Commissioned by Michael. Happy Birthday!
Oliver Queen is a shit in the way that many argue Batman is. On the one hand, he recognizes the injustices of his privilege and how giving a little to charity isn’t the same as actually giving a shit about the less fortunate. On the other hand, he believes in the systems of power that he claims to want to rebel against. He sees the authority of the police as valid enough to send off to do the paper work while he gallivants around the city as a mysterious hero. He’s an addict to various things from death defying feats to opium. Also, Oliver’s kind of a racist in that there’s a running gag about him calling the main baddie, Chein Na-Wei, “China White.”
That isn’t to say that Green Arrow Year One is a bad comic or even unaware of these aspects. It’s good and it does. But it’s perhaps best to open with an acknowledgement that Oliver Queen is not a good person. Nor is his arc in this story that of becoming a good person thanks to the help of some dead foreigners ala Iron Man. As Oliver himself notes, he didn’t do much to stop the slavers running the opium fields. It was the slaves that revolted and did the hard work of overthrowing their masters. But his presence on the island gave them hope that they can succeed in defeating their masters.
The stories that inspire us to be better aren’t always that great. If one were to actually do a close analysis of any number of Star Trek series, one could easily find racism, sexism, homophobia, and imperialist leanings. And yet, many left leaning people have found inspiration in those series, be it to go to the moon or shape their own utopia. The story of a man who is able to rebel against the oppressors, even if his story isn’t enough, is always a useful one to tell.
But equally, it is important to remember that these are stories being told, ones with flaws and problems. If one were to buy into the legend of a mythical white man coming to a foreign land and inspiring the people to rise up, one could miss the flaws in the story. Though Diggle does a lot of work to avoid the obvious white savior pitfalls, there is still a twinge of it lurking under the surface. The Asian baddies are shown to be plotting to use the opium they enslave the villagers to grow to create new generations of addicts in America. And there are times when it’s hard to actually root for Oliver Queen because he’s such a shit.
One could read those statements and see this as destroying other people’s fun and inspiration. And while there is at times a bit of that when it comes to criticism (usually when said fun involves being evil) that is not the purpose of critiquing inspirational texts. Rather, it is to help shape better texts to come in the future, ones not defined by rich white guys who are implausibly good at taking down people who benefit from a system of cruelty without actually dealing with said system. One doesn’t want to be trapped in the utopia of the 1960’s. There weren’t that many gay people in those.
The Legend of the Auu Lanu Lau’ava will be important to the culture of those who survived the wrath of the slavers and who succeeded in overthrowing them. It will, as all legends do, change over time to reflect the time it is being told. Some elements of it may be lost while others will find new relevance. The story of revolution is always necessary in times of cruelty and distress. But the critique of the story is likewise necessary.
Green Arrow Year One is a close look at the defining moment where Oliver Queen decided to change his addiction from Alcohol to Superheroics. The art by Jock is well drawn, in particular the angular way he draws his characters to evoke the crooked nature of the world being presented. Andy Diggle does wonders with the six issues he’s provided and makes the most out of a genuinely unlikable protagonist. The colors are at once muted and poppy. And it’s a quick, well-written read.
But it’s also playing a bit too closely to the white savior tropes and themes that it almost becomes awful. It’s not really about those themes and implications in the way that Gene Luen Yang’s The Shadow Hero is about Fu Manchu. It’s not interested in examining the base assumptions of the genre beyond avoiding the obvious holes. It’s a well-written book that you’ll have a good time reading. It’s just not one with a lot of stimulating implications.
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