Is Green Arrow being cancelled?

[Jody Garland]

We really need a Green Arrow: Earth One pronto to capture the Arrow fans.

With Flash: Earth One coming, this would be a great idea for a companion piece, since these capture the mainstream audience.

[Rakzo]

They should definitely release a Green Arrow: Earth One volume. Now more than ever in fact, the popularity of the character is high thanks to Arrow.

I think that Garth Ennis would be perfect for the book. Yes, Ennis hates superheroes but I don't quite remember him ever making fun of Green Arrow (Hawkeye yes, but not Green Arrow). He would be able to capture the complex and flawed human nature of Oliver Queen while at the same time touching social issues in a realistic way because if there's one thing that Ennis does right is handling that kind of topics in a pretty natural and balanced manner without giving favors to any side.

[Starchild]

Not sure where you are getting the idea that people are bashing Ben Percy's Green Arrow run. At the comic book store I work in, old and new fans praise his work. I never read a bad review once. So again, I have no idea where that's coming from. There are people out there who like his stuff. Is that hard to accept?

[TheNewFiftyForum]

I can see it being true as part of a re-launch with a new direction to get sales on the title to go up, as it's still selling only just above 20K despite having a hit TV-show to give it momentum. That's probably not what the DC brass expects.

Warren Ellis is probably the safest bet to generate some hype for a new Green Arrow #1, and could probably deliver a kick ass Green Arrow in the vein of his recent work on Moon Knight. If DC wanted to go a bit safer and pick someone among their current stable of writers I can definitely see people like Cullen Bunn, Steve Orlando, Tom Taylor or Brian Buccellato (listed in my order of preference) being considered. And if they decided to go just a tiny bit outside the box they could definitely do worse than Zeb Wells, who really should be given a shot at a DC title sooner rather than later.

[skyvolt2000]

Not sure where you are getting the idea that people are bashing Ben Percy's Green Arrow run. At the comic book store I work in, old and new fans praise his work. I never read a bad review once. So again, I have no idea where that's coming from. There are people out there who like his stuff. Is that hard to accept?

I don't think it's hard to accept. It might be a case of fans of the run don't bother with messageboards. And that is not limited to Green Arrow but a lot of characters-that realize going on messageboard as a fan of certain characters will get you attacked (Sam Alexander Nova fans can testify).

[Frontier]

If GA is ending, then I imagine it will probably not be long before it gets relaunched with a new creative team and direction to continue capitalizing on the show's success but hopefully with better results. I don't think the title has ever regained the momentum or success of the Lemire/Sorrention run, so hopefully a new team coming in could reinvigorate Ollie and Earth-0 Green Arrow .

Then again, I thought we'd have a new Supergirl book by now because of the show and that turned out to be a bust .

[MajorHoy]

I can see it being true as part of a re-launch with a new direction to get sales on the title to go up, as it's still selling only just above 20K despite having a hit TV-show to give it momentum.

Did you actually write "hit TV-show" for something that's on "The CW"?

[TheNewFiftyForum]

Did you actually write "hit TV-show" for something that's on "The CW"?

Everything is relative and all that, but in the eyes of DC/WB execs there's probably a whole bunch of potential Green Arrow readers watching the show yet not picking up the comic.

[MajorHoy]

Everything is relative and all that, but in the eyes of DC/WB execs there's probably a whole bunch of potential Green Arrow readers watching the show yet not picking up the comic.

I seriously doubt they're expecting even a third of the TV viewers of Arrow to suddenly rush out and buy the main DC Universe Green Arrow comic book. (The Digital-First series based on the show would probably be a more likely purchase.)

[InSavnity]

"DCYou" refers to presenting characters is a manner that is outside of their traditional sort. It comes from the "DCYou" promotional push DC did earlier this year, where several books got creative directions that was very non-traditional.

However, I'm not sure this is true for Green Arrow. On the surface, the current depiction isn't that different from most others.

Hmm, I don't know. I knew everything about the Post-Convergence DCYou since it gave me a large batch of new titles to follow, but I fail to see a common thread uniting them all. Or better, examples like Martian Manhunter and partially Aquamanare obviously a very literal implementation of what you write, but a comic book like Omega Men is the re-imagining of a forerunner that was at best a very niche title which many contemporary readers barely know anything about, meaning that a thorough reimagining would have ruffled very few feathers. Lastly, titles like Robin: Son of Batman and Black Canary are indeed perfect showcases for characters like Damian and Dinah that have been busy being dead for quite some time or never had a chance to shine ever since the 2011 reboot. Overall, there's not a single interpretation of how a relaunch of Green Arrow would be carried out "the DCYou way".

If GA is ending, then I imagine it will probably not be long before it gets relaunched with a new creative team and direction to continue capitalizing on the show's success but hopefully with better results.

That would be a terrible idea. Neither movies nor TV shows ever boost the sales of a comic book in a significant way. The first issue would probably get the attention of the comic book fandom (or better, of the comic shops' managers) like every new #1 being announced and then its sales would be slashed by 40% by issue #2, never to go back to the original level. Isn't that what happens 98/99 times out of 100?

[Desh]

That would be a terrible idea. Neither movies nor TV shows ever boost the sales of a comic book in a significant way.

If that were true, I highly doubt Guardians of the Galaxy would be pushing the numbers it does these days. The same goes for Star Wars. If there is no boost in interest with a character/book among readers or stores when a hit TV show or movie for them is out, then it could possibly be due to something not synching up right, or not a strong enough push from the publisher to get the book to sell.

And with both The Flash and Green Arrow books, I'd say things aren't synching up right. Green Arrow apparently had a terrible beginning, and few new readers (especially new to comics) are going to want to skip all that and jump in at issue #whatever, and the current Flash book has never been great from what I've consistently heard, and now it's especially bad. So, the lack of a spike in those two titles is ALL DC's/the creators' fault. As is often the case, DC is doing things wrong, whereas Marvel/Disney knows how to capitalize on things and do better business, and thus they're leaving DC waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay in the dust... again.

[Tayswift]

If it is, it will be relaunched.

The BC rumor mentions Supergirl, and I'm still betting that'll be relaunched soon, too.

BC rumour says that supergirl and green arrow will be digital first comics. No comics set on new 52.

I think that supergirl case it must be true

I saw many bad reviews about Percy work on green arrow, it's really not a good run

[InSavnity]

If that were true, I highly doubt Guardians of the Galaxy would be pushing the numbers it does these days. The same goes for Star Wars. If there is no boost in interest with a character/book among readers or stores when a hit TV show or movie for them is out, then it could possibly be due to something not synching up right, or not a strong enough push from the publisher to get the book to sell.

I can and I will. First, Guardians of the Galaxy is written by Brian Michael Bendis, who manages to make everything he works on into a top-seller or a cult comic. Second, that title actually isn't actually benefiting from the movie in the sense that it's not attracting new readers from outside the comic book fandom. Tens of millions of movie-goers saw that movie, if just a 10% -- no, let's make it 5% of them took up a copy of the GOTG comic it would sell three or four times as much as it does now. But they aren't doing that, because average movie-goers don't see the concept of spending 4 bucks for twenty-odd pages of story as an attractive one. Big numbers that come all from the same, shrinking pool, mostly drawn in by a guy who is an illustrious nobody to those who have little knowledge of the comic book industry.

[Desh]

I can and I will. First, Guardians of the Galaxy is written by Brian Michael Bendis, who manages to make everything he works on into a top-seller or a cult comic. Second, that title actually isn't actually benefiting from the movie in the sense that it's not attracting new readers from outside the comic book fandom. Tens of millions of movie-goers saw that movie, if just a 10% -- no, let's make it 5% of them took up a copy of the GOTG comic it would sell three or four times as much as it does now. But they aren't doing that, because average movie-goers don't see the concept of spending 4 bucks for twenty-odd pages of story as an attractive one. Big numbers that come all from the same, shrinking pool, mostly drawn in by a guy who is an illustrious nobody to those who have little knowledge of the comic book industry.

The comics fans that are here came from somewhere, and whenever I personally look at testimonies for why people began reading comics, it's often because they saw a movie, or cartoon, or show. It doesn't matter what generation they come from. It could have been Superman II, Super Friends, Batman: The Animated Series, or Justice League Unlimited, or Smallville. But that remains a consistent reason from what I've personally seen.

It goes without saying that not a whole lot of people who watch the movies are going to read the comics, because typically, only the most hardcore and intrigued people will go and do that, but if the publishers can snag and keep even a tiny fraction of that, they've done well. I mean, look at Walking Dead. All it needs is a tiny amount of its viewers to buy its books and its a huge hit in the industry.

If Marvel put its biggest writer on a book with a hit film, then that shows they're all serious about getting the property over with people and having people read their comics and carrying that momentum over with the publications. That only makes sense. What doesn't make sense is putting Robert Venditti and Brett Booth, both widely criticized talent, on a Flash book when you're trying (IF you're trying) to get some of the television show watchers invested in reading the comic? That's bad business, and that's what DC does. It doesn't have to be that way. If they made better decisions with better foresight, you would see better results.

[GlennSimpson]

TV shows and movies do bring in some new readers, but not all that many. There's a fairly large crowd that will tell you that the 90's X-Men cartoon got them into comics.