Green Arrow: Straight Shooter Vol 04

Strait Shooter picks up where archer quest left off. It shows the even green arrow is human and makes mistakes. Also a seceond string chararcter like Black Lighting can be dangerous when provked.

"Straight Shooter" is actually volume FOUR in the Green Arrow series rather than volume three as indicated on the cover. It follows the two volumes by Kevin Smith ("Quiver" and "The Sounds of Violence") and the volume by Brad Meltzer ("The Archer's Quest"). This book collects issues 26-31 of the regular series and marks the debut of new writer Judd Winick. The artwork on all four volumes are by Phil Hester and Ande Parks, an artistic team that is fast growing into the *definitive* Green Arrow artists of our generation (following the greats of the past generation: Neal Adams, Trevor Von Eeden and Mike Grell).The *new* Green Arrow adventures actually begin with this volume. Kevin Smith brought him back from the dead and Brad Meltzer brought him back to LIFE after a self-examination quest. Judd Winick picks up the baton and runs with it, giving us the first new adventure of Oliver Queen in his own title. Winick understands the challenge of writing someone like Ollie and in my opinion, he's doing a fine job with his first outing. We have a story of Ollie going up against a "fat-cat" corrupt corporation in Star City, flirting with a young lawyer, stuggling with his doubts and childishness and finally the introduction of a scary villain in Drakon (a first step in creating a "rogues gallery" for Ollie)."Straight Shooter" shows a lot of promise by the new creative team. I'm looking forward to future volumes by Winick and gang.

This collection takes issues 26-31 of the series and reprints them as one. It's a reasonably good storyline, with a couple of interesting cameos and a good fight scene for Connor against a short killer with amazing abilities. The storyline revolves around a construction site that's being inhabited by a monster. The identity of the monster (and all the others afterward) is supposed to be the big shocker, but if you don't see it coming you aren't trying. Black Lightning makes an appearance here, but Superman has to be credited with possibly the shortest and most convenient cameo I've seen in comics for years. GA is surrounded by 20 or so monsters, suddenly Supes comes from nowhere and ties them all up, then leaves. Sounds almost like a video game using a cheat code or something! He's in the book for one page (literally!), and then he's gone. There's also another problem here. GA is quickly turning into Wolverine. He's this big bad character who supposedly would just as soon kill you as look at you...and yet he never actually kills anyone! He's just sort of turning into a bully in the DC universe.Another problem is his involvement with one of the female characters. He's in love with the Black Canary--he comes back from the dead and is still in love with her, for crying out loud!--and yet he throws it all away for a one-night stand. What in the world is up with that? Why aren't they developing this character more?All in all, this story had enough interesting points to make it worth reading. Unfortunately it doesn't really progress GA's character that much, and the ending is a little subdued for the rest of the book's hype. Still, I'm glad to see another GA collection and would buy the next. Mildly recommended.