Trick Arrow of the Week: Aqua-Lung Arrow

Trick Arrow of the Week: Aqua-Lung Arrow

Have you ever been trapped in the bowels of a giant flying mechanical octopus (and really, who hasn't)?

Well, then this puppy's for you! Featuring beautiful real feather fletching, a charming green color scheme and just enough air to escape that metallic, multi-tentacled horror, the Aqua-Lung Arrow is a must have for any serious costumed adventurer...or bargain basement scuba diver.

Green Arrow Fanclub Name

Hey guys!

At the fine suggestion of Tweety, I hereby christen Green Arrow Fans "Arrowheads." There are already a couple people who qualify, so stay tuned!.

Happy Memorial Day

Happy Memorial Day folks. Enjoy your day off, bu make sure to take some time to remember why you get it.

Blog Admin: Apologies

Loyal Readers! Your humble correspondent must apologize for the lack of posts the last several days. I've actually been house hunting, believe it or not (the house must contain a suitable comic book room!) and that has taken a majority of my time. However, things should be back to normal next week!

Ollie Watch Addenda: May 21st

Booster Gold #9

Hey everyone, quick update!

Keep an eye out for a small, but important, Green Arrow appearance in Booster Gold #9

Friends of Green Arrow?

Greetings loyal readers. I'm thinking about becoming a bit of a copy cat and creating an appreciation society along the lines of Friends of Aquaman (F.O.A.M.) over at the Aquaman Shrine, or P.A.L. over at Plastic man Platitudes.

Unfortunately, I'm terrible at coming up with names for these sorts of things. The title is one possibility, but it's a little close to Rob's name for comfort, plus F.O.G.A.?

It seems all the words I come up with (B.O.W., O.L.L.I.E., A.R.R.O.W.) are tough to come up with acronyms for, and all the names I think up have nothing to do with Green Arrow.

About the best candidate I have now is G.L.O.V.E. (Green Arrow LoVers of Earth).

Any ideas?

Ollie Watch: May 21st, 2008

Justice League of America #21

Check out Roy Harper on the cover there!...getting his ass handed to him by a D-List one-shot villain from the 50's that no one ever cared about in the first place. But hey, this issue starts off the story line which will inevitably kill one of my other favorite characters! Wow, not a lot to get excited about, here.

::le sigh::










Batman and the Outsiders #7

Ollie and the gang are in deep trouble in the heart of China, while poor Metamorpho is still stuck in space...and apparently scaring the crap out of some random astronauts.

Spotlight:: World's Finest Comics #97

Issue: World's Finest Comics #97

Title: The Menace of the Mechanical Octopus

Credits: France Herron (story) Jack Kirby!! (art) Roz Kirby (art)

Cover Date: October, 1958

Synopsis: As a jeweler puts some of his inventory in the safe, he's suddenly attacked by a giant mechanical tentacle, which steals the jewels! Luckily, Green Arrow and Speedy are patrolling nearby in the Arrow-Plane., which speeds after the flying mechanical beast! Unfortunately, our heroes are unable to stop the machine because it releases a cloud of smoke and escapes in the confusion. GA and Speedy do manage to recover the jewels with a well places rope arrow, however.

Later, the Archers Extraordinare get word by way of arrow signal that the evil machine is robbing a train. They rush after it in the Arrowcar, and although they drive the beast off, they're captured and placed in a cell. Luckily GA managed to sneak an "acetylene arrow" on board, which he uses to melt through the bars. Then, using their (sigh) "aqua-lung arrows" they make it to the surface in time to foil the machine's inventors and their plan to rob a cruise ship!

Thoughts: Well, more silly arrows! We have a rope arrow, a short-circuit arrow, an acetylene arrow, an aqua-lung arrow AND firecracker arrows. Add that to the giant flying metal octopus, and you have a recipe for Silver Age silliness at its finest! Plus, Jack Kirby art!

Admin note: We'll be pausing our overview of the O'Neil/Adams run of Green Lantern/Green Arrow until Heroescon in late June. We got up to 83, but 84 and 87 are currently missing from my collection, and rather than go back and cover them later, I'd rather continue in order.

AAAAAAAAND I'm back

New content on Monday!

Short Hiatus

Hey guys, I'm going to have to put the Arrowcave on hiatus until May 19th. I'm going on vacation starting tomorrow and won't have internet access. I was going to try using Blogger's new scheduling capability to put material up in me absence, but I didn't have time to get that far ahead with my posts.

Anywho, I'll be back in a week and a half!

Trick Arrow of the Week: Tuning Fork Arrow

Trick Arrow of the Week: Tuning Fork Arrow

Now THIS is an arrow Ollie should sell to the military. I managed to take out a tank with it! Also, deafen a passerby who also happened to be a musician, thus creating a villain for the JLA to fight later, but I digress...

Image courtesy of Rob! of the JLA Satellite.

Sketchbook Arrow: Booster Gold!

Another comission for yours truely by Coma Robot. Coma's real name is Matt Petz, and you can find more of his work here.

I'm really stoked about this one! I'm a huge Booster Gold fan, and I think Coma captured his smarmy self assurance extremely well. As a bonus, he threw in Booster's robot buddy Skeets!

Recommendation Arrow: Amethyst

No Ollie watch today, guys. Instead, I've decided on a new feature that I'll run occasionally, where I'll recommend books that I've picked up and really liked.

The first installment is a bit unusual. If people remember Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld at all, they remember a pretty princess story aimed at a young female audience. Admittedly, that's what the creative team was going for, but what they ended up with is an epic tale that anyone can enjoy.

The plot revolves are Amy Winston, a normal 13 year old girl who gets an amethyst gem for her birthday. Little does she know that this gem is the harbinger of serious change in her life. You see, Amy is not from Earth. She is secretly a native of Gemworld, a land of magic ruled by royal houses based on Earthly birthstones.

Amy's real parents, Lord and Lady Amethyst, were murdered by the devilish Lord Opal 20 years before. As the rightful rulers of Gemworld, they were the last obstacle in his plans for conquest. Luckily a family retainer, Citrina, managed to smuggle the infant Amy away from danger and to the safety of her adoptive parents
.
It is only 13 years later that Amy learns the truth and travels to Gemworld to take up her destiny as the rightful heir to the throne and the last hope of a conquered world.

Now, "little girl finds out she's secretly a magic fairy princess" sounds like a plot straight out of the latest Barbie straight-to-video piece of crap, but the story is much deeper than that. Although Amy ages to about 20 every time she enters Gemworld, she's still just a kid. She has a lot to learn and gets into some serious situations before she masters her magical birthright. Her supporting cast is also well fleshed out, and the Gemworld itself is world building at its finest.

The story continues as Amy and her allies try to rally support against Opal and occasionally looks in on her Earthly family, who love her deeply despite her not being their natural child.

All in all, there's a seriously entertaining, epic story going on here. If you come across these issues in a discount bin (I did) please pick them up. You won't be sorry!


Note: Amy's story is continued in a short lived ongoing follow-up to the original maxi-series. The original creative team left after the first 9 issues. The title really went down hill after that, so my recommendation stops there as well.

(Plus, you get amazing covers like the one above by George Perez)


Blog Admin: I went back to the old template. As Rick said, the site needs a little green!

Change in Schedule

Hey guys we're going ot make a slight alternation in the normal posting schedule. From now on I'll be doing Ollie Watches on Tuesdays and Spotlights on Modern Age books on Wednesdays. My weekly D&D game has shifted, but its also kind of useless to find out about current Green Arrow appearances the same day they come out!

New Header and layout

Thoughts?

Spotlight: Green Lantern #83

Issue: Green Lantern #83

Title: "and a Child Shall Destroy Them!"

Credits: Denny O'Neil (scripts) Neal Adams (cover,art)

Cover Date: Apr-May 1971

Synopsis: As an old man and his granddaughter are walking down the street, a young woman bumps into them. She apologizes, but the old man is incensed, and tells his granddaughter to punish her. Suddenly, the woman falls to the ground in pain...

Green Arrow, Green Lantern and Black Canary drive to a secluded private school. Dinah has taken a job there as the phys ed teacher, a move she hopes will get her life back on track.

They're greeted by the cook, Grandy, and his granddaughter, Cybil (who we've already seen before...). Soon they're introduced to a man named Jason Belmont, who owns the school. He greets them warmly, but Grandy insults the heroes.

Outside, Ollie and Hal find a strange woman hanging around their car. They approach cautiously, only to find the woman is in a wheel chair, and none other than Carol Ferris! It turns out she was the woman the little girl attacked previously, an attack which has left her paralyzed from the waist down. Jason Belmont is her fiance, and she fears he is in danger.

Ollie, Hal, and Carol decide to drive into town to contact the authorities. Suddenly, the building starts to shake itself to pieces! Hal manages to save them with his ring, but the car is destroyed. With one weird incident too many, the trio decide to head back to the school to get Dinah.

Meanwhile, Dinah lets her class out a few minutes early, as she muses on the fact that the children are creepily orderly and calm all the time. She's confronted by the cook who promises to punish her for violating the rules (letting her class out early). Dinah is confused as to why the school's cook is dressing her down. Worried, she changes into her costume and decides to investigate.

She's again confronted by Grandy and Cybil. Grandy gets a bit grabby, so Dinah put him into the floor. Incensed, he orders Cybil to hurt her too. Dinah is overcome by pain as the rest of the zombie like children carry her off to Grandy's dungeon. Grandy arrives in the dungeon and knocks over a wasp nest, then leaves. Dinah covers her face with her wig and prays for rescue.

GA, GL, and Carol Ferris arrive at the school. They try to sneak around to investigate, but a creak in a floorboard is enough to alert the children to their presence. Hal and Ollie get pelted by school supplies, a problem a man with a Green Lantern ring handles easily enough.

Grandy and Cybil arrive, and Grandy tries to get her to hurt these people too. Cybil resists, saying that she wants to be like the other kids, but a smack from Grandy is enough to set her straight. Ollie and Hal collapse with pain; pain so distracting Hal cannot use his ring. Ollie manages to let loose with a "vortex arrow" which produces a light and sound show powerful enough to overwhelm the senses.

Our heroes manage to find Dinah before too much damage is done, and are in the process of evacuating the school when Grandy pisses Cybil off one too many times. The building starts to fall apart around them, but Ollie and Hal manage to get everyone to safety, everyone except Grandy and Cybil.

Outside, Green Lantern realizes that he's been fooling himself into thinking he was over Carol, and pulls his mask off and reveals himself to be Hal Jordan. Carol admits that she still loves him as well, and they walk off together in the rain. As they do, the "camera" moves to Hal's abandoned mask...with Cybil standing over it!

Thoughts: Well, for a relatively low key issue, a lot happens. Carol Ferris shows up as a paraplegic, Dinah shows off her teaching chops, and our heroes must fight a lonely little girl. Probably the biggest event of the issue is Hal revealing his identity to and expressing his love for Carol Ferris...in front of her fiance...who doesn't object as he carries her off into the sunset. Definitely a strange issue.

Articulation Arrow: Action Figures from FCBD

Well folks, Free Comic Book Day has come and gone, and I know comic geeks everywhere are already ready for next year. I know I am! Of course, it wasn't just the free books that drew me out on that beautiful spring day in South Carolina, it was also the allure of hitting up new stores for action figures!

First, I finally got the figures Luke had picked up for me over the past few months.

Here we have Red Tornado from the new DC Universe classics line. Reddy here will make a fine addition to my collection, I just wish I could find Aquaman, Black Manta, and Firestorm to keep him company!

Luke also grabbed this wonderful Doctor Strange from the chibi style Super-Hero Squad line!












I also bought the DC: New Frontier version of Martian Manhunter at Richard's...just to keep Green Arrow company, of course!
















A trip to Toys-R-Us netted me this three pack of Justice League Unlimited New Gods! I already own the Orion, but Mr. Miracle and Darkseid are new additions!

Acquisitions: Free Comic Book Day 2008

Acquisitions and Event Report: Free Comic Book Day 2008

Well kids, its that time of year again. The time when comic book geeks rush out to their local stores for free swag...oh and some new people get introduced to the hobby through the free books.

I went up to Greenville for the weekend to visit fellow blogger Luke and non-blogger Joe. The first place we ended up was Borderlands, a comic/gaming store nearby. They had a big display full of the free books. I picked up most of the ones I was interested in, plus few more. I won't bore you by listing everything, but the only thing I missed out on was the TwoMorrows free book, but I can live with that.
Other than the free books, Borderlands didn't have much else going on. But that didn't stop Luke, Joe and I from going to town on the back issue bins! I'll give details on that later on.

The second store we tried was just down the street, at a place called "Richard's." That store had made a huge event out of the whole thing. There were people dressed up as Spiderman and various Star Wars characters, a tent outside with all the books, and a couple artists signing books inside. The place is really small, so I wasn't able to see who the artists were, but the whole thing was really cool. I didn't get any comics from here, but I did get a couple action figures.

In addition to the comic shops, we also made our way over to Toys-R-Us, where I picked up more action figs and Luke got his fill of Iron Man movie tie in merch.

The finale came after we'd finished with Toys-R-Us and lunch. I'm speaking of course of the Iron Man movie. If you haven't seen this flick, DO SO IMMEDIATELY. I don't care if you're performing life saving surgery at the moment, you owe it to yourself to buy a ticket. I haven't liked a comic book movie this much since X2, and since that's my favorite modern comic movie, that's saying something.

Now, on to what I got:

Doctor Strange: Gold mine at Borderlands! I found a BUNCH of issues of Strange Tales during the Doc run, plus a couple issues of Doc's first series when it continued the numbering from Strange Tales. In fact, one of the issues I got, 168, is th last Strange Tales before the switch. Issues: Strange Tales 145 and 148. Doctor Strange vol. 1 #168.

Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth: That's right folks, I've picked up a new fanboy category! I found about 8 issues of this series at Borderlands for a VERY reasonable price. I even found issue 11 in the dollar bins, in great shape! I ended up with issues 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 22, 24, and 33.

Defenders: Not much this time, just issue 121 from Borderlands' back issue bins.

Firestorm: Just one issue this time, #2 of the second series, courtesy of Borderlands' dollar bins.

Blue Beetle: Issue #9 of his 80's series

and finally

Green Arrow!

Oh man, I could have spent some serious cash on this one. Richard's had a nice copy of Green Lantern/Green Arrow #87, the first appearance of John Stewart. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite nice enough for my tastes. Most of the time I'm no high grade snob, but this run is an exception.

I did however get issue #1 of Green Arrow vol.1! This was the mini that marked Green Arrow's first appearance in his own mag, so its practically a major historical event!

I also picked up some action figures, but those will be detailed in a later post.

Sketckbook Arrow: Green Arrow by Coma Robot

This incredible piece of Green Arrow art was created by fellow Comic Geek Speak forum member "Coma Robot" specifically for yours truly. You can see more examples of his work here.

Flecha Verde!

Hey guys! Rob! over at the Aquaman Shrine posted this yesterday. Check out the middle comic there, starring Flecha Verde, the greatest archer in all of Mexico!