right: that it is a brilliant work, in his humble opinion. The saddest part is, if you can still read it after slogging through Smith's self-congratulatory intro, you'll realize that he's right: it is a brilliant work.

Granted, QUIVER does have its flaws, not the least of which is a premise heavily steeped in the Christian mythology which seems to pervade all of DC's comics lately. Any book in which the characters visit Heaven and talk directly with the dead, unless it's written by Dante or some other classical dead guy, should be immediately suspect. But after writing DOGMA, Smith can get away with this sort of thing with a lot more credibility than most other DC writers who have unsuccessfully attempted it. And as much as it pains me to say it-especially since Smith would most probably loudly agree-the premise itself is ingenious: a guilt-ridden Hal Jordan uses part of his new powers as the Spectre to resurrect the dead friend he betrayed so long ago. To spare Oliver Queen the emotional rollercoaster ride his last ten years have been, however, Hal recreates Oliver as he was when they were still traveling together, righting wrongs and messing up the "fat cats" who got rich on the sufferings of the poor. In short, he recreates Oliver at his best. Problem is, Oliver doesn't understand the world of 1999, and he doesn't understand why his friends insist that he died after events he doesn't remember. The even bigger problem is, he doesn't know why the demon Etrigan is so bent on destroying him, insisting that his continued existence could mean apocalypse for the rest of the world.


All this adds up to a great story, full of superb character interactions as Smith applies his trademark gift for dialogue to some of our favorite DCU heroes. Certainly, there are hints of some suspiciously "Jay and Silent Bob"-sounding dialogue here, but for the most part the characters hit their marks just as we'd expect them to do, and some even show traits we've rarely seen before. Aquaman is downright enthusiastic, Wonder Woman is downright bitchy, and Batman is downright...er, Batman. There's also a surprising amount of action for a book Smith himself admits is "talky"-there's about twenty issues' worth of dialogue in these ten chapters, and the most amazing thing about it is that none of it seems at all extraneous. Very few of the most chatty scenes seem to drag, and most provide every bit of plot background we could ever want. On top of all this, Hester and Parks' artwork rounds out the package so beautifully that, even if you do happen to get bored with the lengthy expository dialogue, there are plenty of gorgeous visuals to look at. The artistic style sits just this side of realistic, employing a sharp, dark line and plenty of chiaroscuro. Even the most mundane scenes have a curiously ominous feel to them, so much so that this could easily have been a Vertigo title, especially given the horrific subplot of the child murderer prowling through Star City.

Overall, QUIVER is one of the most successful re-introductions of a character to the DC Universe we've seen in a long time. True, it does have to jump through quite a few hoops to justify Oliver's continued existence, and the resolution leaves the door open for all the mistakes previous writers have made with the character to be recommitted. But in the short term, it's simply good to have Ollie back-no matter who writes him.