So it’s gonna be a weird week for comic book reviews from me, dawgs. I had some work and some traveling and this and that, and then, frankly, I wasn’t too impressed with what was on offer. So it’s gonna be a quick week from me.

Comic Book of the Week goes to Absolute Green Arrow #3 for another strong issue, though it was a bit scattershot to my liking.

Meanwhile, I dunno, I keep doing the same stuff. Still playing Crimson Desert, though I’m probably nearing the end. I’m gonna go see The Odyssey in theaters on Monday, though not in IMAX. The closest IMAX theater is nearly an hour away and not worth the hassle of getting to. So pretty chill time to be me.

Comic Reviews: Absolute Green Arrow #3, Avengers: Armageddon #2 and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #2.

Absolute Green Arrow #3
Writer: Pornsak Pichetshote
Artist: Rafael Albuquerque
Colorist: Marcelo Maiolo
Letterer: Jeff Powell

I keep meaning to get caught back up on Absolute Flash and Absolute Green Lantern. I should be experiencing the entire Absolute Universe!

Dinah tracks down Roy Harper, who seems a bit strung out and claims it’s because he’s been on the run and uncovered the gruesome secrets of the rich and famous. We learn more about his relationship with Ollie, and how Roy may have inadvertently tipped the bad guys off to Ollie’s whereabouts/plans, leading to his death — but Roy thinks the bad guys have used Miraclo to bring him back from the dead! He takes Dinah to the mysterious “Island,” which is actually a lab underneath and airport, where they find some scary monsters!

Meanwhile, we get a flashback to the Green Arrow Killer’s latest attack a few days ago, where we see some civilians help the killer escape Dinah and Hammond’s security team. It seems the public at large is in favor of someone killing CEOs.

Comic Rating: 8/10 – Very Good.

I think this is a great angle for the Absolute version of Green Arrow and I hope Pichetshote and DC really lean into the killing of CEOs/rich and powerful Island stuff. That goes a bit off the rails at the very end (more on that later), but I love love love the idea of the public being in favor of the Green Arrow Killer and the public reaction scenes we get. It’s an obvious parallel to Luigi Mangione in real life, and I want that parallel to be front and center on this book. It makes the comic stronger and is a topic worthy of this kind of adaptation, and I think Absolute Green Arrow is handling that side of things excellently. We’re only on issue three, so it’s really just starting, but I can’t wait to see where we go with that angle.

A lot of people online seem to think that the Absolute Universe is all about rewriting the classic characters with something important taken away from them. Like what would Batman be like if he didn’t have all his money? But I take Scott Snyder’s Comics Writing 101 class, and he has told the class directly that the conceit of the Absolute Universe is rewriting these characters with a mindset of today’s real world. Bruce doesn’t have his money because billionaires are the enemy these days, and that’s why Batman is working class. Absolute Superman is a story about the immigrant experience in the present day. So I am very excited about Absolute Green Arrow tackling the ripped-from-the-headlines idea of the Mangione case, with an added dig into the Epstein Files.

This issue itself is a little too all over the place for my tastes, to a point that it gets a little confusing. There’s a lot of jumping around, and the writing doesn’t tie it all together strongly enough, in my opinion. There’s a bit where Dinah checks in with a former police contact and I think she was asking him about Connor Hawke…but the kid was using a different name? And maybe wasn’t the real Connor Hawke? I dunno. And Roy is very vague about just what he did that may have tipped off Hammond and the bad guys to Ollie. It just wasn’t super clear to me while reading. And while the Roy/Ollie flashback was nice, now we’re also bringing Emiko into the world already. Some of these character introductions could wait until at least the first big story is over.

Still, despite being a bit all over the place, the writing and characters are still strong. And the story of the Green Arrow Killer is developing nicely. So it’s still a strong issue. And the artwork is still very fitting, though we don’t get as much gruesome horror this time around. That’s fine. The cliffhanger ending promises to have even more. Though I think the idea that the rich and powerful have a secret lab where they’re making monsters based on classic comic book characters is a little too similar to Ark M from Absolute Batman. You could do so much with a version of Epstein’s Island in a superhero universe!

TL;DR: Another strong issue building on the central themes and mystery, though it gets a bit scattershot and we’re starting to introduce more characters than the comic needs.

Shorter Reviews:

Avengers: Armageddon #2 by Chip Zdarsky, Delio Diaz & Frank Alpizar, Sonia Oback and VC’s Clayton Cowles

Comic Rating: 5/10 – Alright.

This story just isn’t grabbing me, which is the same problem I had with Zdarsky’s Captain America. I don’t know what it is, other than nothing particularly fun happens. I’m a bit pleased with the surprise fate of Red Hulk, but I’m disappointed if it means all of this has just been to set up David Colton as a bad guy. I like Colton a lot as a character. I will be bummed if this is all just about rising him up as a villain to cause the titular Armageddon. But this issue is a bunch of Colton going down that villain route and Ross not really delivering what he promised in terms of promotion.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #2 by Marguerite Bennett, Andrew Lee Griffith, Joshua Jensen and Ed Dukeshire

Comic Rating: 5/10 – Alright.

Slightly better than the first issue. I still don’t like it. The comic feels so stiff, both writing and art. Feels like editorial had an idea for a comic, and Bennett is doing just enough to meet that idea without getting fired. Like there’s a whole scene of the Rangers trying to figure out how to be Rangers as adults, which is an interesting concept, but it’s really bad in execution. Not to harp on Zack as a lawyer again, but when trying to figure out their adult skills, he literally just saying, “gathering evidence,” and then puts that to use trying to figure stuff out about the new Rita. It’s just so clunky. The whole comic feels clunky, and not at all like the much better crafted, more character-driven previous comics from BOOM!

The comics I review in my Hench-Sized reviews are just the usual comics I grab from Comixology any given week, along with a few impulse buys I might try on a whim. So if there are any comics or series you’d like me to review each week, let me know in the comments.

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