It may be hard to believe, now that he's dominating the superhero TV schedules, but once upon a time Green Arrow wasn't all that popular. Or perhaps that's really easy to believe, since he's a goofy dude in a Robin Hood get-up with a Van Dyke beard who uses a bow and arrow in a fictional universe that's populated by aliens who can fire laser beams out of their eyes. Anyway, when he was killed back in the mid-nineties, nobody really batted an eyelid, mainly for the above reasons. He died a hero's death, at least: attempting to disarm a bomb, despite the protests of Superman himself. Except, ten years later, Oliver Queen turned up alive and well in Kevin Smith and Phil Hester's Quiver storyline. Green Arrow returns and is apparently living rough on the streets of Star City. It turns out that Green Lantern wanted to make up for some of his past mistakes - one of which, apparently, involved resurrecting his old mucker. If that seems like the sort of god-like power that's beyond even the almighty rings of the Lanterns, you'd be right; the way he did it was by scraping off some of the blood splatters left on Superman after Arrow went kablooey, and he rebuilt him using the DNA from that. Which is...kinda gross. And patently ridiculous, obviously.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
