DC Comics reviews for the week of 7/4/18

Green Arrow #42

Green Arrow has to stop Parasite from escaping a supermax prison, but he’s running out of tricks as a villain strong enough to battle Superman is gaining more power.

Mairghread Scott’s story isn’t too complex, but she’s got a great sense of who Oliver Queen is, his backstory and his sensibilities. Green Arrow is focused on stopping Parasite, but on a dime, he stops to consider how Parasite’s plight in a way most heroes wouldn’t and calls out the authority figures tasked with monitoring him. That’s vintage Green Arrow in a way we haven’t always seen lately. I’d really like to see Scott do some more work on Green Arrow as she seems to truly get him.

Artist Matthew Clark really put in an impressive amount of work in these two issues. He really could have done some basic layouts and it would have sufficed, but the extra effort takes it up another notch. The artwork throughout is really stunning and the layout tells a compelling story. My only issue is with this modern look for Parasite, which makes him look more like a blob than a leech. Clark does his best to toss in some detail, but it dulls some of the impact of the character.

In the end this storyline doesn’t have a ton of consequences, but makes for a nice fill-in arc with a creative team that warrants another shot at the Emerald Archer. This isn’t essential reading since a new creative team is coming on board, but it was a classic Green Arrow story and worth grabbing for fans.

Rating: 8 out of 10