'The Sounds Of Violence' is a three issue story that appeared in Green Arrow #13-15 in 2002. Written by Kevin Smith and pencilled by Phil Hester, the story introduced a new villain named Onomatopoeia, a masked serial killer who targeted vigilante's with no superpowers. The story is a brilliant and tense thriller, closing off Smith's 15 issue run on Green Arrow (which still stands as some of his very best work, in comics or film). We wouldn't want a verbatim adaptation of the story, as it would take far too many changes to fit it into Arrow (at one point, Onomatopoeia shoots and nearly kills Connor Hawke, the second Green Arrow and Oliver Queen's son). But we would love to see Onomatopoeia make an appearance in Starling City. The most interesting thing about this villain, other than his scary black mask and tench coat get-up, is that he voices sounds out loud. By this, we mean that if he fires a gun, he says the word 'BLAM!'. If he hears water dripping from a tap, he says 'Drip'. Pretty nifty, huh? We reckon this would make for a very intriguing and off-putting characteristic for a villain in the show, and it worked perfectly in the comic books. The only worry is that it mightn't translate to a live-action environment, as a real-life gunshot doesn't sound like the word BLAM. Kevin Smith himself has asserted that he doesn't think the character would work in any medium outside comics, and this caused the producers of Arrow to back away from using the character in season two. Instead, they created a character named Mr Blank, for the episode 'Home Invasion'. But we reckon they should take another look at Onomatopoeia and give the character the old college try.
