Huntress and Arsenal. 1 page from outsiders volume 3 issue 12

[requiem2adream]

I have a question about Huntress and Arsenal's one night stand so of course I turn to the lovely ladies and gents of scans_daily to hopefully find the answer.

The first I heard of it was in BoP: Dinah, Babs and Helena are meeting in a park to discuss whether or not they can work together as a team and the subject of Helena's one night stands with Dick and Roy comes up and Helena has the brilliant line 'Archers... they pull a mighty bow but they're quick to let fly'. Which of course pisses Dinah off royally and nearly ends the team before it even begins.

I went back and read the Outsiders issues where Helena takes Roy's place on the team while he recovers from being shot, thinking that would be where I could find the Huntress/Arsenal stuff (I'm a massive Huntress fan and I've been trying to track down and read pretty much everything she's been in because yes I am obsessive) but apart from the kiss at the end




there's not really any interaction between the two and certainly no sexy times going on between the pair.

So folks my question is this: is this the first time it's ever referenced or is does the Helena/Roy stuff happen in different issues to the ones I've been reading? 

Comments

[rordulum]

The only thing I ever liked about this was Gail Simone crapping on it in BoP, by having Helena say Roy was no good in bed.

But then, I've never liked Roy Harper... even before he started hitting people with dead cats.

[requiem2adream]

... I'm sorry Roy did what now?

[shadowpsykie]

Bizzaro Roy, it was in a recent supergirl comic :)

[requiem2adream]

Oh thank god! I thought it was some kind of weird 'Rise of Arsenal' thing for a second XD

[icon_uk]

I hate to say it, but a dead cat featured there too

[requiem2adream]

... Dear lord they made it worse than I could have imagined.

[icon_uk]

Here, a little something to make you feel more upbeat!

[mad]

Okay, that is the cutest.

[requiem2adream]

heeeee oh tiny!Roy and tiny!Dick ♥

[rordulum]

Yep, I was talking about the Rise of Arsenal one. Non-Bizarro Roy, still a cat corpse wielding druggie.

The only good part of that whole story was Dick channeling his inner Batman and kicking Roy in the face, whilst calmly declaring, "I'm your friend." Still unintentionally hilarious, but not headshakingly so.

Bizarro-Roy with a quiver full of dead cats was intentionally hilarious, which is much better.

[whitesycamore]

The only thing I ever liked about this was Gail Simone crapping on it in BoP, by having Helena say Roy was no good in bed.

Personally, I found that just about as crass as if Roy had said Helena sucked in bed. I guess I just feel that way because I have a crazy policy of not talking smack about the guys I bone.

But really, if we must accept that they hooked up then I'd like them both to get a good time out of it, at the very least.

[big_daddy_d]

Personally, I found that just about as crass as if Roy had said Helena sucked in bed. I guess I just feel that way because I have a crazy policy of not talking smack about the guys I bone.

I feel the same way. I feel like, whoever you sleep with, even if it's a one night stand, respect them..unless they were dicks to you. As for Roy and Helena, this is one of those scene where I thought nothing of it. There's no kind of love thing or shipping going, it didn't make Roy seem like "the man" nor do I think it was an attempt at such a thing because well..it's Roy, he inherited plenty of Ollie's traits and I'm saying that as the Roy Harper and Team Green fan that I am. All that and due to their character portrayals in the past, eh, this was one of those hook ups that just made a little sense to me actually.

P.S. Can anyone post the BoP scene in question?

[requiem2adream]

The BoP scene can be found here (http://fyeahbarbaragordon.tumblr.com/post/787301714/that-was-a-sneaky-move-babs-dinahs-banter-is) over on the fybarbaragordon tumblr.

[benicio127]

Word. And not only that... so Helena slept with Roy. What is the Big Fucking Deal. The amount of men Helena has slept with canonically is far fewer than the majority of my IRL girlfriends' "lists."

[requiem2adream]

Oh I don't think it's a big deal and yeah, I'm confused as to how Helena got the bike of the DCU label when she really hasn't been linked with all that many men.

Mostly I just want to see the setup. Something really interesting could have been done with Helena helping out Roy after he got shot since, you know, she knows exactly what he's going through. But no. We get a crappy handwavey kind of aside that it happened and that's it.

And it's not like they didn't have time to show it either because the previous issue spends four or five pages dealing with Roy paying a booty call to Grace.

Poor story telling IMO that suggests Huntress/Arsenal was just added in to get that exchange between the boys.

[benicio127]

I'm confused as to how Helena got the bike of the DCU label when she really hasn't been linked with all that many men.

I have no idea, either, and I actually wish there were more female characters who engaged in casual sex.

Mostly I just want to see the setup. Something really interesting could have been done with Helena helping out Roy after he got shot since, you know, she knows exactly what he's going through. But no. We get a crappy handwavey kind of aside that it happened and that's it.

But how would you have envisioned it happening? I mean, I personally am not all that keen on the artist portrayal rather than the actual story portrayal. (crotch shot as she walks away)

[jaybee3]

"Poor story telling IMO that suggests Huntress/Arsenal was just added in to get that exchange between the boys."

I've always thought that was the WHOLE POINT of this storyline. Which is why I personally dislike it so much. Winick having Huntress act OOC (at this point in her characterization) was basically just so Dick and Roy could josh about it. Not about her. At all. He could have inserted basically any other super-heroine - that's how little she means to the story. And THAT is insulting (and it's from this scene that she get the rep amongst DC writers and some readers as the kind of girl who'll sleep with anything) which is even MORE insulting.

All so Judd Winick could write a joke.

[requiem2adream]

*nods* Point taken.

Yeah, I think you've got it bang on the nose there. I guess I was just hoping that there was more to it than that, hence why I wanted to know if I was missing something.

Thanks.

[strannik01]

Oh I don't think it's a big deal and yeah, I'm confused as to how Helena got the bike of the DCU label when she really hasn't been linked with all that many men.

Same reason as why Oliver Queen is considered a ladies' man, in spite of the fact that, until his first death, he was largely loyal to Dinah. Some writer took a bit of information about the character without understanding the context, and other writers picked up on it.

Also, fans are often an immature, puerile lot.

[icon_uk]

I don't think there is any real commentaty on Helena here, Dick comments on Roy's proclivities, not Helena's.

[benicio127]

No, but there has been fan commentary on it.

[jaybee3]

Yes it's Huntress who has suffered from this story (which is ALL about the boys) not Roy. Readers and writers seem to have no problems with man-whores (look how they write Ollie after his return-including Winick with Joanna Pierce - after how he had been through).

[benicio127]

She suffered because people in fandom went around calling the character a slut based on their own judgments and perceptions and ideas that women should only have sex in these acceptable sets of boxes.

[whitesycamore]

Yes. Some people say that Dick and Roy are "joking" about both bedding Helena, but I don't see that at all.

The only thing I see is faint eye-rolling disapproval on Dick's part. I definitely don't see how it's intended to make Roy look like the man.

[jaybee3]

I thought that whole line stated what Gail thought about the story and the way Helena was treated in it (if you go back into the archives of S_D she has one comment where's it clear she's referring to this story in a negative way).