#19 The Rise of Arsenal

Oh boy, more of the aftermath of cry for justice. Help!

So, whilst the fall of Green Arrow has its problems, hence its spot amongst my rage reviews, the critical consensus despises the Rise of Arsenal.

Let’s get one thing out the way. Everything that happened to Roy in Cry for Justice and also in this follow-up story, was editorially mandated. The editors had the place they wanted characters to go and it was up to the writers to make sure they got there, no matter how little sense it made. Editorial control of stories is something that has plagued comics in recent years. JT Krul is a decent writer but when editors try and force the writers to write their stories, it nearly always results in cr*p. One More Day, Countdown to Final Crisis, Amazons Attack and others are awful stories because of editorial control above anything else.

Editors do need to have some control over stories to keep the characters consistent through multiple titles and to check for errors. They should not be forcing their direction for the characters on the writers.

Safe to say, Cry for Justice, whilst selling decent numbers did not settle well with people, hence the need for follow-up titles to ensure a plan was there (yeah… right) the plan which eventually lead to Deathstroke’s Titans book, a story I refuse to read owing to the fact that in their first issue (in fact I think it was a one-shot) Deathstroke unceremoniously killed off Ryan Choi, the Atom.

But I digress, we’re here to talk about Roy Harper, AKA Red Arrow. So in cry for Justice he lost his arm, and his daughter, and of course there have to be repercussions. But, *sighs* let’s dig into The Rise of Arsenal and see how they screw it all up

Oh look, another Batman vs Superman trailer

We open on the JLA satellite where Roy is speaking with Lian (this happens before the bomb explodes in Star City) she’s complaining about dessert and Roy offers a compromise, they say their goodbyes but Prometheus (still disguised as Captain Marvel) attacks. Here’s the thing. You remember how in Cry for Justice Prometheus took down pretty much the entire justice league in a 2-page spread. Here Prometheus fighting one guy with no superpowers lasts 6 pages. And it’s a hell of a lot better than Cry for Justice (you’ll hear me compliment #1 a fair amount, the insults come later)

Prometheus fires... CDs of death? At Roy, who manages to dodge them with relative ease, Prometheus uses a... Flame blade? To destroy Roy’s bow, Roy then starts to kick his ass because apparently can’t counter that for some reason. However he recalls the CDs of death with his glove, slicing into Roy, distracting him enough that he can cut off his arm. AND THEN HE JUST LETS HIM GO!

I know Krul was limited with what he had to work with and despite my criticisms it’s a decent job. We cut to Star Labs Roy awakens in excruciating pain; he can feel that his arm has been chopped off. Green Lantern explains that whilst they prevented the attack on most cities Star City took heavy damage whilst silence explains that Prometheus escaped. Black Canary, whose breasts are sticking out disturbingly far and with a stupid blank expression of her face, tries to keep him calm but Roy asks about Lian.

You can see members of the league starting to cry and he realises that Lian is dead. He throws something at the window and fights with Black Canary briefly before breaking down, this is also a very good scene. Entwined with a few bits from the Rise and Fall special, we see that Roy had to be given double dose of sedative to get him to sleep (I don’t know much about sedatives, but couldn’t that effectively kill him?) Donna asks why his arm isn’t healing properly (I hope she doesn’t mean growing back, that would be stupid) and Doctor Midnite, senior physician and aide to the League says that the blade
“infected him with some kind of nanomite – a flesh eating bacteria.” It’s one or the other, it can’t be both!

Anyway, Roy’s dreams about conversing with an old drug dealer, who died of an overdose years ago. He tries to tempt Roy back into drugs but he tries to resist (briefly, you’ll find he succumbs later without much of a fight) Roy gets up (considering he had a tube stuck up his nose for the last few pages, I don’t see how) and asks Doctor Midnite to see his daughter. He leaves him alone to see him (yeah, let a guy in the early stages of grief go see his dead daughter’s corpse, I’m certain nothing could possibly go wrong) he sees her body and imagines what it would’ve been like for her at the end. It’s a really moving scene (if rather disturbing).

Roy takes some painkillers, downs a couple and escapes into Star City. He laments that the painkillers aren’t doing anything. He arrives at his house, which is not completely destroyed which makes me wonder how Lian died at all (she was definitely at his house, he was coming to make sure she was in bed, he would not have done that if her were at Mia’s house, I wouldn’t think) some burglars are looting the place and Roy dispatches them, taking a kick to the stump that once was his arm as his reflexes made him attempt to throw a punch with it.

Black Canary arrives and advises him to go to a nearby hospital. The dialogue exchange goes like this

“They have no clue what’s already been taken from me”

“I know Roy. I know”

“No. You don’t! You can’t have kids. So how could you know what it’s like to lose your own flesh and blood?”

Now, let’s go into some backstory. Yes, there was a point where Dinah couldn’t have kids, but her ability has since been restored. Furthermore, you remember the character Sin in Arrow? In the comics Sin was being trained to become the next Lady Shiva until Black Canary adopted her, even leaving the Birds of Prey to look after her. Sin was kidnapped by the League of Assassins and to rescue her, Green Arrow faked her death. Black Canary, at the time did not know because Ollie wanted her reaction to be real.  So yes, actually Roy, SHE DOES KNOW WHAT IT’S LIKE!

Him being angry and attacking his friends isn’t the problem, the problem is there’s NO RESOLUTION ON IT, my patience with his character is beginning to wear thin and it’ll run out in issue 2, to the point where I don’t care about the main character of the book. And when you don’t care about the main character of a book, there’s no point reading it.

Black Canary decides to leave Roy alone because again: what problems could possibly be caused by leaving an emotionally unstable man ON HIS OWN! He knocks over a punching bag and tosses in some more painkillers. He hallucinates (on painkillers?) that his drug dealer is back. “Welcome back buddy”

Well, issue 1 was ok, but it only gets worse from here my friends

Cheshire strikes (at the very end of the issue and you'll have to wait for most of the fight)
Cheshire strikes (and kills Roy Harper given that he's been scratched with her poisonous nails)

Issue 2 opens with a really weird nightmare. Roy and Lian are walking past a toy store (named Toy store because creative names don’t exist in dreams?) the city starts to collapse, Roy grabs Lian and starts running, the ground beneath them collapses and Roy manages to hold on to what’s left of the road with one hand, whilst holding Lian with the other, that arm proceeds to tear off leaving Lian to fall to her death and… Wait, is his arm supposed to look like it’s stuffed with stuffing? Was that an inking mistake and it’s supposed to be red?

Roy awakens and finds his painkiller tube is empty. (He’s already claimed that the painkillers don’t help him, why is he still taking them?) Roy sees the news regarding the murder of Prometheus by Green Arrow and his subsequent arrest and unmaksing. Roy smashes the television to the ground, somehow setting it on fire.

Black Canary arrives, gives the same bullsh*t she gave Green Arrow in the fall of Green Arrow, and mentioning that Green Arrow hid the body. NO HE DID NOT! She says she thought Roy might be happy about the news but Roy isn’t, he should’ve been the one to kill him. He visits Green Arrow in Prison, as I said in my last review, it’s still stupid that Green Arrow is in costume. Roy whines so much in this scene, I’m tempted to use the baby meme however I’ll give this a pass owing to the circumstances behind it.

“I might be behind bars, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be here for you” actually, Ollie, yes it does! Roy walks off angrily to Star Labs. The nanomites had done their work, damaging tissue around the end of his arm. Because of this they can’t attach a permanent replacement but because it’s a comic they can attach a robotic arm temporarily around the replacement. Puttng on this arm will be painful owing the massive amount of spikes, wires and lubricant involved in attaching it, so naturally they first thing they do after attaching it is take it off again.

Our ghostly drug dealer (why is he hallucinating this again? He's no on drugs? He hadn’t even taken painkillers in the last few hours and why if it was grief from Lian’s death would he be hallucinating about a ghost drug dealer?!) anyway, the dialogue goes like this

“looks like a can opener”

“No, wait, a swiss army knife” again

No it really doesn’t. He steals some more pills from the lab. Moving onto Lian’s funeral. Where literally everyone else has arrived in costume!! Might as well be painting a banner saying “Roy Harper is a superhero” these are very inappropriate clothes. It says something when Superboy is the most appropriately dressed for a funeral (at least he’s wearing clothes that sort of pass off for civilian clothing.) He thinks he hears the coffin banging and he runs off, downing another few painkillers.

He’s greeted by Rose Wilson, AKA Ravager. She was once Lian’s babysitter and she knows a little something about addiction (to painkillers, which, by his own admission don’t work) Rose comforts him that he was a great father and she loved him. And it might’ve worked except Mia comes into frame. She was Lian’s babysitter at the time of her death and Roy angrily attacks even goding her for turning the Electrocutioner over to the police rather than killing him (may I remind you 2 scenes ago he berated Green Arrow for killing someone, robbing him of revenge, MAKE UP YOUR DAMNED MIND) but it’s the next exchange that really takes the cake.

The best thing at this point would be to not approach and let him cool off. Instead Donna decides to become confrontational. She says she knows what he’s going through and his response is thus:

“You don’t know jack, Donna. I was there for Lian, always. You abandoned your family. While they were dying in that car accident, you were whoring it through space with Kyle Rayner.” And my patience with him has officially run out

More backstory. Donna Troy is a rather interesting character, in that’s her origin is complicated and rebooted on a whim from being the sister of Wonder Woman to being the creation of the Titans of Myth. But the important thing to know is that Donna Troy once married a man named Terry Long and had a child, Robbie. They got divorced and Terry got full custody and they tragically died in a car accident. During that time, Donna had been dating Kyle Rayner

The loss of a child or family member, no matter what the personal circumstances behind it is a tragedy. And there are millions that have lost family members to the destruction in Star City. Your pain is not special Roy! And yes, I suppose there is the combination of the loss of his arm too. There are millions of people have lost limbs as well! And calling Donna a whore! Nope, sorry, no sympathy is granted to you now, I hope you rot in hell you psychotic drug addict!

We cut to his house, where he puts on his arm again (it’s that simple apparently) he tries to shoot arrows but finds his aim off. I get that it might be that he’s shaky what with the painkillers and his grief but if they’re implying that the arm itself is responsible, I’m calling bullsh*t on that. The arm holding the bow is responsible for the aiming of the weapon, if anything the enhanced strength from the robotic arm would allow him better range or more powerful shots. Funnily enough after he breaks the bow, he manages to score a bullseye throwing its remains with his mechanical arm.

He takes off the arm (again) and pops some more painkillers, which still don’t work, so what’s the point? He’s attacked by Cheshire, Lian’s mother and super-villainess. And great Scott, do we really to undercut the emotional depth of this encounter with up-skirt shots of Cheshire’s ass. Classy. She knocks him down, scratching him several times with her poisonous nails and says “you’re about to lose a lot more than your arm”

Jingle Bells, Batman Sells, that's why his symbol's on the cover, in fact it's true, he's on pages few, and they barely interact to one-another

And here comes the issue I’ve been dreading, the one that is almost universally hated. Issue 3 begins with Roy fighting back and tackling Cheshire to the ground. And OK seriously, enough with the up-skirt shots, this is not the right story for it! Cheshire scratches him on the back, no doubt poisoning him. Roy defends himself using various appliances like a tennis racket, a stapler and even an extension cord he uses as a whip. He eventually has Jade tied up and they begin to make it. Given that they’re both grieving I’ll give this a pass, what I won’t give a pass is the next bit.

Turns out Roy is now impotent. I need that brick wall again.

No, must resist. Must keep reading this sh*t. Wow, comic, way to completely undermine the entire point of them needing that emotional connection. Oh, and the scar from Roy’s scratch earlier, completely healed. He should be dead!  Roy decides to leave for some more release, putting his arm back on. Yeah, can totally see that excruciating pain.

He punches looters and scumbags in Star City, and he’s wearing a new costume because… because… HOW THE F*CK DID HE MAKE THAT COSTUME!? Ghostly drug dealer returns to remind them of times gone by (Roy was once a heroin addict) Roy starts to feel the pain of the arm and realises his only release may be returning to heroin.

He scares away some druggies and threatens the dealer

“Need the heavy stuff, got any China Cat?”

I do!

OK, yeah, it’s a street term for heavy grade heroin but it’s a stupid street term.

“It’ll take you wherever you need to get to. No lie”

It’s Heroin! Heroin is not a hallucinogen, it’s a depressant. It makes you get high, it’s not gonna make you hallucinate, at least not in the vivid and frankly depressing ways they’re using in this comic (and yes, you could argue that the painkillers combined with the heroin might but may I remind you that only now is Roy feeling the pain of his mechanical arm, implying the painkillers have worn off.

He smokes them. And despite what I’d just said he hallucinate and it’s vivid and depressing. Well it starts with Roy seeing his daughter but suddenly he’s attacked by an army of Prometheuses. Roy fights them off (taking heroin keeps you a competent fighter, what the f*ck?) and it’s revealed on the next page he’s fought off some druggies protecting a dead cat. I am deadly serious. In fact, I'm going to show you that.

Heroin: improves your fighting skills whilst making you think a dead Cat is your daughter for the last decade.

Batman arrives to try and fight him, Roy sees him as the Electrocutioner. Batman tries to fight him off, but Roy is somehow able to block all of his attacks, despite the fact I see no way in him being able to distinguish them with attacks the Electrocutioner is capable of. Batman ends the fight be kicking him the face (there was serious a less brutal way of knocking him out)

We cut to the Virgil institute, a mental hospital for those with substance abuse problems. Black Canary tries to talk to him again, but… OK, enough with this. We at the end of the day are supposed to care about Roy’s journey. Whilst there are elements of realism in the way Roy reacts around people. Realism should not be the first thing thought about around comics. First and foremost we need to emotionally connect with a character. But he whines and whines and refuses every attempt to try and help him and any shred of pity I still had after he called Donna Troy a whore has been exhausted by now.

But that doesn’t mean I haven’t forgotten Batman and Black Canary who leave him, saying he can only get through this alone. I’m feeling an urge to bang my head against the wall again.

As #3 draws to a close we see Roy strapped down talking we thing to the ghostly drug dealer, it actually seems like he might be starting to recover. But then issue puts the kybosh on that by having him talking to a zombie ghost of Lian.

Punching people in the face: the universal solution to all problems

My god that was awful, so let’s have the cherry to top this cake of sh*t. #4 opens with… is this even the same institute. The entire look virgil house has transformed. It looked a bit dingy and run down in the last issue, here it’s pristine. Consistency: if the book is drawn by 1 artist, THIS SHOULDN’T BE A PROBLEM!

A man makes his rounds as Roy narrates whilst flashing to memories of his time with Lian. Zombie ghost tells him that he was always a thrill junkie and was never that good a father. (What exactly is causing this hallucination anyway, the drugs would probably have run its course by now) She tells him to find the Electrocutioner,  he opens his wounds on his arm with his belt strap. Orderlies rush in and rather than sedate a patient that has had violent outbursts in the past, they immediately unstrap him and of course are taken down. He interrogates one of them about his arm but they surely aren’t stupid enough to keep such a dangerous weapon in a facility with people who are prone to violence… And on the next page he’s wearing his arm again.

I’m cutting J T Krul a lot of slack for his part in this but seriously… Also, so glad Batman and Black Canary left him alone and didn’t send anyone else to keep an eye on him, they’re such good friends to him.

Roy breaks into the prison in Star City where the Electrocutioner is being held. He fights off the guards, easily able to take them down. He throws a knife, opening all the cells on level 3 of the prison. He fights the prisoners whilst guard reinforcements arrive. Lester Buchinsky (the Electrocutioner) runs off but Roy tackles him to the ground. One of the guards runs to Green Arrow’s cell and opens it (he’s still in costume, must really stink after what must be several days in prison). From the description Ollie knows exactly what’s going on and goes to help.

He confronts Roy, about to kill the Electrocutioner with a knife, and a dialogue exchanges goes like this:

“Roy… Lian, think of Lian. She wouldn’t want this. You know that”

“She’s dead Ollie. It doesn’t matter anymore what she wants”

THEN WHY THE F*CK WERE YOU LISTENING TO HER ZOMBIE GHOST?

Anyway, when that goes nowhere, Green Arrow punches him (because punches solve everything) the fights continue, Green Arrow steals a few of Roy’s weapons to use. Citing that he would normally be outmatched but the residual drugs in his system is keeping him off balance (something that really should’ve been apparent, even more so really in his other fights) Roy is knocked backwards but Roy activates a security gate, blocking Green Arrow from reaching and the Electrocutioner.

Despite Ollie begging him not to do it, Lian tells him to gut him like the pig he is and he does so. He enters his house one last time, seeing visions of his memories from before, Zombie ghost Lian has become more comforting and has lost her zombie look. Roy shuts the door on her and burns the place down (gee, too bad she isn’t a ghost or something or she might not’ve been affected by that)

Issue 4 draws to a close with Red Arrow diving into some criminals with blades ready to deliver the kind of justice that generic anti-heroes from the 90s gave

THIS COMICS SERIES GIVES ME RAGE ISSUES!!!

I cannot believe that this was comic was recognised by Prism awards for the accurate depiction of drug use and mental health issues; it’s about as accurate as Yakko’s Universe. Except that was actually entertaining, this just sucked.

There are supposed to be 5 stages of grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and finally acceptance. Roy spend the entire series in Anger and any time you think you might bargain his way out of it, they bring on some more cr*p to block him. His impotence and the zombie ghost of Lian served that purpose. There is no resolution to the conflicts of this issue. Roy never apologises for what he said to Black Canary or Donna Troy. Many of his friends don’t even appear in the issue outside of the funeral. What were Starfire, Raven and Beast Boy doing that meant they couldn’t stop by and help. Hell what about his remaining friends from the Outsiders? Jade? Grace Choi? Thunder? Roy is one of the most well-connected superheroes there is and I’m supposed to believe that Black Canary and Batman were the only 2 that offered any psychological help (with Cyborg and Midnite offering mediacal help).

Continuing my earlier point. This title is a complete lie! Arsenal does not rise in this story at all. Sure it could be a notion for him retaking the moniker. But at no point in the comic is he ever referred to as Arsenal. And he doesn’t rise. He sinks to his lowest point at stays there for the entire comic. Green Arrow rose more in the fall of Green Arrow than Roy did in the rise of Arsenal.

The artwork in this series is decent for the most part, I’ve already outlined my minor criticisms with the artwork. And it some places inappropriate fan-service does ruin the scene.

Rage Rating 150%

After 2 comic rage reviews I could do with something that isn’t a comic for the next review, what’s up next?

Next: Superboy #0

Ah, sh*t. 

For more reviews click here

Images used in this review are from The Rise of Arsenal #1-4 and belong to their respective owners. All images in this review are subject to fair use.