Green Arrow

Green Arrow is a fictional superhero in the DC Comics Universe who fights crime as a costumed archer, often using a variety of gadget arrows. He is often teamed with Speedy (alias his ward Roy Harper), Green Lantern or Black Canary. His secret identity is Oliver Queen, sometimes a wealthy playboy and sometimes a newspaper reporter/social activist, and his base of operations is the fictional Star City (although his adventures were originally set in New York City).

The Green Arrow character was inspired by a few different sources, including Edgar Wallace's The Green Archer (and the 1940 Columbia Pictures serial of the same name based on the novel) and Fawcett Publications' earlier archery-themed hero Golden Arrow. Green Arrow was also obviously created as an archery-themed version of the earlier character Batman, as several similarities between the two characters can be spotted, especially in Green Arrow's earlier incarnation: Green Arrow has a teenaged sidekick named Speedy just as Batman has Robin; Green Arrow and Batman are both millionaire playboys in their secret identitites; Green Arrow has an Arrowcar and an Arrowplane similar to Batman's Batmobile and Batplane; while Batman is summoned to police headquarters by the Bat-signal, Green Arrow is summoned by the Arrow-signal.

Publishing history

Created in 1941 by Mort Weisinger (who would become well-known as the editor of the Superman comic-books in the 1950s and 1960s) and artist George Papp, who remained with the series for almost twenty years, Green Arrow and Speedy first appeared in More Fun Comics #73 (cover-dated November 1941). Incidentally, another Mort Weisiner-created character called Aquaman also appeared for the first time in that issue, and in fact these two back-up features continued to run concurrently throughout the 1940s and 1950s, first in More Fun Comics until the mid-1940s, and then in Adventure Comics from issues #103 (cover-dated April 1946) to #269 (cover-dated February 1960). Green Arrow and Speedy also appeared in various issues of World's Finest Comics until issue #140 (cover-dated March 1964).

The Green Arrow and Speedy feature was one of five back-up features to be promoted in one of the earliest team-up books, Leading Comics, which featured a team known variously as the Seven Soldiers of Victory and the Law's Legionnaires. The other characters making up this team were a Green Hornet knock-off called The Crimson Avenger (along with his Kato-inspired partner Wing), The Vigilante, The Shining Knight, and The Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy. This series ran until issue #14 (cover-dated Spring 1945), at which point the content switched from superheroes to funny animals

Green Arrow was one of the few DC characters to keep going after the Golden Age of Comic Books. The longevity of the character was due to the influence of creator Mort Weisinger, who kept Green Arrow and Aquaman as back-up features to the headlining Superboy feature first in More Fun Comics and then Adventure Comics. The Green Arrow and Speedy feature had a relatively undistinguished publishing history, though the main exception in this period was a short run in 1958 by Jack Kirby who tried some different stories with the character. After the last original Green Arrow and Speedy features in the early 1960s, Green Arrow was made the first non-charter member of the Justice League of America, a team which guaranteed the character's being continually featured, in some way or another, continuously until 1998.

In 1969 artist Neal Adams decided to update the character's visual appearance by giving him a goatee beard and costume of his own design. Inspired by Adams' redesign, writer Dennis O'Neil followed up on Green Arrow's new appearance by completely remaking the character's attitude in the pages of Justice League of America #79 (cover-dated November 1969), giving his personality a rougher edge like that of Marvel Comics' archery-themed hero Hawkeye. This revision was explained by having Oliver Queen lose his fortune and become an outspoken and strident advocate of the underprivileged in society and the political left wing. In short, he became a kind of superhero cross between Robin Hood and Abbie Hoffman. In addition, the Green Arrow began a long running romantic relationship with The Black Canary. As a member of the Justice League, he became an argumentative figure who tended to get on the others' nerves.

In the early 1970s, he became a co-featured with Green Lantern in the latter's series in an acclaimed, but shortlived series of stories by O'Neil and Adams that dealt with various social and political issues in which Green Arrow spoke for the liberal argument (and thus a voice for O'Neil himself) and Green Lantern was a half-hearted conservative advocate. When the Green Lantern series was revived, the pair would put aside politics for more standard adventures.

In 1987, the character was changed once more in Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters by Mike Grell in which he decides to abandon his gadget arrows in favour of exclusively regular ones and grimly fights crime in Seattle, Washington. This lead to a long running regular series that would eventually have Oliver Queen killed off and replaced by his son.

In 2000, Oliver Queen was revived in a new series written by Kevin Smith which returned the character to his pre-Mike Grell period.

Green Arrow has a small role in Frank Miller's futuristic The Dark Knight Returns, in which he has recently been released from prison, is bald, and has lost his left arm and carries a grudge against Superman for it. Batman has him shoot a single Kryptonite arrow at Superman; Green Arrow draws the bowstring with his teeth.

Green Arrow also appears in Cartoon Network's Justice League Unlimited cartoon series.

Secret origins

The character Green Arrow has had several official "secret origins" attributed to it.

Washed overboard on an ocean cruise, the wealthy Oliver Queen lived like Robinson Crusoe on a desert island, hunting with a bow. When criminals came to the island, he captured them and returned to civilization.