<span class="SFPTagline"> From SCIFIPEDIA </span>

Green Arrow
Gender	Male
Publisher	DC Comics
Origin	Star City
First Appearance	More Fun Comics #73 (November 1941)
Creator(s)	Mort Weisinger George Papp
Alter ego	Oliver Jonas "Ollie" Queen
Aliases	Bowman
Abilities	Master Archer with trick arrows
Affiliations	Justice League Justice League Elite

Green Arrow is a fictional superhero character owned by DC Comics. He wears a green costume with a "Robin Hood" feel to it. He has no super-powers except for his amazing skill as an archer and "trick" arrows which have all sorts of effects, from the corny old "boxing gloved" arrow, to one that omits a sonic blast, and another that blows like a bomb upon contact.

Character Origin

In the original origin, millionaire Oliver Queen supposedly shows no particular talent for the bow and arrow until he falls off his yacht and finds himself stranded on a desert island. There he learns to make and use the weapon for survival. After months of practice, he captures some modern-day pirates who happened to land on his island. Returning to civilization, he finds he cannot return to the humdrum life of a millionaire. He continues using his talents to fight crime as the Green Arrow.

In Green Arrow: Year One (2007), a recent four part mini-series written by Andy Diggle, the origin is updated. Now the young millionaire actually takes archery lessons as a boy from legendary archer Howard Hill. Hill tells him that he is a "natural bowman --the best he'd ever seen." Oliver, a troubled a boy as he becomes as an adult, squanders the talent and most of everything else in his life. He becomes a thrill seeker, empty inside, looking to alcohol, cheap thrills, and women to fill up the spiritual hole in his gut. These attempts prove fruitless until he is stranded on that island. Using a bow and arrows made from the forgotten junk of a massacred village, Oliver survives for months as a hunter, and finds the existence eventually strangely peaceful and satisfying. Then he discovers the island is actually a multi-billion dollar heroin farm, complete with slave labor, run by the Queen of the Pacific Rim drug trade, Chien Na Wei (China White). Oliver must use his new skills to survive one of the most successful and ruthless criminals in the world. It is in the fire of this task that Green Arrow is forged.

History

Green Arrow began as a sort of Batman rip-off in the 1940s and 50s. He was Oliver Queen, millionaire playboy, and had an “Arrow-Cave” and “Arrow-Car” and a teen-aged sidekick named Speedy. During the Golden Age of Comics, Green Arrow and Speedy were members of the early superhero team, The Seven Soldiers of Victory.

Green Arrow became a member of the Justice League. He lost his money and went through many changes. During the 1970s he grew a beard and a mustache, and became romantically involved with Black Canary, a female Justice League member. He represented a rather liberal sensibility in the award winning run in the Green Lantern comic book series #s 76-89, then re-titled “Green Lantern/Green Arrow” where he and the Hal Jordan Green Lantern hit the road to “find America” and explore the American experience. This series, written by Denny O’Neil and illustrated by Neal Adams, was part of an attempt to make super-hero comics more “relevant” to the moral issues being struggled with in the country at the time. It even included a famous story where his old side-kick Speedy was hooked on heroin and he and Black Canary helped him beat his drug addiction. This was the first portrayal of drug addiction in the Super-Hero comic book medium, and ran without the Comics Code seal of approval.

Today Green Arrow’s sense of civic responsibility and modern relevance lives on in the current Green Arrow comic book, where Oliver Queen is the Mayor of Star City and his new Speedy is a young woman who has the HIV virus. Recently, Oliver Queen's funding of the Outsiders (DC Comics), a vigilante super-hero group, became a political scandal, and he had to resign as Mayor.

Roy Harper, the original Speedy character, has grown up to become the super-hero Arsenal. Recently, Roy changed his super-hero name to Red Arrow and has joined the Justice League in this new costumed identity.

In 2007, Green Arrow married Black Canary, and the couple now star as a team in their own on-going comic book series, Green Arrow/Black Canary (2007). Green Arrow and Black Canary now form the core of a superhero family, including Oliver’s son Connor Hawke, his ward Mia Deardon (the new Speedy), and Red Arrow, his original adopted son.

TV

Oliver Queen/The Green Arrow appeared in the series Smallville played by Justin Hartley. The Green Arrow was responsible for the formation of a team of superheroes implied but not implicitly stated to be the Justice League.