According to Devon (who erreth not) at Seven Hells, Arsenal appears to be a traitor. Not a hoax! Not a dream! Not an imaginary story!
He abadons the poor reservationers who raised him as their own to run off with a rich dilettante. He becomes a heroin addict. He knocks up a foreign assassin. He works for a shadowy spy agency. Roy ain't exactly snow white, so the idea that his betrayal might be real is believable.
He's got another thing going against him: the Dynastic Centerpiece model. Long-time readers of the Absorbascon will recognize the Dynastic Centerpiece model, whereby DC takes a central hero and builds around him or her a "dynasty" of related characters in archtypal roles (e.g., "Kid Sidekick"), vasting increasing the hero's iconic value.
Since his resurrection, Green Arrow has been the focus of much dynasty-building. But with girl-Speedy as his Kid Sidekick and Connor Hawke as his Junior Counterpart, a squeezed-out Arsenal doesn't really have a role to play. Either his new role in Arrow Dynasty is as Black Sheep or, more disturbingly, he's being Todd-ified into The Former Sidekick Gone Bad.
And the writer of Green Arrow and of the Outsiders is ALSO the writer who's recreated Jason Todd as The Former Sidekick Gone Bad. Would you be surprised if Judd Winick is copying himself and doing the same thing with Roy Harper?
4 comments:
I guess I'm going to have to pick up this month's Outsiders now (at least for a flip-through) and see what you guys are talking about. I'm not sure I believe that Arsenal could be a traitor, though, mainly because I can't believe that Roy Harper could be smart enough to betray someone and not get caught.
On the other hand, an EEEVIL Roy doesn't sound any more interesting than a good Roy, so I'm not sure what the gain would be. He's also got a kid whose mother is already a super-villain, so I'm not sure what effect that would have on things either.
(And thanks for the link to my blog, by the way! I love reading this site, so I appreciate the link!)
Ihope not, since it seems like such a cliche.
However, everything is probably going to be wiped clean as a part of Infinite Crisis, so it really doesn't matter, right?
You're welcome, Jer. By the way, if you have a moment, do me a favor and drop a note to my friend Jack at Big Monkey Comics (see link) because, hey, you're the guy with all the big monkeys!
Ya know, Pete, I'm fairly certain Judd has NO IDEA how Jason came back.
He's waiting for fans to come up with a plausible theory on-line, and then he'll copy that.
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