Thoughts on Judd Winick's Green Arrow?

[Timothy Hunter]

Fan response to Winick's run on Green Arrow seemed to be very split back in the day. Some people loved it while some people hated it. Having just read all 75 issues of the 2001 Green Arrow series, I can see both sides.

Straight Shooter
The story infamous for having Oliver cheat on Black Canary with Black Lightning's niece. I don't like how Winick unceremoniously broke up Dinah and Ollie, but at least he didn't sideline Connor, which a lot of writers would have done. One of the best aspects of Winick's run is the villains he introduces to Green Arrow's rogues gallery, particularly Brick and Constantine Drakon. Winick in this arc makes Drakon feel like an unstoppable threat. The fight between Connor & Mia and Drakon is brutal. This run is filled with great fight scenes. I thought Ollie sleeping with his friend, Black Lightning's niece was kind of creepy. There's a scene issues later when Black Lightning and Green Arrow team up again, where BL says GA shouldn't blame himself for his niece's death, but I'm not sure if Black Lightning ever found out that Ollie was banging her. You'd think he'd be understandably pissed about that.

City Walls
My favorite arc of Winick's run. The story starts with a tense cat and mouse game between Green Arrow and Riddler involving a nuke, only later turning into a tale about demon vigilantes and gang warfare. That summary sounds insane, but Winick managed to blend all these disparate elements perfectly.

New Blood
The story introduces Brick, a new crime boss in Star City. Let me tell you, Brick is awesome. You see Brick eliminating all his competition and even assassinating the mayor. I think this storyline would be a modern classic if it wasn't resolved so hastily. Brick never really gets defeated by Green Arrow or suffers the consequences of his actions. The fact that he killed the mayor just gets dropped later on.

Riddler
I thought the comic took a big nose dive in quality once Phil Hester leaves the book. This story arc has The Riddler (who now has a goth makeover inexplicably) kidnapping Arsenal and the Arrow Family as well as the Outsiders have to rescue him. The story ends by the Riddler just... walking away, never appearing again in this series.

Heading Into The Light
I think any Dr. Light story made after Identity Crisis is really insufferable. From that point onward writers treated him as "that guy who rapes people". I think the series lost a core sense of its identity when it lost Phil Hester as a penciler. There's three different artists and two different writers attached to this story arc and it all adds up to a really miserable reading experience. Also, Dr. Light, Deathstroke, and Meryln kill thousands of people in Star City, but their involvment in this huge terrorist attack never gets brought up again. Hell, Deathstroke and Merlyn even appear later on in the series, but Winick doesn't mention them blowing up a third of Star City! This is like if the Joker killed Jason Todd and Batman acts like it never happened.

One Year Later
After the lackluster past 2 story arcs, Winick's Green Arrow is back in full form. I loved the status quo of Oliver Queen as mayor of Star City, I wish it lasted way longer than 16 issues. One of the main reasons why fans take issue with this run is that Winick makes Oliver Queen train to be a martial arts master, but I don't have a problem with this change. Scott McDaniel's art is... an acquired taste. I like the anatomy of McDaniel's characters and he excels in fight scenes, but his faces are extremely sloppy. My only major problem with the "One Year Later" era of Green Arrow is that Judd Winick is really lazy when it comes to continuity. In the Dr. Light arc, Mia Dearden is last seen getting buried under THREE MILES of rubble. Winick never bothers to explain how she got out. Like I've mentioned before, the fact that Deathstroke & Meryln killed thousands in Star City and that Brick killed the mayor are just swept under the rug never to be mentioned again. This is the most nitpicky example but in the issue where Mia joins the Teen Titans she says that her favorite pizza is Hawaiian, but in One Year Later she says that she never understood the appeal. Editors are important.

Overall I had a lot of fun with Judd Winick's run on Green Arrow, although the two story arcs after Phil Hester leaves are much worst than the rest of the series.

[Captain Nostalgia]

Why am I not surprised that a guy who posts a thread critizing Brad Meltzer's run, heaps praise on Judd Winick.....a mediocre hack who drove Green Arrow sales into the ground....stats reflect this.

Judd Winick is why I, and so many other Arrow heads threw in the towel and quit.

Green Arrow has been blessed with solid writers throughout the decades (Denny O Neil, Mike Grell, Chuck Dixon, Kevin Smith, Brad Meltzer, one could even add Jeff Lemire to that list) Winick is not one of them.

[Timothy Hunter]

Why am I not surprised that a guy who posts a thread critizing Brad Meltzer's run, heaps praise on Judd Winick.....a mediocre hack who drove Green Arrow sales into the ground....stats reflect this.

Judd Winick is why I, and so many other Arrow heads threw in the towel and quit.

Green Arrow has been blessed with solid writers throughout the decades (Denny O Neil, Mike Grell, Chuck Dixon, Kevin Smith, Brad Meltzer, one could even add Jeff Lemire to that list) Winick is not one of them.

I wouldn't call my post heaping praise exactly. I mentioned a whole bunch of problems I had with Winick's run. I said I enjoyed it but, that the writing was really inconsistent. Nowhere near as good as Mike Grell's time on the character.

In my post criticizing Meltzer's Green Arrow, first off I was only halfway through the story and I was really only poking holes in the plot. The last issue answered a lot of the problems I had with that story, even though I still think Ollie and Shade's plan to destroy his belongings doesn't make a lot of sense when you think about it.

Also it's a bit unfair to compare Kevin Smith and Brad Meltzer's time on Green Arrow to Judd Winick. Winick wrote Ollie for 60 issues while Meltzer and Smith only stayed for a less than a year.

[Jekyll]

I really enjoyed Winnicks run and Green Arrow in general throughout the 2000s. I thought most of it was a lot of fun, I was in high school so it came at the perfect time for me. When the new 52 happened was when I really lost interest in the character and rebirth put the final nail in the coffin.

[Captain Nostalgia]

I wouldn't call my post heaping praise exactly. I mentioned a whole bunch of problems I had with Winick's run. I said I enjoyed it but, that the writing was really inconsistent. Nowhere near as good as Mike Grell's time on the character.

In my post criticizing Meltzer's Green Arrow, first off I was only halfway through the story and I was really only poking holes in the plot. The last issue answered a lot of the problems I had with that story, even though I still think Ollie and Shade's plan to destroy his belongings doesn't make a lot of sense when you think about it.

Also it's a bit unfair to compare Kevin Smith and Brad Meltzer's time on Green Arrow to Judd Winick. Winick wrote Ollie for 60 issues while Meltzer and Smith only stayed for a less than a year.

Fair enough, but it should be noted that Winick's sales began to drop hard within his first year.

Apoligies if I sounded harsh, but it did come off as critical of Meltzer and in praise of Winick, cheers.

[Robanker]

It's a period I generally do my best to forget.

He doubled down on some GA elements I don't care for (making Ollie a cheater) and introduced others I think are antithetical to the character (being a proficient martial artist).

I don't know. It felt very much like they asked "who's our most liberal writer" and put Winick on the book instead of seeing if he was a good fit.

But then I don't like most of Winick's DC work.

[Timothy Hunter]

Fair enough, but it should be noted that Winick's sales began to drop hard within his first year.

I knew that at the end of the series, Green Arrow was selling in the low 30,000s. I assumed that the conic took a huge drop when Phil Hester left the book, but the fact that the title had a decline in Winick's first year. I think Winick might've been a niche writer like Bendis or Tom King where they have a solid group of fans, but the majority of readers don't really like them.

Apoligies if I sounded harsh, but it did come off as critical of Meltzer and in praise of Winick, cheers.

No problem lol. I'm not the biggest fan of either writers to be fair. I thought Winick's run on Outsiders ranged from decent to atrocious and his character assassination of Nightwing was way worse than Green Arrow. Brad Meltzer is good at writing individual character scenes but his overall stories tend to have a lot of gaps in logic.

[married guy]

I actually quite enjoyed Winick's GA run!
He kinda stumbled out of the gate with Straight Shooter (WHY do writers insist on having Ollie cheat??), but got better as he went along.
City Walls and New Blood were a blast, and although a lot of people dislike the last storyline against Deathstroke & Co, I appreciated the effort to make Ollie less of a one-trick pony.

[Captain Nostalgia]

I knew that at the end of the series, Green Arrow was selling in the low 30,000s. I assumed that the conic took a huge drop when Phil Hester left the book, but the fact that the title had a decline in Winick's first year. I think Winick might've been a niche writer like Bendis or Tom King where they have a solid group of fans, but the majority of readers don't really like them.



No problem lol. I'm not the biggest fan of either writers to be fair. I thought Winick's run on Outsiders ranged from decent to atrocious and his character assassination of Nightwing was way worse than Green Arrow. Brad Meltzer is good at writing individual character scenes but his overall stories tend to have a lot of gaps in logic.

It's all good. I must confess that Brad Meltzer was my favourite Green Arrow writer, but....I haven't read the run for 20 years, so perhaps I would feel different.

I generally liked both Smith and Meltzer more than Grell, Dixon was great to....but is remebered more for Connor, and finally I liked Jeff Lemire, but Winick was just not for me.

Someone should make a thread that discusses Green Arrow's greatest writers.
..

[thefinalguy]

I thought it started off with decent potential. The first story felt grounded enough; Ollie was making me laugh... then everything just went downhill that very same story.

Joanna was introduced and killed off after being pushed into an affair to add unnecessary conflict. Ollie just wanted to propose to Dinah at least be consistent with your characterization.

Unfortunately, poor decisions bogged down what otherwise was at least enjoyable to me.

Having read that entire volume during the summer, I can't get over how "Straight Shooter" could've removed that entire cheating thing and got rid of what became a sore spot on the rest of his run.

Everything else was ok.

[bat39]

I read Winick's entire run years ago and was pleasantly surprised to discover just how much of it serves as the basis for CW's Arrow (one of my absolute favorite shows of all time!)

-The concept of a 'Team Arrow'
-The Glades as the impoverished, neglected, crime-ridden part of Star City
-Deathstroke being a major Green Arrow antagonist
-Malcolm Merlyn destroying a part of Star City
-Oliver as Mayor of Star City
-Oliver (and the rest of the team) training as martial artists

And a bunch of other things I'm missing perhaps.

For all that The Longbow Hunters and Green Arrow Year One are rightly cited as major influences on the show, I feel Winick's run was definitely a huge influence as well.

[Stanlos]

Fan response to Winick's run on Green Arrow seemed to be very split back in the day. Some people loved it while some people hated it. Having just read all 75 issues of the 2001 Green Arrow series, I can see both sides.

Straight Shooter
The story infamous for having Oliver cheat on Black Canary with Black Lightning's niece. I don't like how Winick unceremoniously broke up Dinah and Ollie, but at least he didn't sideline Connor, which a lot of writers would have done. One of the best aspects of Winick's run is the villains he introduces to Green Arrow's rogues gallery, particularly Brick and Constantine Drakon. Winick in this arc makes Drakon feel like an unstoppable threat. The fight between Connor & Mia and Drakon is brutal. This run is filled with great fight scenes. I thought Ollie sleeping with his friend, Black Lightning's niece was kind of creepy. There's a scene issues later when Black Lightning and Green Arrow team up again, where BL says GA shouldn't blame himself for his niece's death, but I'm not sure if Black Lightning ever found out that Ollie was banging her. You'd think he'd be understandably pissed about that.

City Walls
My favorite arc of Winick's run. The story starts with a tense cat and mouse game between Green Arrow and Riddler involving a nuke, only later turning into a tale about demon vigilantes and gang warfare. That summary sounds insane, but Winick managed to blend all these disparate elements perfectly.

New Blood
The story introduces Brick, a new crime boss in Star City. Let me tell you, Brick is awesome. You see Brick eliminating all his competition and even assassinating the mayor. I think this storyline would be a modern classic if it wasn't resolved so hastily. Brick never really gets defeated by Green Arrow or suffers the consequences of his actions. The fact that he killed the mayor just gets dropped later on.

Riddler
I thought the comic took a big nose dive in quality once Phil Hester leaves the book. This story arc has The Riddler (who now has a goth makeover inexplicably) kidnapping Arsenal and the Arrow Family as well as the Outsiders have to rescue him. The story ends by the Riddler just... walking away, never appearing again in this series.

Heading Into The Light
I think any Dr. Light story made after Identity Crisis is really insufferable. From that point onward writers treated him as "that guy who rapes people". I think the series lost a core sense of its identity when it lost Phil Hester as a penciler. There's three different artists and two different writers attached to this story arc and it all adds up to a really miserable reading experience. Also, Dr. Light, Deathstroke, and Meryln kill thousands of people in Star City, but their involvment in this huge terrorist attack never gets brought up again. Hell, Deathstroke and Merlyn even appear later on in the series, but Winick doesn't mention them blowing up a third of Star City! This is like if the Joker killed Jason Todd and Batman acts like it never happened.

One Year Later
After the lackluster past 2 story arcs, Winick's Green Arrow is back in full form. I loved the status quo of Oliver Queen as mayor of Star City, I wish it lasted way longer than 16 issues. One of the main reasons why fans take issue with this run is that Winick makes Oliver Queen train to be a martial arts master, but I don't have a problem with this change. Scott McDaniel's art is... an acquired taste. I like the anatomy of McDaniel's characters and he excels in fight scenes, but his faces are extremely sloppy. My only major problem with the "One Year Later" era of Green Arrow is that Judd Winick is really lazy when it comes to continuity. In the Dr. Light arc, Mia Dearden is last seen getting buried under THREE MILES of rubble. Winick never bothers to explain how she got out. Like I've mentioned before, the fact that Deathstroke & Meryln killed thousands in Star City and that Brick killed the mayor are just swept under the rug never to be mentioned again. This is the most nitpicky example but in the issue where Mia joins the Teen Titans she says that her favorite pizza is Hawaiian, but in One Year Later she says that she never understood the appeal. Editors are important.

Overall I had a lot of fun with Judd Winick's run on Green Arrow, although the two story arcs after Phil Hester leaves are much worst than the rest of the series.

I am not sure what it is about Deathstroke or Black Adam but they seem to have carte blanc to do whatever with a good portion of fandom.

[Timothy Hunter]

I am not sure what it is about Deathstroke or Black Adam but they seem to have carte blanc to do whatever with a good portion of fandom.

I think a big reason for everyone forgetting about Deathstroke or Black Adam killing millions of people is that the multiple reboots since then have erased those stories from canon. I don't follow the current DC Universe as much anymore but I assume that Black Adam murdering everyone in Bialya during 52 isn't in continuity anymore if Bendis put him on the Justice League.

[Robanker]

I read Winick's entire run years ago and was pleasantly surprised to discover just how much of it serves as the basis for CW's Arrow (one of my absolute favorite shows of all time!)

-The concept of a 'Team Arrow'
-The Glades as the impoverished, neglected, crime-ridden part of Star City
-Deathstroke being a major Green Arrow antagonist
-Malcolm Merlyn destroying a part of Star City
-Oliver as Mayor of Star City
-Oliver (and the rest of the team) training as martial artists

And a bunch of other things I'm missing perhaps.

For all that The Longbow Hunters and Green Arrow Year One are rightly cited as major influences on the show, I feel Winick's run was definitely a huge influence as well.

One more reason for me to hate this run. Can't stand Arrow and I never picked up on how much it borrowed from Winick until now. Thanks. lol