Post by DocQuantum on Jun 24, 2020 7:55:19 GMT
I've been reading every single Green Arrow story in chronological order and taking notes as I do so, starting with their 1941 debut and into the 1950s and '60s. What I've noticed most starkly is that, except for Speedy and the Police Commissioner (whose name changes from time to time), there is no supporting cast whatsoever, and no girlfriends. There isn't even a butler or servants to be seen to manage Oliver Queen's huge mansion.
But that doesn't mean they don't exist. The way I see it, Green Arrow stories were always back-up features and limited by page number. Therefore, all details other than the actual crime-fighting cases that Green Arrow and Speedy were involved in were left out.
We do know Oliver Queen has always liked the ladies, and he's been known to have girlfriends before becoming Green Arrow based on flashbacks, and his longtime relationship with Black Canary speaks for itself. But although he didn't have any girlfriends depicted in the published stories from 1941 to 1964, I believe Oliver did date casually, but never let women get too close to him. His crime-fighting mission has been described as thrill-seeking (something confirmed in his Who's Who entry), so he's not obsessed in the same way as Batman is -- there's no one to avenge -- but it was far more interesting than running the Queen Foundation. I think he did have women chase after him for his wealth and good looks, but none of them stayed because he always kept his true passion hidden from them, and he pushed them away by never allowing for the true intimacy of an actual relationship. His relationship with Black Canary could only happen after he had lost all his wealth, and was no longer raising Roy as his ward.
Speaking of the Queen Foundation, it was never pictured either. We know he had an office of some kind, since it was mentioned in passing here and there, but it was never shown in the original stories, only being pictured in later flashbacks from the '60s and '70s after his beard phase began. Again, he always seemed obsessed with working on new trick arrows and fighting crime, so his role in the Queen Foundation was probably mostly as a figurehead. It's no wonder, really, that John Deleon was able to steal his entire business and wealth out from under him. Oliver had never really cared about his business except as a source of funding for his true passion.
The source of Oliver's wealth was never really explained in the original stories, either. He was just a wealthy man. In the 1943 origin story, of course, Oliver Queen and Roy Harper became wealthy through a discovery of gold that they claimed, for neither of them grew up wealthy, but that only applies to the Earth-2 version. The Earth-1 Oliver Queen's family wealth was only much later explained to be from one original source: a diamond fortune. Hopefully, the Queen diamond fortune wasn't tied to any unsavory practices that gave rise to the term 'blood diamond,' but I honestly wouldn't be surprised if some terrible practices were done a century or so earlier. This might be another, unexplained reason why Oliver became a crime-fighter. If he became aware that his ancestors were involved with blood diamonds, that might be one more incentive for fighting crime, and may go a long way to explain why he never really fought to regain his wealth from John Deleon, even though he totally could have -- he may have thought of his wealth as dirty money.
About Oliver's family, we know next to nothing. Presumably both of his parents had died or weren't on speaking terms with him by the time he became Green Arrow. Harvey added a single detail about them that probably colored his relationships when he revealed that Ollie's parents had divorced when he was a child. And unlike his pal Hal Jordan, Oliver never had any brothers or sisters, or any apparent cousins, except possibly an elderly cousin in Scotland who died and left him a castle, which he soon donated as a hospital to the town, based on a late 1940s Green Arrow story that could have taken place on both Earth-2 and Earth-1. I don't recall any Queen relatives showing up in later Green Arrow stories, but it's been a while since I've read them, and I'n not there yet in my rereading.
And what about that big house Oliver and Roy lived in? Surely those two were too busy to maintain the entire building. At the very least, a cleaning staff would have to come in once a month to dust the furniture, but more likely once a week. None of the original stories depicted any kind of staff that worked for Oliver Queen... but that didn't mean he didn't have a butler. Actually, a smiling, overweight butler or servant was shown to offer Oliver his lunch only once: in a Superboy story in which Superboy is viewing the grown-up Oliver Queen through a time-viewer, shortly before he meets the teenage Oliver who has briefly moved to Smallville for some unknown reason. So that butler did exist, but his role in Oliver's life was so minimal that it never had any bearing on any of his cases, and thus he never needed to be depicted in any story. Post-Crisis, Oliver was shown to have a butler by the name of Stanley Wilson, so that was probably the name of the unnamed butler from that Superboy story, too, even if they look somewhat different.
Oliver and Roy both had friends who made single appearances every once in a while, so they did have some kind of social lives, and they were also shown to be guests at charity events of the type rich folks like to attend. But those friends only ever appeared if their roles were integral to the cases in some way.
And then there's Oliver Queen's personality. Post-1968, he was notorious as a hothead. Pre-1968, he was an upright, even-tempered man of responsibility who never seemed to waver from his moral convictions. Really, they're two completely different people, but for the sake of continuity we must accept that John Deleon's stealing his business from him changed Oliver profoundly. Still, it might be nice to see some glimmerings of the insufferable, opinionated hothead that he would later become.
I think it might be interesting to adapt one of those old 1950s Green Arrow stories and expand it to show some of these details that 6, 8 or 10 pages never really allowed for. In particular, one that could show one of Oliver's brief relationships with a society woman until she's had enough of him, and a depiction of butler Stan Wilson as a servant who tended to mind his own business and keep to his work, unlike Alfred Pennyworth, but still fulfilled a similar function by taking care of everything that Oliver couldn't be bothered with. And, of course, some of that hotheadedness Ollie's known for.
I also think it would be good to see what Green Arrow was like as a solo crime-fighter before he took in Roy Harper as his ward, and Roy became Speedy. Except for some Post-Crisis mini-series, those earliest cases after his origin story have never been shown. How did Green Arrow become the world's most renowned archer? How did he become so famous world-wide that he inspired a group of international archers known as the Green Arrows of the World?
More practically, how did he build his Arrowcar or equip the Arrowcave before Roy came along? We know he had the Arrowcar already, based on Speedy's origin story, but the Green Arrow stories took a long way to build up to an Arrowcave; originally it was referred to as the Arrow Workshop, and only seemed to be a room in the basement. I imagine Oliver began small, and he and Roy expanded it over the years to become the Arrowcave. And how did Green Arrow's relationship with the police get established so that the Police Commissioner himself started summoning him with the Arrow Signal?
And then there's my biggest burning question: Was Oliver Queen just the world's biggest Batman fan that he modeled his entire career after him by having a kid sidekick partner, a tricked-out car and plane, his own cave headquarters, a police signal seen in the skies above, and even his own working relationship with his police commissioner? Did Batman and Green Arrow ever meet in the early days? Did Green Arrow meet any other heroes in those early days? In rereading the Green Arrow story from DC's Greatest Team-Up collection, G.A. mentions that he once met Aquaman a long time ago, but if he ever did, that first meeting has never been depicted. Was Aquaman the first hero that Green Arrow ever met? And did it have something to do with Starfish Island?
But that doesn't mean they don't exist. The way I see it, Green Arrow stories were always back-up features and limited by page number. Therefore, all details other than the actual crime-fighting cases that Green Arrow and Speedy were involved in were left out.
We do know Oliver Queen has always liked the ladies, and he's been known to have girlfriends before becoming Green Arrow based on flashbacks, and his longtime relationship with Black Canary speaks for itself. But although he didn't have any girlfriends depicted in the published stories from 1941 to 1964, I believe Oliver did date casually, but never let women get too close to him. His crime-fighting mission has been described as thrill-seeking (something confirmed in his Who's Who entry), so he's not obsessed in the same way as Batman is -- there's no one to avenge -- but it was far more interesting than running the Queen Foundation. I think he did have women chase after him for his wealth and good looks, but none of them stayed because he always kept his true passion hidden from them, and he pushed them away by never allowing for the true intimacy of an actual relationship. His relationship with Black Canary could only happen after he had lost all his wealth, and was no longer raising Roy as his ward.
Speaking of the Queen Foundation, it was never pictured either. We know he had an office of some kind, since it was mentioned in passing here and there, but it was never shown in the original stories, only being pictured in later flashbacks from the '60s and '70s after his beard phase began. Again, he always seemed obsessed with working on new trick arrows and fighting crime, so his role in the Queen Foundation was probably mostly as a figurehead. It's no wonder, really, that John Deleon was able to steal his entire business and wealth out from under him. Oliver had never really cared about his business except as a source of funding for his true passion.
The source of Oliver's wealth was never really explained in the original stories, either. He was just a wealthy man. In the 1943 origin story, of course, Oliver Queen and Roy Harper became wealthy through a discovery of gold that they claimed, for neither of them grew up wealthy, but that only applies to the Earth-2 version. The Earth-1 Oliver Queen's family wealth was only much later explained to be from one original source: a diamond fortune. Hopefully, the Queen diamond fortune wasn't tied to any unsavory practices that gave rise to the term 'blood diamond,' but I honestly wouldn't be surprised if some terrible practices were done a century or so earlier. This might be another, unexplained reason why Oliver became a crime-fighter. If he became aware that his ancestors were involved with blood diamonds, that might be one more incentive for fighting crime, and may go a long way to explain why he never really fought to regain his wealth from John Deleon, even though he totally could have -- he may have thought of his wealth as dirty money.
About Oliver's family, we know next to nothing. Presumably both of his parents had died or weren't on speaking terms with him by the time he became Green Arrow. Harvey added a single detail about them that probably colored his relationships when he revealed that Ollie's parents had divorced when he was a child. And unlike his pal Hal Jordan, Oliver never had any brothers or sisters, or any apparent cousins, except possibly an elderly cousin in Scotland who died and left him a castle, which he soon donated as a hospital to the town, based on a late 1940s Green Arrow story that could have taken place on both Earth-2 and Earth-1. I don't recall any Queen relatives showing up in later Green Arrow stories, but it's been a while since I've read them, and I'n not there yet in my rereading.
And what about that big house Oliver and Roy lived in? Surely those two were too busy to maintain the entire building. At the very least, a cleaning staff would have to come in once a month to dust the furniture, but more likely once a week. None of the original stories depicted any kind of staff that worked for Oliver Queen... but that didn't mean he didn't have a butler. Actually, a smiling, overweight butler or servant was shown to offer Oliver his lunch only once: in a Superboy story in which Superboy is viewing the grown-up Oliver Queen through a time-viewer, shortly before he meets the teenage Oliver who has briefly moved to Smallville for some unknown reason. So that butler did exist, but his role in Oliver's life was so minimal that it never had any bearing on any of his cases, and thus he never needed to be depicted in any story. Post-Crisis, Oliver was shown to have a butler by the name of Stanley Wilson, so that was probably the name of the unnamed butler from that Superboy story, too, even if they look somewhat different.
Oliver and Roy both had friends who made single appearances every once in a while, so they did have some kind of social lives, and they were also shown to be guests at charity events of the type rich folks like to attend. But those friends only ever appeared if their roles were integral to the cases in some way.
And then there's Oliver Queen's personality. Post-1968, he was notorious as a hothead. Pre-1968, he was an upright, even-tempered man of responsibility who never seemed to waver from his moral convictions. Really, they're two completely different people, but for the sake of continuity we must accept that John Deleon's stealing his business from him changed Oliver profoundly. Still, it might be nice to see some glimmerings of the insufferable, opinionated hothead that he would later become.
I think it might be interesting to adapt one of those old 1950s Green Arrow stories and expand it to show some of these details that 6, 8 or 10 pages never really allowed for. In particular, one that could show one of Oliver's brief relationships with a society woman until she's had enough of him, and a depiction of butler Stan Wilson as a servant who tended to mind his own business and keep to his work, unlike Alfred Pennyworth, but still fulfilled a similar function by taking care of everything that Oliver couldn't be bothered with. And, of course, some of that hotheadedness Ollie's known for.
I also think it would be good to see what Green Arrow was like as a solo crime-fighter before he took in Roy Harper as his ward, and Roy became Speedy. Except for some Post-Crisis mini-series, those earliest cases after his origin story have never been shown. How did Green Arrow become the world's most renowned archer? How did he become so famous world-wide that he inspired a group of international archers known as the Green Arrows of the World?
More practically, how did he build his Arrowcar or equip the Arrowcave before Roy came along? We know he had the Arrowcar already, based on Speedy's origin story, but the Green Arrow stories took a long way to build up to an Arrowcave; originally it was referred to as the Arrow Workshop, and only seemed to be a room in the basement. I imagine Oliver began small, and he and Roy expanded it over the years to become the Arrowcave. And how did Green Arrow's relationship with the police get established so that the Police Commissioner himself started summoning him with the Arrow Signal?
And then there's my biggest burning question: Was Oliver Queen just the world's biggest Batman fan that he modeled his entire career after him by having a kid sidekick partner, a tricked-out car and plane, his own cave headquarters, a police signal seen in the skies above, and even his own working relationship with his police commissioner? Did Batman and Green Arrow ever meet in the early days? Did Green Arrow meet any other heroes in those early days? In rereading the Green Arrow story from DC's Greatest Team-Up collection, G.A. mentions that he once met Aquaman a long time ago, but if he ever did, that first meeting has never been depicted. Was Aquaman the first hero that Green Arrow ever met? And did it have something to do with Starfish Island?
