Green Arrow

The CW Reveals Elseworlds Crossover Poster 

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Arrow’s own Stephen Amell took to Twitter to reveal the official poster for The CW’s upcoming crossover event, Elseworlds. The poster flips the Arrowverse on its head with Amell and The Flash actor Grant Gustin switching mantles.

This year’s crossover kicks off with The Flash on Sunday, December 9, followed by Arrow on Monday, December 10, before it all comes to an end in Supergirl on Tuesday, December 11. Not only will destiny be rewritten during Elseworlds, but it will also mark the Arrowverse’s first foray into Gotham City.

The crossover event stars Stephen Amell as Oliver Queen/Green Arrow, Melissa Benoist as Kara Danvers/Supergirl, Grant Gustin as Barry Allen/The Flash, and Tyler Hoechlin as Clark Kent/Superman, among others.

Elseworlds will also mark the debut of Ruby Rose as Kate Kane/Batwoman, Elizabeth Tulloch as Lois Lane, Jeremy Davies as Dr. John Deegan, and Cassandra Jean Amell as Nora Fries, the wife of Mr. Freeze.

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Thanks to Scoop for letting me reprint their article!

http://scoop.previewsworld.com/Home/4/1/73/1012?ArticleID=219922

Seven Soldiers of Victory, part 2: Green Arrow and Speedy!

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Adventure Comics #439, June 1975

The back-up feature is an unpublished saga of the Seven Soldiers of Victory – written in the Golden Age but never rendered and completed until 1975.

Adventure 439 splash

Part Three: Green Arrow and Speedy

“Father Time’s Inn!”

Writer: Joseph Samachson, Penciler/Inker: Lee Elias, Editor: Joe Orlando & Paul Levitz

Green Arrow and Speedy enter the Land of Magic in front of Father Time’s Inn. They enter hoping to find a way home. They meet Father Time and his Boarders – heavenly bodies such as stars, moons, planets, etc. All of the Boarders are arguing.

Green Arrow and Speedy stop the erupting brawl, but are themselves knocked out my Mars and Mercury. They escape by turning Father Time’s hourglass upside down, thus reversing time and making the ropes untie themselves. Time goes all the way back to the beginning of Father Time and the heavenly bodies’ argument.

Father Time turns his hourglass back to normal and commands the constellations to attack Green Arrow and Speedy. After GA beats back Sagittarius and Cancer, he offers to help mediate the argument (the sun intentionally hid behind the earth to eclipse the new, shiny crescent moon).

Father Time rewards Green Arrow and Speedy by lending them a comet to return home.

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You know, reading through this plot synopsis had me thinking there may be a REASON this story sat in a drawer for thirty years…

The Statement of Ownership says the average number of issues sold were 144,055.

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What a coup to have Lee Elias draw this Green Arrow strip! He was GA’s regular artist during his 1959-1964 runs in Adventure Comics and World’s Finest! He is the co-creator of Eclipso … an eclipse was the reason for the argument in the story. Coincidence?

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About the author: Michael Curry is the author of the Brave & Bold: From Silent Knight to Dark Knight, The Day John F Kennedy Met the Beatles and the award-winning Abby’s Road, the Long and Winding Road to Adoption and How Facebook, Aquaman and Theodore Roosevelt Helped.  Check his website for more releases! Thanks for reading!

 

 

Super-Team Family #2: January 1976

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Behold, the Bronze Age!

bronze-age

Creeper and Wildcat: “Showdown in San Lorenzo!”

Writer: Denny O’Neil, Artists: Ric Estrada & Bill Draut, Editor: Gerry Conway

Wildcat agrees to fight contender Japhy Shim for charity but also to drum up publicity for Shim and the resort paradise San Lorenzo. Jack Ryder of WHAM is there doing the play-by-play.

A gas grenade interrupts Wildcat’s interview. In the chaos, thugs grab Shim and Jack Ryder changes into the Creeper! Creeper’s old enemy Proteus is standing in the ring and Creeper attacks!

Creeper eventually realizes he is fighting Wildcat and not Proteus; deducing that Proteus used hypnotic gas to fool Creeper to get him and Wildcat out of the way. Creeper and Wildcat decide to rescue Shim together.

Their hunt leads them to San Lorenzo. General Pedro Lobo (who lost the recent national elections), demands to be put back into power or Shim will not fight the champion! The financial loss to San Lorenzo will bankrupt it! The readers discover Lobo is really Proteus using his power of disguise.

Wildcat agrees to take Shim’s place during the big fight.

Jack Ryder/Creeper spots one of the thug from the charity match and follows him. He discovers Proteus intends to off Shim by dropping him to the ring from the ceiling of the arena!

Creeper captures Proteus and his thugs, but not before Proteus hurls Shim from the rafters to the boxing ring. Wildcat, knocked flat by the champ, sees Shim and breaks his fall. Through the thugs’ confession, Creeper confronts the President of San Lorenzo – who orchestrated the entire kidnapping plan to consolidate his power and ensure his reelection!

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The text feature gives brief origins for Wildcat and Creeper.

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“Track of the Hook” (Batman and Deadman) from Brave and Bold #79 (September 1968)

Even in 1976 the Deadman saga from Strange Adventure was considered a comic book classic. Part of the saga was told in the pages of Brave & Bold. In fact, the two Batman/Deadman tales (of which this was the first) book-ended B&B’s greatest run: #s 79-86. Unabashed plug: for more check out my free ebook, Brave & Bold: from Silent Knight to Dark Knight).

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Green Arrow: “Mystery of the Vanishing Arrows” from Adventure Comics #266 (November 1959).

Superman appears to help solve the mystery.

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The Batman/Deadman story was not an odd choice to reprint in this issue, but it certainly overshadowed the “new” tale that fronted the magazine. This story got top billing on the cover.

So why “debut” the team-up format with (to be kind) C-grade heroes? Did they think a comic starring Wildcat and the Creeper would fly off the shelves? It even got second billing on the cover!

Why not team more popular heroes that did not have their own magazines – like Green Arrow or (at that time) Green Lantern? GA could have been deftly inserted over Wildcat (whose only appearances in the past twenty years were in the pages of Brave & Bold).

The story and art were good, but not great. The exercise was fun, but forgettable.

For a new team-up book, this is Strike Two (Strike One being the debut issue promising but not delivering no new material)…

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About the author: Michael Curry is the author of the Brave & Bold: From Silent Knight to Dark Knight, The Day John F Kennedy Met the Beatles and the award-winning Abby’s Road, the Long and Winding Road to Adoption and How Facebook, Aquaman and Theodore Roosevelt Helped.  Check his website for more releases! Thanks for reading!

ARROW, Season 7

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Read the original story here: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/black-lightning-arrow-flash-supergirl-legends-tomorrow-castings-news-comic-con-2018-1127968

— Written by Sydney Bucksbaum (@SydneyBucksbaum), thanks for allowing me to share your story!

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(Season seven returns Monday, Oct. 15 at 8 p.m. on The CW)

Now that Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) has publicly confessed to being the Green Arrow, he’ll face old enemies locked up with him behind bars while the new villain team-up The Longbow Hunters wreak havoc and get their revenge on Oliver for taking down season six villain Ricardo “Dragon” Diaz (Kirk Acevedo).

Returning to Arrow this season are some familiar faces that Oliver put in jail in previous seasons: Ben Turner/Bronze Tiger (Michael Jai White), Derek Sampson (Cody Runnels) and Danny “Brick” Brickwell (Vinnie Jones). All three are locked up in Slabside Maximum Security Prison, aka Oliver’s new home. As for The Longbow Hunters previously hinted at by Diaz in season six, the iconic group of assassins takes shape onscreen in the form of three new characters: ruthless and precise killer Red Dart played by Holly Elissa (Whistler), a beast of a man with brute force Kodiak played by Michael Jonsson (Van Helsing) and master of stealth Silencer played by Miranda Edwards (The Magicians, Orphan Black).

In her first San Diego Comic-Con panel as the new showrunner of Arrow, Beth Schwartz took to the stage along with Amell, David Ramsey, Emily Bett Rickards, Rick Gonzalez, Echo Kellum, Juliana Harkavy and returning series regular Colton Haynes. The cast praised Schwartz bringing her own flavor to the series, with Haynes promising that it’s one of the most exciting moments for the series having a female at the helm. And as for that Batwoman crossover coming later this year, Schwartz teases, “We’re super excited about but we’re working on the first half of the season so the crossover is not yet something [we’re at].”

And in a touching moment harkening back to last year’s Comic-Con panel, Amell reunited with Sara, the little girl battling cancer he gave his necklace to a year ago with the promise she would return it in a year. She was the first in line to ask a question at the mic halfway through the panel this year, making good on that promise, and Amell traded his necklace for the one thing he ever stole from the set: Oliver’s first bow. The entire Ballroom 20 cheered, many fans even getting on their feet as Amell ran off the stage to give Sara the bow and whisper a message into her ear.

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About the blogger: Michael Curry is the author of the Brave & Bold: From Silent Knight to Dark Knight, The Day John F Kennedy Met the Beatles and the award-winning Abby’s Road, the Long and Winding Road to Adoption and How Facebook, Aquaman and Theodore Roosevelt Helped.  Check his website for more releases! Thanks for reading!

A Bronze Age Christmas: Justice League #110

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Behold!

Bronze age Christmas

Special Christmas Edition!

Justice League of America #110, March, 1974

Cover: Nick Cardy

“The Man Who Murdered Santa Claus!”

Writer: Len Wein, Penciler: Dick Dillin

Inker: Dick Giordano, Editor: Julius Schwartz

From DC Wikia:

The Key returns and engineers the murder of the Santa Claus scheduled to appear at an orphans’ Christmas Party with Superman and Batman, thus issuing a challenge to the Justice League. John Stewart, Hal Jordan’s official substitute, stands in for a temporarily incapacitated Green Lantern, as the JLA heroes enter a death-trap, a dilapidated building in a St. Louis ghetto. One by one, the members sacrifice them-selves in a gauntlet of traps, so that the others can go on to defeat their foe, first Superman, then Black Canary, Batman, and Green Arrow. Red Tornado and John Stewart also seem to perish, but actually all the members are saved by the intervention of the Phantom Stranger. The Key, having learned that he has only a short time to live, and having vowed to destroy the JLA before he dies, now escapes, and the heroes must evacuate an entire city block, which the villain’s devices are set to destroy. The substitute Green Lantern immediately recreates the old ghetto buildings, repairing them in the process. Later, Red Tornado is presented with his Christmas gift — a new and more colorful costume.

Any JLA story that takes place in my hometown in a good one!

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This 100-page giant also includes reprints from All-Star Comics #40 and Justice League of America #51.

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The issue also includes a Justice League crossword puzzle and a superb Justice Society portrait by Murphy Anderson.

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The letters page contains mostly praise for JLA #107: Crisis on Earth-X.

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About the author: Michael Curry is the author of the Brave & Bold: From Silent Knight to Dark Knight, The Day John F Kennedy Met the Beatles and the award-winning Abby’s Road, the Long and Winding Road to Adoption and How Facebook, Aquaman and Theodore Roosevelt Helped.  Check his website for more releases! Thanks for reading!

The DC-CW line-up: Our story so far…

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Our Story So Far

We are at the mid-season cliffhangers of the four DC-CW Television shows. Here are some thoughts:

SUPERGIRL

Supergirl is DC-CW’s touchy-feely show. I don’t mean this in a bad way – but the show deals with the emotional health of the characters much more so than the other shows.

But that doesn’t mean it lacks fun and plenty of comic-booky action.

This season we meet Samantha Arias, a co-worker of Kara (Supergirl) and who slowly discovers she has super powers. She IS from Krypton and turned into Reign by Krypton’s version of the devil. Now Reign is killing off National City gang members and other bad guys to the delight of Morgan Edge, who is blaming Supergirl.

Also, Mon-El is back. He was thrust into the future and formed the Legion (of Superheroes). Now some of them are in the present, although we’ve only met Saturn Girl so far…

The mid-season ends with Reign defeating Supergirl in a brutal battle over National City. Supergirl is in critical condition and Reign/Arias confronts her young daughter …

FLASH

The Flash is halfway through its best season since its first. We’ve slogged through almost every evil speedster in the DC Universe as the season-long Big Bad and fortunately Flash is NOT repeating itself, again. The joy that imbued the first season is back in this one. Mostly thanks to two events: the upcoming marriage of Barry and Iris and the introduction of Ralph Dibny. The joy from the former is obvious (we’ve been rooting for these two since the premier episode) and the latter reminds us of what fun this show can be. Ralph can be likeable and unlikeable, and he is played to perfection by Hartley Sawyer – he even LOOKS like the Elongated Man from the comics!

It all makes a refreshing change from the previous season: the constant losing to the Big Bad, the plans made that were thwarted forty minutes later episode after episode … add to that the characters’ gnashing teeth and rending garments over the unstoppable foretold death of Iris … episode after episode. By the time it was done, we sighed in relief. Not because of the “happy” ending, but just because it was over.

I see signs of the “episode after episode” problem with this year’s Big Bad – the Thinker. The cliffhanger ends with Flash framed for the Thinker’s murder. I hope they can continue the upbeat tone until the end of the season.

LEGENDS OF TOMORROW

The unloved step-child of the DC-CW is still going at season three. This season is probably its best season so far. But compared to the prior two, that is not saying much.

Now the Legends are fixing anachronisms in time. Somehow this led to the resurrection of Damian Darkh. Darkh’s Big Bad villainy was the low point of Arrow and was misused in last season’s Legends. I rolled my eyes when I saw this overused and overpowered character revealed as the Big Bad this season (there is a Bigger Bad lurking but we don’t really know much at this point). I roll my eyes in every episode in which Darkh thwarts the Legend’s plans. Episode after episode …

Still, I like the show. It’s fun, pure and simple. Everyone seems to be having a great time and you can feel that through the screen. I wish they had more to work with as far as decent stories and effective bad guys instead of the same old same old.

The cliffhanger ends with John Constantine recruiting the Legends … I applauded. I knew the character was coming to the show for at least one episode, but it was still a pleasure.

Rumors abound that a character from Arrow will join Legends, replacing Firestorm. It could be anybody – I’m hoping for Ragman!

ARROW

Arrow is also coming off an awful season, which itself followed a bad season (with the aforementioned Darkh). Both suffered from the problem that plagued Flash last season: constant losing to the Big Bad … episode after episode. Big Bad gets captured at one point but only to escape. No progress, no satisfaction for the viewers.

This season is better, although the same problems remain – repeated failure against this season’s Big Bad (which the cliffhanger shows us to be a TEAM of Big Bads). Also, Team Arrow has broken up …  again. Oh, and Oliver Queen is on trial accused of being the Green Arrow … again.

This season is better, but I wish it were better still.

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Oh, and the line-wide crossover Crisis on Earth X? Superb (although not without its flaws, but they are minor)! And it did something the comics rarely did during cross-over Crises – make permanent changes that will affect the second halves of this season. By why drag out Eobard Thawn again? How many villains has DC created in its 82 years of publishing? Use different ones. Please?

BLACK LIGHTNING is coming in January!

Copyright 2017 Michael Curry