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| Comic hardcover, 175 pages Published 2003 (contents: 2002-03) Borrowed from the library Read July 2009 |
Writer: Brad Meltzer
Penciller: Phil Hester
Inker: Ande Parks
Colorist: James Sinclair
Letterer: Sean Konot
This is the only trade left in the Green Arrow series not penned by Judd Winick. Despite being volume 4, it actually collects the issues that ran before Straight Shooter, which is just kind of annoying, as it plainly takes place before them. The first three volumes focused on Oliver Queen's growing relationships with his family of Dinah "Black Canary" Lance, Connor "Green Arrow" Hawke, and Mia Dearden; this one gives some much-needed focus to his connection to Roy Harper, his former sidekick "Speedy", now known as "Arsenal". The two of them hit the road to recover some artifacts Queen left behind after his untimely demise. Unfortunately, the story never quite comes together: why does Queen think recovering these things is urgent now, as he was plainly fine with them being where they were before he died? (I do like the whole bargain he set up with the Shade for after he died, though.) And why does he have to be so sneaky about it? If he just teleported up to the JLA satellite and asked for his old trick arrows, surely they'd just give him them? Some of the sneakiness is explained by the final revelation of the book, but not all of it. And as for the final revelation, I'm undecided as to what I think about it; I feel like it undermines Quiver somewhat, but I'll reserve judgement until I see what (if anything) is done with it later on. Meltzer gets Oliver Queen himself, though; I especially like the almost-not-proposal to Dinah, and the final touch in his relationship with Roy is great, as is the moment where Oliver and Connor decide that they can both be Green Arrow. The story may be somewhat problematic (what's with the thing that randomly pops out of a wormhole and eats Catman?) but as a character piece, it's first-rate.
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