Pop Mythology Pop Mythology: Movie, Book, Comic reviews & commentary
It’s no sooner than after you’ve turned to the first page of Green Arrow Vol. 4: The Kill Machine that Jeff Lemire–with the opening of a stumbling, dying Oliver Queen in the desert, ready to die–has you hooked for good. After that, all bets are off when our hero is turned into a fugitive before the first issue has finished. Lemire wastes no time getting right to it and drops us into a tense action thriller like no other.
Andrea Sorrentino’s artwork is as brilliant as ever, full of energy, and gives life to the action scenes that make each issue all the more memorable. What he and Marcelo Maiolo do with color and white space really make the artwork pop out and it feels appropriately cinematic, especially during climatic panels strewn throughout the story. He leads the eye around the page like a pro and unifies the story and art in a way that a comic book fan can only hope for but rarely receive.
Lemire breaks the character down until he’s at his lowest so we can see the base components of the character. With great finesse, touching memories are combined with flashes forward to remind us just how far down Ollie ends up falling. Volume 4 collects issues #17 through #24 and is impossible to put down. It closes with an intriguing set-up with some of the bigger questions unanswered. This is the comic book medium at its best, and I can’t wait to see where Lemire and Sorrentino take the book next.
