The Absorbascon: Red, White, and Blue Arrow, 1

Riddle me this! What is worse than

Answer:

Four of him.

What's this? Has Geoff Johns time-travelled to the Golden Age so that he could create a spectrum of archers, one for each color?

Nope, this is Adventure Comics #133, in which Speedy tells Green Arrow he's over-the-hill and needs to be replaced, so they hold try-outs for his replacement. I'll say this for Green Arrow; that's definitely a story you wouldn't find Batman and Robin doing!

Your definition of "glorious" may vary.

It begins, as many Green Arrow stories do, with Green Arrow bringing a bow to a gunfight.

"Yeah, G.A.; it's almost as if using weapons that require expertise and strength to produce only one tenth as much force as those that can be used easily at a greater distance by an amateur were somehow tactically unwise."

Naturally, Green Arrow proposes to solve the problem with one of his dumb arrow-based stunts, which immediately backfires.

"Leaving Speedy as a decoy" says so much.

"Aqualad is my decoy!"
At least Aquaman is more self-aware about it.

Unsurprisingly, this stupid "ladder of arrows" stunt G.A. used to pull all the time finally goes South, and Speedy plummets to his death.

You know, being saddled with the guilt of a dead sidekick would be much more on-brand for Green Arrow than Batman. Except I suspect Ollie is not capable of guilt. "Ugh! Now I have to go back to the Rez and get ANOTHER one."

Fortunately, Speedy's REAL ability isn't archery; it's PARKOUR.

As we learned from the CW. Roy can do parkour WHILE outrunning a TRUCK.

Thus Speedy saves him by, um, rolling.

Translation: Roy has known for years that Ollie would eff this stunt up at some point.

It's like I always say, folks: always get your crime-fighting orphans from the circus. They come pre-equipped for such situations.

This bracing brush with death helps Speedy to finally realize that his adult partner is dangerously incompetent.

"Yeah, G.A., it's almost as if traipsing around fighting crime on rooftops in a Robin Hood costume with a dilettante millionaire amateur anthropologist and archery enthusiast was somehow tactically unwise!'

Ollie, of course, feels he's not to blame.

It's like watching the scales falls from Roy's eyes.

Rotten wood or no, the "ladder of arrows" stunt is stupid and dangerous.

Pictured: how to safety scale a wall.

In case you never noticed, every time Batman'66 throws a bat-line so that he can Robin can scale a wall, THEY SHOW HIM TESTING THE SECURITY OF THE LINE before they climb. Always buckle up!

Speedy's doubt is immediately freshly fed by G.A. flubbing a smoke arrow shot

and blaming it on the wind.

Old Man Yells At Cloud.

Unlike the rest of us, this is Roy's first realization that Green Arrow just may be incompetent, which torments him into sleeplessness.

"Knowing that G.A. in his prime never made any slips". I'm just going to put THESE here as a reminder of Green Arrow In His Prime:

Roy has a case of rose-colored glasses so severe that he may think his own costume is grey. But he realizes that, as Ollie's only friend, it falls on him to inform Ollie that he is, in fact, incompetent.

There is much I could say about Ollie's decor. I will say none of it.

Fortunately Ollie facilitates the necessary confrontation by asking for it.

Neither will I make an "awfully hard" joke. That is for lesser wits than mine.

"No secrets between us remember? I mean, unless you are doing drugs. You BETTER keep that from me because I have a ZERO sympathy policy."

Awfully hard it may be, but Roy gets right to it and wastes no words.

"THAT CAN'T GO ON."
Meanwhile, nearly 80 years later...

Okay, now I'll address the decor. I think it should always be remembered that Ollie is rich amateur anthropologist, which means that he's a classy packrat, who picks up knick-knacks from any culture and shoves them into some display in his overcrowded apartment.

Anyway, to his credit, Ollie is self-aware enough to IMMEDIATELY understands that Roy's saying he's washed up and needs replaced. AND ROLLS WITH IT!

"This week, on Hoarders..."

Man, I bet the souvenir stand operators just salivate every time they see Ollie coming and put on their best fake obsequious foreign accents to dump their excess unsalable tchotchkes on this rich rube: "Oh, um, SI, memsahib, we have-um heap big sale on velly velly rare objectos!"

Ollie doesn't mind being put out to pasture but is determined that his legacy will be preserved! THERE MUST NEVER BE ANOTHER GREEN ARROW!