Friday, April 02, 2021

More Fun with GAS

APRIL FOOL!

"I had to use the Starman Code, because there is no Green Arrow Code, because you aren't in the Justice Soci--"
"THANK YOU AGAIN DOCTOR RANKIN."


Yes, I was DECEIVING you yesterday on April Fool's Day, for Ollie Queen is NOT, in fact, dead. Neither is Roy Harper, which was, of course, the 'dead' giveaway; killing Ollie Queen is one thing, but what kind of idiot writer would kill off Roy Harper?

Yet another underwhelming Batman foe winds up in Green Arrow's hand-me-down Rogues Gallery.

As you read in the story panel, Doc Rankin's 'shaking hands' were IN FACT tapping out a message on the bowmen's faces in (what we can only assume was Morse) code.  If you were lying semiconscious, would YOU understand if some tapped out "P L A Y D E A D I T I S O N L Y O X Y G E N" on your face?  Well, then you're no Green Arrow!  Fortunately, as I mentioned once 16 years ago, everyone in comics knows Morse code, cold.

Even dogs can do it. In Spanish. While dying of radiation poisoning.


Dr Rankin explains the whole situation to the bowmen, who speed off in the Arrowcar (yeah, I know, they are still calling it the Arrowplane at this point, probably because it's the size of a hangar) to the gargoyles' next heist.

"Um, sure, Arrow. I'll... 'return' their faces to them. I keep them here, in a jar by the door, next to Ms. Rigby's."

Sigh; you know, if Rankin were a Gothamite instead of a Star Citizen, he would have kicked Angel's ass, then flown to Germany and rescued his own family.  That's what Sonny Blandish would have done.

The next heist is at a gold mine, where the third gargoyle uses his expertise as a mining engineer to effect some chemical folderol that knocks out all opposition.

Only idle billionaire anthropologists can afford their own aqualung-arrows, you know.

Green Arrow shows up to foil them, and, once they realize Speedy is with him, they know they are in trouble.

Unfortunately, Roy seems to still be hyper-oxygenated from Dr Rankin's ruse, and misjudges his entrance.

I have no idea what "here's where this ghost goes west" means. The past is a foreign country.

Gotta appreciate that Roy is still brassy enough to sass Ollie while falling to certain death.  Ollie saves Roy in the scene depicted in the opening splash page and has NO intention of letting Roy ever forget it.

"It would be a THIRD chance, you see, because your SECOND chance is the one I, Green Arrow, gave you by saving your life, when you messed up your FIRST chance."
"Yeah. I get it. Thanks, G.A. You're my hero."

With no aqualung arrows of their own as backup, the gargoyles succumb to Green Arrow. Or, at least, to all the gas.  

"Yep! Lucky there's nothing serious, because all those dead truck drivers were merely subhuman chattel!"  Never forget that Ollie's a one-percenter.

The three gargoyles may not have very successful in actually pulling off any crimes, but you must admit that these unwilling amateur criminals have made a pretty strong showing in holding their own against the Heroes of Star City.

But what of the REAL villain of the piece, Professor Angel? Well, like Roy & Ollie, we'll have to catch up with him tomorrow...


5 comments:

cybrid said...

Wesley Dodds called, he wants his --

No, wait, by 1942, he'd switched to the yellow and purple ensemble. So never mind.

John C said...

To be fair to Tom King, modern comic book Roy is trash. Sort of like Ollie, ever since the introduction of Cheshire, most of his appearances seem to have been complaining about his spoiled childhood or explaining who he's slept with.

Probably the most interesting part of this sequence doesn't have to do with any of the characters: The specificity of showing the riveting on the Arrowcastle. But...how do Ollie and Roy get "wet handkerchiefs" and the gargoyles can't? Is there a Bottled Water Arrow plus handkerchiefs or an actual Wet Handkerchief Arrow?

And...huh. Linking works, right? Go west appears to have been slang for a long time for "die." Weird. There was even a 1935 movie, The Ghost Goes West.

Scipio said...

Yes, links work. Including the one I already provided to that film, because of course I know what "go west' means.

Anonymous said...

"You peed on the handkerchiefs, Ollie? That's a clever move, now they'll protect us from the knockout gas."

"Wait, there's knockout gas?"

Bryan L said...

Which gargoyle's skill set includes hogtying a person in a fraction of a second? Is that taught in Boy Scouts?

And there really isn't any need to be fair to Tom King. "Heroes in Crisis" was awful.