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
