Comics Reviews: Green Arrow 15, Suicide Squad 24

Green Arrow #15 – “Seattle and Die” – Mike Grell/Ed Hannigan/Dick Giordano, Frank McLaughlin

This one starts with Oliver (Green Arrow) Queen and Dinah (Black Canary) Lance having a quiet dinner at a jazz restaurant. Their quiet evening turns loud when some thugs come in to rob the place. Oliver and Dinah start kicking their asses, but almost get shot. They’re saved by a stranger at the bar who pulls out a gun and blows two of the robbers away. He doesn’t wait around for the cops and Oliver and Dinah don’t try to stop him from leaving. Lieutenant Cameron is pissed off about vigilantes in general, and about ones who kill in particular. Oliver isn’t too cooperative with the cops (his description of the shooter comes out looking like Nixon) and later tells Dinah he wants to find the guy and get his story before judging him. Thanks to a matchbook the shooter left behind (which Oliver didn’t show the cops) he finds the guy’s hotel. Oliver takes over a bottle of whisky and has a manly conversation with the guy (who calls himself Archie Leach, even though he looks nothing like Cary Grant). It kinda sounds like the guy is an assassin, selling his skills while waiting to die himself because of some past trauma. (Every morally ambiguous character has some past trauma.) They’re getting along fine (and Oliver doesn’t seem bothered by Archie’s career choice) until Oliver points out a woman’s photo on the nightstand and Archie tells him to get lost. Oliver leaves, but some other guys arrive a few minutes latter and blow the place up. Oliver is only a couple of blocks away, so he’s startled by the explosion.

Noticeable Things:

• I can’t help wondering if Mike Grell is a Mack Bolan fan. In Warlord, Travis Morgan uses Bolan’s favourite gun, a .44 Automag and here Archie is using a Beretta 93-R, another of Bolan’s pet guns. Coincidence, or is Grell a fan of the Executioner books?

Suicide Squad #24 – “Slings and Arrows” – John Ostrander, Kim Yale/Luke McDonnell/Karl Kesel

This one starts with Amanda Waller (and her lawyer Antoine Hearns) in front of a Senate subcommittee asking her questions about the Suicide Squad. Waller won’t name any of the Squad members, citing national security, and has arranged for the team to be away on a mission so they can’t be subpoenaed. We get a flashback to Waller arranging the mission. Nemesis decides to quit the team rather than comply with Waller’s extra-legal maneuverings and threatens to go public if she tries to come after him, so she lets him go. The mission is to go to Ogaden to rescue a nun (Agnes Martinon) from the RENAMO rebels who kidnapped her, but the government won’t help since they consider Agnes a pain in the ass do-gooder. (We saw some of this dynamic in Firestorm 79.) Waller says she’s sending Father Craemer along to make sure things go well with Sister Agnes. Flo tells Waller about Oracle and lets her talk to the disembodied voice over the computer. Oracle offers to help the Squad with information and Waller agrees, but tells Flo to set up a virus to wipe Oracle out next time they get into the system. Dr. Lagrieve lets Waller know that he’s been offered a job at Vandermeer University (as we’ll see in Firestorm 82) and Waller tries to scare him into staying at Belle Rêve but he’s had enough of her bullshit. The team heads for Ogaden, with some of the veterans (Bronze Tiger, Vixen, Nightshade, Duchess, Captain Boomerang, and Shade) getting to know the newcomers (Dr. Light, Shrike, Count Vertigo, Punch and Jewellee, and Ravan, who’s controlled by an explosive collar around his neck). The plight of the Ogaden people really gets to Vixen and Bronze Tiger and things don’t get any better when they find the nearest rebel stronghold has been decimated by government troops. They’re attacked by more rebels and pound them, but Sister Agnes is nowhere to be found. It turns out the government forces took her, but they’re keeping her under wraps to prevent her from speaking out against the conditions in Ogaden. Bronze Tiger says they have to complete their mission to rescue Agnes … even if that means going up against the Ogaden government.