Rise of Arsenal: Who Cares?
May 28th, 2010 by david brothers | Tags: DC comics, Green Arrow, ruin the momentI wrote up this short piece on how JT Krul and Geraldo Borges’s Rise of Arsenal got the way heroin works wrong. While proofing before posting, I realized that I didn’t care enough to post it. Rise of Arsenal got everything you can get about heroin wrong, including how to freebase and the effects of the drug. It’s lazy and stupid and pointless. My post was going to be called “Rise of Arsenal: Wynken, Blynken, and On the Nod” which is some kind of perfect storm of stupid and amazing, but no–not worth it. Rise of Arsenal is lazy and stupid and doesn’t even have a villain. There’s no conflict beyond “Will Roy Harper shoot up?” I can’t even get mad about it.
Instead, here’s something I posted three years ago. I think it still applies.
Read good comics instead of getting mad about bad ones.
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$.25 an issue? My, my, where has the time gone?
Hm. I’ve only read number one; I missed two and forgot about it until three came out, so I’ve got it on backorder, to be delivered next Wednesday. So, I’m behind.
But I don’t really think it’s *that* bad, based on the first issue. The story doesn’t have to have a villain – if it was an on-going instead of a mini, there might be problems, but for a four-issue mini, the character’s inner demons and his struggle with his past choices can be pretty compelling. Has it worked? Like I said, I’m sill on the first issue. I can’t say.
But I can say this: the scene in the first issue where he was looking at his daughter’s body and imagining her final moments? I get choked up *thinking* about that scene. As a father of a four-year-old girl, I can tell you… the combination of art and script in that particular scene was extremely emotional. So there’s that.
Where the hell is your thunderbolts review?
@Pedro Tejeda: It will strike, like lightning, early next week.
@Daniel M. Clark: In a superhero comic book, a villain kind of goes with the territory. I’ve read plenty of superhero miniseries over the years and those that eschew dramatic conflict between characters in favor of navel-gazing have been just awful comic books.
Besides, you’re essentially asking readers to care about the inner struggle of a character whose personality, motivation, and even continuity changes with each new pair of writing hands – good luck with that.
I read my brother’s copy of #3 and I found myself wishing it a little worse. As it stands right now it’s teetering between the “so bad it’s depressing” & “so bad it’s hilarious”, with depressing winning out.
I think at this point, anything about Rise of Arsenal needs to be said directly to JT Krul’s face. And his Chief Creative Officer’s face.
@Dan Coyle: Ditto