Green Arrow #18 is now in comic book stores everywhere from DC Comics, written by Chris Condon with art by Montos. And with it comes a brand new status quo for Oliver Queen. Or rather, an old one that harkens way back to his liberal vigilante days. And not only that, but it also goes all the way back to the original 1983 miniseries that kicked off Green Arrow.
Spoilers past this point, but in the final pages of the issue it becomes clear that a new villain we’ll come to know as the Fresh Water Killer is knocking off people who were at a Horton Chemicals party back in the day. And one of those attendees? Oliver Queen himself.
“I recommend people read the Mike Barr, Trevor Von Eeden four-issue mini-series that came in 1983, which I’ve been talking about a lot, because it it’s an integral part, because of Horton Chemical, which is the what our story is about,” Condon told Comic Book Club. “They’re the ones who were dumping toxic waste. That’s an organization that Ollie takes over for a short period of time as a favor to a friend. It’s in that miniseries, that happens. So it is important that you read that.”
To find out more about the issue, including why Ollie is living in a broken-down apartment, and just when Black Canary might show up to give him a little talking to… Read on.
Comic Book Club: It seems like the killer is targeting people who are at a party back in the day… Given the way that everything is framed in the final page, does that potentially include Oliver?
Chris Condon: It may be. It may be what I want to get into further issues. I recommend people read the Mike Barr, Trevor Von Eeden four-issue mini-series that came in 1983, which I’ve been talking about a lot, because it it’s an integral part, because of Horton Chemical, which is the what our story is about. They’re the ones who were dumping toxic waste. That’s an organization that Ollie takes over for a short period of time as a favor to a friend. It’s in that miniseries, that happens. So it is important that you read that. And yeah, if somebody’s targeting people that work here, Horton Chemical, yes, Ollie could possibly be somebody who is targeted as well.
I love the cut from Oliver looking at the picture, into the flashback on the same page. I thought that was very tricky to pull off, but it works in large part because of Adriano Lucas’s colors, just giving it a different color grade on the page.
Montos and Adriano are doing a fantastic job. I would also highlight Hassan [Otsmane-Elhaou]’s work as well. It’s the way that he integrates lettering into the scene where it feels a part of it. And really, in my opinion, lettering is an art form on its own. I’ve literally just had this conversation with somebody on Bluesky where they were saying that getting a great letterer is an important part of the comics, creating comics. And I agreed, because I tried to letter in my own book once, and it didn’t go well. So having somebody like Hass is such an important part of it.
But yeah, for that sequence in particular… For this story arc, what happened in that mini-series is pretty important, and I wanted to play with the past in knowing that, and that’s something that I tend to do in That Texas Blood and The Enfield Gang Massacre, where I tend to play around with historical events. So that was something that I wanted to do. I wanted to dive into Ollie’s past… His feelings on certain people and the organization as a whole.
But in terms of the the artwork, Montos has just been knocking out of the park, bringing a gritty, realistic feeling to things… He just makes really interesting character choices and designing characters. In terms of the art, I can’t really speak to that. I just sit back and watch these amazing things come into my inbox. But yeah, that was what I really wanted to do with it was just to dive into the past and explore Ollie’s relationship with these people in this organization that is causing a lot of mayhem right now in Star City.
We also get to see Ollie in, I assume it’s an apartment, watching TV, putting on deodorant. It seems pretty broken down. I know you said that he’s staying away from the whole Arrow family, but this seems almost the extreme. What could you do about what’s going on there?
It came back down to that first mandate from DC, where they were like, well, “we want to go more Daredevil. We want to go more street level.” And that was, let’s just get back to basics, baby. Let’s just do it. Let’s have him go on this monastic retreat where he rents an apartment. He’s gonna live in the slums by himself. I feel like that’s a really interesting choice for a character, especially a character who’s just gone through what he went through in Absolute Power, betraying his family, betraying all of his friends, betraying his world and his worldview to a large extent. That was necessary as somebody who has had moments in his life that I’ve had to retreat and have to rethink things, and have to then move forward in a different way. I felt like it was a very human choice to have him essentially start over. There’s that great John Lennon song, “(Just Like) Starting Over,” and that’s what Ollie is doing in this.
The idea came from wanting to capture that vibe again. At the end of Josh [Williamson]’s issue 17, he sets up more of that street level feel. But how do you keep going through that when you have Speedy, or all these characters showing up constantly. And then he reintroduced the the Arrow Cave. And the Arrow car and all this. I was just like, let’s have him really strip himself bare, and have to make do with what he has, and essentially live on an island by himself. That’s where we’ll go from there. After this arc, we’ll see. People have to wait and see, but that’s where we’re going with this, at least.
The only character that I had questions about it — and I know she showed up in #17 — is Black Canary, because obviously they’re so romantically tied together. Are we potentially going to see her reacting to Ollie’s new living situation at some point?
Yeah, so this story arc is going to be six issues, and then the seventh issue is going to be a cleanup epilogue, and she most certainly will be featured at some point in these seven issues. Don’t worry, he’ll have to deal with [laughs] “What are you doing?”
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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