Snowbirds Don't Fly: Green Lantern/Green Arrow #85 and #86

[innerbrat.insanejournal.com]

Woo! First post to the new community. I did come here to post some scans of Golden Age Black Canary, but I saw uadlika asked for some scans from Snow Birds Don't Fly, so of course I had to.

Oliver Queen is having a bad day. He references something about Dinah talling him she's "not going to be home when [he calls] anymore..." which I guess means she's [gasp] decided to have a life of her own or something. So he's moping, then he gets set upon by wannabe muggers. Which should be nothing for the Green Arrow, except this happens:



He struggles off to a hospital, where he decides this is the kind of thing you call your best friend about:





There follows four pages of the horrors of withdrawal, the squalor of addiction-related poverty and how racism drives people of colour to drugs. Then:




There follows: PLOT. Ollie is a hothead, Hal doesn't tell him to shut up. They both end up accidentally taking junk, and Roy rescues them.





Dinah doesn't actually appear until the next issue. The issue is 25 pages long, so I'm hoping 8 pages of it is OK; I didn't want to leave any of this out:





After Ollie shows off his coping skills, he goes a-beating up bad guys, leaving his apartment free for one of Roy's friends to break in, OD and die. Hal, meanwhile, puts two and two together regarding what Roy was talking about and goes looking for him.





Time -and plot - passes. The OD'd friend of Roy's has a funeral.





I'll be back later in the week with some scans of Dinah's mother, who is just as awesome and has just as bad taste in men.

Comments

[fungo_squiggly.insanejournal.com]

You've got to love Ollie's reaction to having a crossbow pointed at him.

"Ha, you're threatening me with a weapon that last saw common use in the middle ages? What are you going to do, shoot me with a wooden projectile propelled by some sort of string, as opposed to gunpowder? That's the lamest thing I ever-- MY GOD! He's shot me somehow! Who knew that such a thing was possible?"

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

I have ALWAYS found that bizarre. Ollie of all people should understand not just that, but why that guy in CRECY says, again and again, "I hate fucking crossbows." Ollie would know that he might as well have just had a gun pointed at him.

In retrospect, this Ollie doesn't age well. He's basically an arrogant idiot who never thinks things through. But then the whole point of this particular storyline is that Ollie is irresponsible and not as observant as he thinks he is. And if you lead it into the Zen retreat stuff at the end, really, doesn't that become the arc of the series--the humbling of Ollie? Hal only changes in that his view starts to include the local. If you go back and look, it turns out that HAL is the reasonable one who's willing to listen, and Ollie the one who's set in his ways and kind of selfish. (but consider which of them was rich till recently and a whole new level of Ollie hoves into view)

And frankly, the "orange, blue, brown skins" thing at the start of the series might itself be questionable. "What did I do? I saved EVERYONE'S skins on the PLANET a buncha times, that's all." Why not ask this of Superman?

[aaron_bourque.insanejournal.com]

You can almost see his stinkface. What a maroon. I mean, the crossbow has killed more people than nuclear weapons!

[besamim.insanejournal.com]

I'd heard a lot about this story (and nearly every comic geek has seen the "My ward is a JUNKIE!" cover at some point) but this is the first time I've read any of it. Thanks!

And it wasn't as preachy or hokey as I'd imagined it would be, given the "very special" theme. Denny O'Neil being on board certainly helped; he was one of the better Bronze Age writers.

[besamim.insanejournal.com]

Oh, and all this is despite my intense dislike of Ollie.

[innerbrat.insanejournal.com]

To be fair, all the preachy hokey stuff happens in the rest of the issues, with Roy's black-and-Asian friends explaining racism made them do it, with the over-the-top death of Asian Friend, and the very detailed depiction of poverty and squalor around addiction.

[kingrockwell]

That last panel has always bugged me. Should Ollie be proud that Roy can take care of himself, or sullen because he did such a poor job taking care of Roy? My gut says the latter, O'Neil and Adams disagree.

Both true?

[ashtoreth.insanejournal.com]

I took it that, while Ollie does come to believe that he failed as a parent, he saw Roy's kicking the habit as proof that his boy had found his courage, succeeding DESPITE Ollie.

[kagome654.insanejournal.com]

Oh, Ollie...you lovable scamp.

Hahaha...ha

[jupiterrhode.insanejournal.com]

Oh my god, the dialog! No one ever talked like that. Also, Ollie really is a waste of space, isn't he?

did Mike Grell use his oc and call him "green arrow" for marketing purposes?

[scottyquick.insanejournal.com]

Wow, this Ollie is the biggest douchebag in the history of DC comics. At least Bruce or Clark never punched Cass or Kara for being addicted to drugs. Like holy shit O'Neil.

I love Dinah and Roy, though. Something that disappointed me about BoP is that we never got to see Dinah and Roy's relationship.

I need to get a Roy icon and an Ollie icon.

My favorite thing is the way Ollie talks on the phone.

Re: did Mike Grell use his oc and call him "green arrow" for marketing purposes?

[kingrockwell]

Giant, economy-sized telephone stylings!

Re: did Mike Grell use his oc and call him "green arrow" for marketing purposes?

[thebat_man.insanejournal.com]

Ollie's flawed. He makes mistakes. I like that, because perfect characters are boring.

Re: did Mike Grell use his oc and call him "green arrow" for marketing purposes?

[uadlika.insanejournal.com]

Grell's GA had his own moments of dickery, but never quite like this. I haven't read that much bronze/silver age GA to know for certain, but if Grell's GA is an OC then I thank him dearly for creating one of my favorite characters.

[bluefall.insanejournal.com]

At least Bruce or Clark never punched Cass or Kara for being addicted to drugs.

Given the Slade Juice Incident, any exoneration of Bruce here depends pretty strongly on whether you rank "abandonment and dismissal" above or below "punching."

[jlbarnett.insanejournal.com]

Ollie was wrong to hit him. When he did. But after listening to the self-pitying drivel and justifications Roy comes up with I find myself wishing someone should smack him then.

From what I've seen of O'Neill's work I don't think I'd like much of it. To much passing the buck, blaming the people who are trying to help for not helping in the right way. THey admit they aren't perfect but expect others to be.

[thebigapricot.insanejournal.com]

Ollie Queen, so self-absorbed and egotistical that he can find a way to make himself feel good about helping to make his teenage ward become a drug addict and then kicking him out so he'd have to quit cold turkey. Yeah!

At least Roy realizes and regularly acknowledges how important Dinah was to him during this time. (I've never been able to see that Hal did much other than dropping him off at Dinah's.)

[ashtoreth.insanejournal.com]

Hal didn't do much, but, after the person Roy loved most BEAT HIM UP AND THREW HIM OUT AFTER ABANDONING HIM IN THE FIRST PLACE, Hal is the one who goes looking for him. Hal is the one who finds him and doesn't screw up by picking a fight because he doesn't like what Roy did. He is kind and unselfrighteous and he insists on getting Roy to someone who does care about him and will help him. It also matters that Hal is Ollie's best friend (aside from Dinah and Roy). Him doing that was notice that Ollie was wrong when he said it was all Roy's fault.

My favorite follow-up to this is when Dinah's mother is dying. Ollie is there and tells Hal. Hal immediately goes to the Titans and asks them for Roy. When Roy shows up, he just says, "Dinah needs you." And thats it. Roy goes with him on the spot. Hal drops him off and the family huggles.

Hal isn't the guy to take care of you, but he is the best friend who'll back you up.

Oh, Ollie. Who the hell let you near teenagers?

[mari_redstar.insanejournal.com]

It took me several minutes of consideration before I worked out that "Do the big funnies at him" probably meant "make fun of him". Without context I never would've gotten it.

I always forget just how very obvious Roy is here. "Gee, Green Arrow, what could make an upstanding young man turn to drugs? Well, I dunno, maybe if this upstanding young man was somebody's sidekick, say, and their mentor kept ditching him to go hang out with his boyfriend, for instance, maybe they'd turn to heroin to kill the loneliness and daddy issues. Hypothetically. By the way, our neighborhood's been hit with grafitti taggers again- somebody painted I'm on drugs, for God's sake, what the hell do I have to do to make you remember I exist?! right across our front door."

...At least it appears to have occurred to Ollie to feel a little weird about, y'know, having had no idea where the teenager he's responsible for even is. For a month. Without having done anything about it. (Around how old is Roy here, anyway, seventeenish? I would say eighteen, since he heads off on his own at the end with no objection from anyone, but ha, like Ollie would care, and Dinah didn't know his real name, did she, so she probably wouldn't know his age either.)

Re: Oh, Ollie. Who the hell let you near teenagers?

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

And what are the laws regarding wards? Because THAT'S WHAT ROY IS. He is to Ollie what Robin was to Bruce, precisely.

I mean, neglecting him and running around the country, after, ahem, losing his fortune without any apparent new source of income. That's the kinda thing that gets Family Services on your ass, fast.

[rab62.insanejournal.com]

Despite leaden one-note characterization and grating, clumsy dialog and an utterly false contrived ending, this is one of the most overpraised stories in comics history. Because the subject matter was "significant" and "relevant" and "hey look, comic books aren't for kiddies anymore!" you weren't supposed to notice how heavy-handed it was. (And to be fair, the wonderful art also disguises many sins in the writing.)

Several issues of this run were actually very good, but this was not one of them.

[freezer818.insanejournal.com]

Like many other "classic" and "groundbreaking" stories, this one is well-remember because it broke new ground, not because of it's own merits. (Frankly, this does not age well.)

IIRC, Harry's LSD flashback in Amazing Spider-Man was a much better VSE on drugs than this.

[uadlika.insanejournal.com]

Oh Ollie, you ass.

Thank you for posting this! Sadly I can no longer vainly believe that everyone was misinterpreting Ollie's douchery here.

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

Like the cat poster, Ollie. Also the way you totally blow what you think is Roy's cover! If he was doing what you think he was, he sure as fuck can't do it now, as there are now two junkies(and junkies are those kind of people you get info out of because it's easy to make 'em talk) who know exactly what "Speedy" looks like and what his name is. And also! As they know who Roy Harper is, it wouldn't take a genius to put two and two together about Ollie, a formerly rich and famous man whose ward would be known.

And I hate to get on Adams, but someone MUST be high with that sense of perspective. Check the ceiling they go through, their height, and the junkies' height.

And you forgot to mention, about the junkies' dosing GL and GA: they do it by making them SNORT it, which makes pretty much everything afterward ridiculous; they'd have to go to the hospital. Remember Uma Thurman in PULP FICTION? Or, in real life, Pete Townshend once snorted what he thought was coke in a club around 1979-80(his post-Moon binge) and nearly died, if not for a very diligent team of medics in the ambulance. He turned blue, the whole deal. GL in that scene manages to make the ring work by willpower. They wouldn't have even gotten him conscious. It's not will, it's biochemistry.

[superfan1.insanejournal.com]

I can see why people thought that ollie was a big jerk in this story. Hearing about it in other forums.

Thanks for posting.

Best Out of Context Line

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

"Can I interest you in a bowl?"

Re: Best Out of Context Line

[kingrockwell]

In my drug story?

[starwolf_oakley.insanejournal.com]

I've said before that some of this may have been exciting and new at the time, but most of it doesn't age well. I've also said that O'Neill did the same then that Winick is accused of now: Sacrificing character for the sake of a soapbox.

Devin Grayson added word balloons in a flashback in her ARSENAL miniseries that covered what Roy and Dinah talked about while Roy was detoxing. That was how Roy and Dinah learned each others' real names in the story.

I once read two FANTASTIC fanfics about how the Teen Titans and the JLA reacted to all this. They were called "A Friend In Need" and "Not My Kid."

[sistermagpie.insanejournal.com]

For all the hokey-ness, I really love this turn of events. It is a pretty good character turn, imo. I like Ollie being a big hypocrite because with his personality I can buy it. He draws people in, drew Roy in, but he's just not responsible. He's the opposite of Batman who holds on too tight and pushes people away because he's afraid of losing them.

Of course Ollie didn't make Roy a drug user, but the fact that he didn't notice, that he wasn't there and Roy could have been doing just about anything in that time, that he didn't even know Roy--he's got good reason to think he failed and he really doesn't listen to Roy. And Roy does sound like a lot of drug users in focusing on the problems in his life as being his real problem. I mean, Roy's actually wrong. The drugs aren't the symptom, they're the problem, imo. Without heroin they would be the problem. Once he started shooting up he replaced them with that problem.