The Issue:
The Kill Machine: Part 1 by Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino
We start the issue with Oliver Queen wandering through the Black Mesa desert. Clearly dehydrated and lamenting his current situation, Ollie collapses to the ground and we jump back to three weeks prior where an upset Ollie is storming into Emerson’s office.
The two men fight about the current state of Queen Industries being bought out by a rival company. Things start to cool down a bit and Emerson drops a few hints about another kind of legacy left behind by the late Robert Queen. Before we can get into any details about that legacy, Emerson is shot in the back by a grappling arrow and yanked out of the office window!
Security bursts into the office and makes the natural assumption that Ollie is responsible. Not willing to go down for the crime, Ollie springs into action and takes out the security guards with a few snazzy moves. He calls Jax and Naomi for help in his escape and we see a clearly scared Jax with Naomi tied up in the background. Jax apologizes to Ollie and says the “he” is making them do it. Suddenly, the top floors of the Q-Core building explode, killing Jax and Naomi in the blast! (Alas, we hardly knew ya)
A distraught Ollie makes his way to one of his safe-houses in the city and gears up. In full Green Arrow gear now, he exits the safe-house and is greeted by the man behind all this madness.
The two break out into a fight but this man is clearly more prepared for the fight. Using Green Arrow’s trick arrows against him, the mystery man mocks Green Arrow and gains the upper hand. Just when things are looking very bleak for our hero, a new guy enters the fight and takes out Green Arrow’s adversary, yelling “Not Yet, Komodo!” in the process.
This new guy temporarily blinds Komodo, introduces himself as The Magus, and informs Oliver that he was never supposed to leave the island!
The Opinion:
Wow, wow, wow! This is the start that Green Arrow needed at the start of the New 52. With just this one issue, Jeff Lemire has planted so many seeds for future issues and clearly shows that he has a plan for this character. He gives Green Arrow a strong voice that I can get behind and introduces an interesting set of characters that have a lot of promise.
It’s not all butterflies and rainbows of course. The first part of the book feels like a bit of house cleaning from the first sixteen issues as Lemire gets rid of characters that didn’t gain much traction among fans. But, he did it in a way that opened up story possibilities and I appreciate that. It’s really just a minor problem that I fully expected when a team comes in to do a major overhaul of a book like this. Also, I’m writing this review after having already read issue #18 so I know it doesn’t carry over into the next issue.
Then of course, I have to talk about Andrea Sorrentino’s art. I was already excited when he was announced as the artist but this issue just confirms that he is perfect for this book. He gives the book the gritty street level feeling that a story like this needs. His heavy use of shadows has a noir quality that is accentuated by the black, white and green panels he uses for important moments in the story. He also does this thing where he places smaller panels over parts of the art to direct the reader’s eyes towards important details. It’s a fantastic way of making sure the reader is reading the art along with the words.
It seems like Green Arrow/Oliver Queen is finally getting the world building he’s needed for a while now and I can’t wait to see where it goes! This was exactly the start I was hoping for from this creative team and it’s a great place for new readers to jump into the series.
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