Well, Wednesday was the Big Day! Superheroes Green Arrow and Black Canary got themselves hitched in a very eventful issue!
Naturally, reactions were mixed.
(Caution for Spoilers)
Shelly of Shelly’s Comic Book Shelf really liked the issue:
The book was pretty funny, too. I hadn’t realized Winick could be this funny. Dinah getting a hot and bothered Ollie to wait til they’re married for sexual relations to resume was priceless. The reactions of folks getting the invitation was fun, too. Then we have more bachelorette party panels, and finally, the wedding. Which is where I got a bit confused trying to keep all the wedding-related stories straight. Didn’t all hell break loose during the parties, which led to injuries, in the JLA Wedding Special?
Angryrantgirl of Neither Doormat Nor Prostitute really did not:
Basically, this isn’t a book about Black Canary’s wedding day. It’s about some blonde chick whose great ambition was never to kick ass, is not very good at kicking ass, and needs someone else to save her. It’s cool that Patricia or Sally Jane or Maria’s great life ambition might be to have a big wedding and invite all her friends, but I’m reading this book because it’s a superhero comic. I don’t want to read about Patricia, Sally Jane, or Maria and their lifestyle. I want to read about awesome superheroes and women who are every bit as awesome as they are. If I wanted this kind of nonsensical domestic drama, I’d watch Desperate Housewives or some other stereotypical soap opera.
While the Occasional Superheroine points out something disturbing:
Yah, yah, context and all that. Still, the juxtaposition in “The Wedding Special” of Black Canary — who has already been the victim of sexual violence, mind you — allowing herself the vulnerability of being sexy for her mate only to have him inexplicably go crazy and try to kill her in their honeymoon bed makes me ill.
So what did you think?
September 22nd, 2007 at 7:41 pm
Getting a bit bored with gimmick twists! I smell editorial mandate…
September 22nd, 2007 at 8:03 pm
i skipped the whole thing. i like both characters and would have loved a happily ever after but found out early on there was going to be some twist. now my fav characters out of action and one of my fav females is being written by a writer i don’t much care for.
September 22nd, 2007 at 9:03 pm
I liked the arrow-through-you bit better when Steve Martin did it.
September 22nd, 2007 at 9:32 pm
And what was with that wedding dress? No woman (outside of Emma Frost) would choose such a degrading outfit.
September 22nd, 2007 at 9:53 pm
I’m really getting tired of all this top-down bullcrap from DC that isn’t making their books half as interesting as they think. The only story DC is doing well right now is Sinestro Corps and what a coincidence that it’s the creative driven one!
Plus what’s the point of ressurecting Green Arrow if you’re just going to kill him again a few years later? LAME! Way to prove you have no idea what to do with the character DC!
September 23rd, 2007 at 12:09 am
I’m wondering how one of the DCU’s top martial artists and someone who possesses a sonic scream suddenly can only resort to an arrow through the neck in order to stop an attack by her mind-controlled, non-powered husband.
There’s bad writing and then there’s dumb writing and then there’s this. Another Judd Winick masterpiece.
September 23rd, 2007 at 5:23 am
Aside from the vast logic chasms in the plot (of *course* Dinah’s dumn enough to go chasing after the ring during a pitched battle! Someone whose voice is a weapon would naturally have to grab a pointy stick to stop a close-quarters attack!), I’m concerned at the casual way Winick’s portraying Dinah as an abusive spouse. No, not the last page, but earlier in this issue and toward the end of the GA series. Dinah’s now twice hit Ollie to get him to shut up during a domestic argument (rather than super-fight). I don’t recall her ever acting that way before Winick took over.
Switch that around - Ollie hits Dinah to get her to shut up - and the uproar would be (rightfully) stupendous.
I want to like this. I want to like the new series. They’re two of my favourite characters, and their support characters are also among my favourites. Cliff Chiang’s art is great. I just really wish someone else were writing it.
September 23rd, 2007 at 8:16 am
Man, and here I thought Marvel had the monopoly on “marriage = death” and “marriage = character removal” going on. Makes you wonder if Judd’s been invited to the “One More Day” planning sessions.
You’d think in an industry overwhelmingly dominated by middle-aged married guys, you’d think married superheroes in healthy, normal relationships would be the rule, not the exception. Instead we get Joe Quesada wanting to undo twenty years of character development so Peter Parker can look at porn and be a dateless shlemiel, and now we have the ultimate sex/death equation with Ollie and Dinah, complete with penetration/violation metaphors galore.
Glad I didn’t spend a dime on this.
September 23rd, 2007 at 8:32 am
I thought the book was good. It had bad parts but I think were more good than bad.
The ending, anyone who thinks ollie is really dead, well….read more comics or watch more TV.
I just wish people talked as nuch about the good books like Checkmate or Superman or Atom or Blue Beetle or CD to Mystery or Uncle Sam and…. or etc. But no.
September 23rd, 2007 at 9:54 am
“The book was pretty funny, too. I hadn’t realized Winick could be this funny. ”
Someone needs to read Barry Ween. Winnick is much better at being funny than he is at writing superhero books.
September 23rd, 2007 at 11:45 am
I thought the supervillain attack was boring. Yes this is a superhero comic, but do we really need to guess some baddies are gonna crash the ceremony? Winick can be inventive when he wants to be, why not try that here?
Re. the last page, the wedding could’ve been a turning point for these characters, a lynchpin moment in the storied histories of two of my favorite B-level superheroes. By tying it in to a larger event and a new series via the final page, DC has effectively mandated that the wedding will be forgoteen. It’s not self-contained and can never be collected separately, for example, without the readers of 2015 asking, “HOLY CRAP WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?” A mistake in my book.
All that said, Conner’s artwork was hilarious and charming and fun. All the bachelors gathered in the hallway trying to leave was a hoot. Eel was stylin’ in his uusal red zoot suit.
September 23rd, 2007 at 12:08 pm
kwaku, this is the INTERNET, no one likes to talk about good books, everyone just wants to bitch about things they hate.
September 23rd, 2007 at 1:20 pm
Liked the book actually and pretty much enjoyed it.
Though I can see why DC keeps playing the death card if the internet is so gullible about it. ;p
September 23rd, 2007 at 7:33 pm
Stuff happening to women?!?!? Rabble rabble rabble rabble
I wonder if Gail Simone is still “baffled?”