Monday, April 13, 2020

Green Arrow vs. The Pirates, #3: An Apparently Hopeless Wreck!


Having eluded the terrible torpedo of the seafaring scalawags, the Potamic Duo plan their counterattack, if "plan" is the correct word.  


Dive-bomb? You can only 'dive-bomb' something by flying at it from high above and you are in a boat on the waterline, what could you....

Oh, of course.  Green Arrow's signature move is to have the Arrowcar catapult him through unopened windows headfirst and otherwise headlong into barely-visible danger. Like an arrow.


In fact, he does it on the cover of this very issue.

Why would the Batbo-, er, Arrowcraft be any different? Sure enough:


You know why Ollie never adopted Roy?
Because Roy could reach that button easily.

Ollie proceeds to crack wise, which was the style at the time, while wreaking havoc on the pirates from a safe-distance, as befits a ranged arranger. Until he falls for a Marty McFly:


NOBODY calls him chicken.

SURE, Ollie says, since you asked so nicely, let me come down there on your level, giving up the aerial advantage that I risked my life and quite a lot of money at the boat shop to achieve, so you can easily kick my ass. Which is exactly what happens.


1-percenters, ammIright, folks?


The monocular have no love of archers.


Ouch. RIGHT in the mid-quip. Painful AND embarrassing.

Seeing how easily they defeated Green Arrow (add 'billy club' to the 1001 Ways To Defeat Green Arrow), the pirates sensibly decide that nothing more is needed than to throw him overboard like so much chum.


"So long, chum! HAW HAW!"

After this quick disposal, they continue their getaway by hiding their crappy near-derelict ship among a bunch of others such ships THAT INEXPLICABLY CLOG THE WATERS OFF STAR CITY WHAT THE HECK IS WRONG WITH THIS PLACE I DO NOT UNDERSTAND.


Shouldn't the Harbor Police DO something about this?
What do we PAY them for?!


Just as they did Green Arrow.

Thus died Green Arrow. Requiescat in mare; ave maria, plena Reginae. End of story.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Belaying pin.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belaying_pin

Scipio said...

... It IS, isn't it?

John C said...

I would've gone with "turkey baster," myself. It is a Green Arrow story where Ollie throws a wad of cash at his enemies, after all. If we don't get a scene after Ollie wakes up from his near-death experience only to finish his interrupted quip, I'm gonna riot...

It's really nice that Ollie got to "dive-bomb" twice, though, isn't it? I guess it's technically not diving if you're unconscious, but a spring under a chair is also not a catapult, so it's probably close enough.

But the real question: Are the pirate ships all counterparts of the same ship from alternate universes, maybe? Because the red sky at...whatever time it is in the neighborhood derelict shipyard can't possibly be a good sign for the DC Universe at large. He'll probably have to cross over with Odd Man and Halk-Kar or some nonsense like that.

cybrid said...

Isn't it ironic that your bete noir Green Arrow and your fave Aquaman coasted from the golden age into the silver age on the very same raft, i.e. as back-up features in Adventure Comics (which, as some casual peruser or another might not know, stayed the course because it was part of the Superman set of titles)? Don't you think? :-)

Scipio said...

Like a symbiotic species.

Scipio said...

I'm a little sad no one seems to have gotten my Latin joke :-(

Burnsteel said...

My latin isn't good, so all I got was Rest in the Sea.

Bryan L said...

Rest in the sea; hail Mary, full of queens? I'm guessing. My Latin is really rusty, and I thought Reginae was princesses, but that's not Ollie. Well, maybe it is. No, I didn't get it. I feel bad for letting you down.

Scipio said...

"maria" can mean "Mary" but it's also the plural of mares, that is "oceans".