Green Arrow The Archer Quest Makes No Sense

[Timothy Hunter]

People tend to justly hate Identity Crisis for a lot of reasons. It's moments of character assassination, it's mean-spiritedness, and it's numerous plot holes. The reception towards Brad Meltzer's brief run on Green Arrow is seen in a much more positive light. I can see why. Meltzer seems to have a genuine love for Oliver Queen as a character.

However, I'm three issues into the Archer's Quest and there are as many holes in the plot as there are in Identity Crisis.

The story starts when the recently ressurected Oliver Queen is looking at photos of the people who attended his funeral. However there's one person who Ollie's doesn't recognize. We later find out it was Catman who was hired by the Shade who Ollie made a pact with. Should Ollie ever be killed, the Shade would take responsibility for tracking down all of his personal affects and have them destroyed, that way future enemies couldn't use them against his loved ones.

So here's all the things that don't make sense to me:

1. Batman was at the funeral. Why didn't he recognize Catman? The superheroes at the funeral must've been pretty careful considering they were in their secret identities.

2. I know that this trope has been done in comics before, but it's a terrible idea for a group of heroes to attend a funeral in civilian clothes. People would put two and two together so fast.

3. Why didn't the superheroes make sure that a supervillain lime Catman didn't sneak into the funeral to learn everyone's secret identity?

4. Getting rid of Ollie's possessions wouldn't protect his loved one's anonymity. Oliver Queen was a famous millionaire, newspapers and tabloids would chronicle who he dated and his adopted ward Roy Harper.

5.. Oliver Queen's secret identity was public long before he died, so what good would burning all of Ollie's stuff do? Every villains who wants to know Green Arrow's identity knows it by now.

6. After this big reveal, Green Arrow and Arsenal still go on a quest to steal GA related artifacts from the Flash Museum and the JLA watchtower. Is it ever explained why they still need to do this?

I want to like this story, and I would appreciate if someone would help me make sense of the plot.

[PUGSSSS001]

Much like the mystery whodunnit of Identity Crisis, it simply makes no sense. Meltzer isn't half the writer his fans (or himself) believe he is.