Originally Posted by
Ascended
I'd play Ollie as the ultimate minimalist, doing a kind of "wandering mystery man" archetype mixed with heavy folk lore influences. Grell meets Johnny Appleseed.
In a way it'd almost be Ollie's post-retirement, "Old Man Queen" except designed as a sustainable status quo and not a "the end" story.
Ollie's long since lost his company and fortune. He's left the League over "creative differences," though he's not really at odds with them either. Gone are all the trick arrows, the big lairs full of supplies. Maybe a few emergency caches still exist here and there, but if Ollie had a diamond-tipped arrow left to his name, he'd sell it for chili supplies and gas. Ollie's even left both Seattle and Star behind; one city because it's safe in Roy's hands, the other because the mission ended and Ollie took down the people he'd sworn to take down.
All Ollie owns is a damn good bow, an eighteen wheeler he uses as a base/home, and a motorcycle. His only income is what he takes from the bad guys. And he's never been happier. He and Dinah aren't married, and spend a good chunk of time apart (Dinah's a Leaguer, and a legit biker rocker star recording smash hits), but they're committed; no major problems, no cheating, no BS; they're both too damn old for the off-on drama so they've agreed to just get along and be in a healthy, monogamous relationship while giving each other plenty of space to do their own thing, it's non-traditional and it's working beautifully. Ollie's long mended fences with Roy (now a Argus or Checkmate or whoever agent), though their past remains a scar between them. He adores little Lian, and in her eyes he's never disappointed her. Emiko/Red Arrow lives and travels with Ollie and they have their issues but, in the main, are good.
So Ollie and Emiko travel, going town to town, helping regular people with their local problems, making a real, quantifiable difference in their lives. And when the trouble has past, Ollie moves on as well. He's still a grumpy, loud mouthed liberal jackass, but he's more seasoned, a little less abrasive. He's still deeply flawed, but time has given him perspective.
My Green Arrow book would do a lot of one-off stories, I'm thinking something like a Waid-Samee title. Instead of a endless stream of super villains you'd have things like....
Ollie keeping a group of people alive during a natural disaster.
Ollie joining a protest, trying to keep it peaceful as things escalate, and ultimately preventing a scuffle from turning into a full-blown riot.
Ollie delivering a stranger's baby when he finds her car pulled over on the side of the road.
Ollie and four other people are shot in a drive-by; while wounded Ollie has to perform CPR and keep everyone breathing until help arrives.
Ollie helps a town find a clean water supply.
And yeah, Ollie would fight some bad guys; local gangs and dealers, wife beaters, bigger fish like Brick and Intergang, the occasional political thriller villain Count Vertigo or General Eiling, but mostly it'd be a different kind of heroism we'd see, something closer to steel driving man John Henry than Batman.