Enormous opportunity! Situation desperate! Need ideas!
My friend Brad Meltzer called to tell me he and Judd Wincik are going to a six-month long college reunion, and DC wants me to fill in on Green Arrow because I'm the only person in worse shape than Messner-Loebs. Must make a story arc -- and fast! I'll only have one shot!
Let's see, must fix Ollie's principal problem (next to the beard, and the personality, and the general stupidity of arrows): lack of rogues. Yes, yes, I'll dredge up every single villain he's ever faced, have them attack him one by one, then together. That worked with Hawkman. Works in every arc Jeph Loeb's ever written; I'll just skip the overarching one-shot cipher character that's supposed to tie it all together, but doesn't.
What?! What do you mean Ollie doesn't have any rogues of his own? Ohmigod, ohmigod, okay-- don't panic. It's okay; I know what to do. I'll do what anyone would do, faced with writing GA: form an ersatz Rogues Gallery out of discarded Nth rate opponents of better heroes. Let's see ... the Riddler? No, no; everyone knows the Riddler has been reduxed and is big time; that's really stupid. Er, um, Duke of Oil? Too ridiculous, even for Ollie; never get an Eisner that way. Solomon Grundy? Oh, it's been done? Think man, think!
Ah-ha! I'll--I'll just cannibalize MY OWN BLOG for the characters I need; brilliant!
Ollie's New Rogues Gallery
Extrano!
Artsy-Face!
Twisty!
The Purple Turban!
Katy Keene!
The Salacious Sailor!
The Eraser and the Ten-Eyed Man!
The Fleeing Fiend!
R.O.G.E.R.!
Joe Coyne!
The Uncomfortable Nardak!
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission!
The Unconscious Japanese Accountant!
Ollie actually DOES have a rogues gallery, albeit a small and often stupid one.
ReplyDeleteI actually sent a couple of story proposals to DC and never heard a response. One of them involved one of GA's old costumed enemies, the Rainbow Archer. In my story he had abandoned the costume and trick arrows and was now operating a gun-running operation in Star City, smuggling the guns inside cans of paint. I planned to have a lot of fun with his dialogue, peppering his speech with color puns (i.e. "Don't be yellow", "I'm seeing red", etc).
Extrano should be the villain behind Infinite Crisis.
ReplyDeleteAnd the Red Dart. Can't forget him.
ReplyDeleteThe Red Dart! NICE CALL!
ReplyDeleteYou know, Green Arrow's rogues gallery could make an interesting collection of custom HeroClix! The Rainbow Archer, the Red Dart, Clock King, Merlyn the Archer, Ozone, Printer's Devil, and Auntie Gravity!
ReplyDeleteThe Purple Turban is very dramatic and all, but I don't see how you could resist having the Green Arrow fight the Green Arab.
ReplyDeleteWhat about that guy that Kevin Smith created...the Sound Effect Guy that almost did Connor in whose name I can't spell....
ReplyDeleteOh and does Stanley and His Monster count as a villain or hapless patsy?
I believe Ariel's referring to...Ontomatopeoia?
ReplyDeleteAnd how about "Alias The Spider" (I.E. the guy who took GA's place in the post-Crisis Seven Soldiers of Victory...) as an archenemy?
I've been trying for months to get a hold of that Pinball Wizard fight...it was in a Detective Comics, right?
ReplyDeletePLEASE tell me you're making up the Pinball Wizard?
ReplyDeletePLEASE?
Thanks so much for this post, pretty worthwhile material.
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