Here is the latest in our year-long look at one cool comic (whether it be a self-contained work, an ongoing comic or a run on a long-running title that featured multiple creative teams on it over the years) a day (in no particular order whatsoever)! Here's the archive of the comics posted so far!

Today we look at Mike Grell's Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters...

Enjoy!

This is the mini-series that led to Grell's acclaimed Green Arrow ongoing series. It is particularly notable for five major things:

1. It took a more "realistic" approach to comic book aging and sexuality

2. It made the book a lot darker, with Oliver killing bad guys

3. It introduced Shado, a popular Green Arrow supporting character

4. It introduced Eddie Fyers, another popular Green Arrow supporting character

5. It has a very controversial scene where Dinah Lance (Black Canary) is tortured to the point where she can no longer use her sonic scream or have children

Let's examine these, as we look at pages from the series.

To the first, here's a nice sequence from where Ollie is complaining about getting old...

That is one of the more realistic character interactions you're going to see in a 1980s superhero comic book.

One of the over-arching plotlines of Longbow Hunter was Shado getting her revenge on the government operatives who, when they were in the military in World War II, had dishonored her family...

Shado was an interesting character.

Here is the controversial scene where Dinah's torture drives Ollie to become a killer (and thus becoming the "urban hunter" of the ongoing series)...

I'm not a fan of HOW Grell got there, but Ollie as an urban hunter certainly did have a lot of story potential.

The Shado plotline coincides with a plot involving the CIA and drug money.

Here we see Eddie Fyers in his first appearance, being badass as usual...

I cannot believe that no one has killed Eddie Fyers off yet. I'm pleased that they haven't, but I'm also surprised.

In any event, this was a good series with strong artwork, good characters and just one iffy moment (with the Dinah stuff).

The ongoing series might even be better than this first mini-series, but this story was nice and concise.