Green Arrow #46

Teamwork

Same Old Scribe Judd Winick
Hot New Pencils Tom Fowler
Equally Hot New Inks Rodney Ramos
Always Smokin' Colors Guy Major
Rock Solid Letters Rob Leigh
Scrappy Associate Editor Michael Wright
Omnipotent Editor Bob "The Hammer" Schreck

Our cover by James Jean is an odd, unique style that I can't quite wrap my head around. It almost feels like each character is drawn from a different perspective. I don't know. All I do know is that I don't get it and I don't like it. Anyway, the center of our cover is the star of this show, a new female archer, calling herself Speedy, in honor of Green Arrow's original sidekick.

Our story begins with Green Arrow and Speedy taking down a ridiculous villain on stilts called High-Rise. Speedy's name is Mia Dearden, and she has spent a year training under Oliver Queen's son, Conner Hawke, followed by two more months directly under the Green Arrow himself. She's now been his official sidekick for three weeks, and Oliver feels it's time for a small vacation.

They hop in Oliver's private jet and take off for San Francisco. Once they're up in the air, Ollie reveals to Mia he's going to introduce her to the Teen Titans. Mia's nervous about this, but he tells her how the original Speedy, Roy Harper, was a founding member of the Teen Titans, and how spending time with friends was good for him and will be good for Mia. To make matters worse for Mia, Oliver drops her off in front of the tower with Cyborg, while leaving in search of a pub. Vic brings the frightened girl inside, where she is met with a sight that would scare just about anybody.

The Titans quickly overwhelm Speedy. Wonder Girl says they've heard a lot about her, but Kid Flash insists he hasn't heard "squat." Beast Boy asks if she chose Speedy as her name since Arrowette was already taken, and Mia says she doesn't think she would call herself Arrowette. Superboy defensively asks what's wrong with Arrowette, and Bart asks what her real name is. Speedy isn't sure if she should tell them, but Bart tells her his real name anyway. Cyborg tells Speedy to prepare for some tests, and Bar sarcastically says the tests will be on geography, ballet and state capitals.

Speedy is placed inside a large combat room, where she dodges lasers and takes out some robotics with her arrows. Everyone watches from above, and Bart says having another non-super-powered team member will be good for Robin's self-esteem. And Beast Boy grossly (and loudly) ogles Speedy's butt (I'm guessing she's a minor, but I'm not sure). Cyborg is watching from the secret control room, with Green Arrow at his side. He tells Oliver that these tests are unnecessary, as he already knows Speedy is field-ready. But Green Arrow says Speedy's personality craves formality to feel like she's earned her place. He then suggests they have her spar against Robin, and he bets Cyborg $20 that she'll win.

So they bring Robin down into the combat room, but he and Speedy spend a solid eight minutes staring at each other in silence. Cyborg says this is a good thing that neither of them want to make the first move, but everybody's losing patience, so he pushes a button that causes a part of the wall to jut out and nudge Robin toward Speedy. The two teens are soon wrapped up in an epic fight, with Robin eventually coming out on top. Green Arrow gladly pays Cyborg his $20, pleased with Mia's progress.

At the end of the day, Green Arrow and Speedy are leaving the tower, and Mia says she wants to be on this team, but she's not quite sure yet. But the one thing she is sure about is she doesn't want to tell the Teen Titans she's H.I.V. positive — at least until they get to know her first. Green Arrow supports this decision, and Kid Flash zooms by, asking Speedy what her favorite pizza is. She says Hawaiian, so Bart quickly returns with one Hawaiian pizza, one veggie, and one pesto and potato pizza for Raven. Mia asks Ollie if the Justice League is like this, and he says it is, although they usually get beer with their take-out.



This Speedy was in the portrait Superboy saw in the future. So in one sense, it's nice to have that little mystery wrapped up. But most of me is groaning right now, asking if we really need another girl archer. Arrowette had a wonderful character arc during Young Justice, and her story came to a fitting, natural conclusion. So I have no desire to see Arrowette return, or, in this case, a girl that looks exactly like Arrowette and has the exact same skill set and equipment as her. Speedy might have a slightly different backstory, but from a Titans-perspective, she is Arrowette for all intents and purposes. If we really needed to add another girl to the team, couldn't we have brought back Empress? (It's also worth noting that Starfire was not in this issue, despite appearing on the cover.)

I feel a little bad for knocking the art in this issue, since this was apparently Tom Fowler's first work on this series. But I honestly have to say I hated this artwork. Everyone looked twisted, deformed, and often had huge, evil grins on their faces. I'd almost say this art works with the naturally silly tone of this story, but then the ending became really serious with all that talk about AIDS. Besides, if there's one thing this blog has taught me, it's that it is possible (and preferable) to have great art for even the silliest of stories.

Next time, we'll finally see the Titans deal with the fallout of Identity Crisis in Teen Titans #20.