WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Green Arrow #38 by Benjamin Percy and Juan Ferreyra, on sale now.
Towards the end of DC's New 52 run, Green Arrow received a new creative team. While the Emerald Archer's final pair of arcs in that era had a rotating roster of artists, the writer stayed the same throughout: Benjamin Percy. Though he was only really on the book for the last two arcs of that era of DC continuity, he impressed the company enough to be one of the very few writers to stick around in the transition from New 52 to Rebirth in 2016.
With Rebirth, Percy decided to remake Ollie into a "social justice warrior," in his own words. It sounds like a very obvious thing to say -- after all, in their own way or another, all superheroes are Social Justice Warriors -- but Percy was determined to make Oliver walk the walk as best as he could. In the first issue alone, Black Canary dresses our titular hero down for fighting against The Man while also being a rich white dude that could do something with his fortune. Sure, he's hoping with the Queen's Hospital and homeless shelter, but he could do so much more, and it's clear that those words hit him where it counts.
So, of course, Percy has Ollie lose his fortune and get framed for murder by the second issue.
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Yeah, to say that Ollie's had a rough go of it lately at Percy's hands would be an understatement. But in making Ollie a wanted man, Percy has set up some great "SJW"-style stories for Green Arrow and his ragtag team to work through. Whether it was having the Emerald Archer deal with police brutality, socially conscious athletes, or the DAPL pipeline, Green Arrow wasn't afraid to get directly political in a way that other books weren't willing or able to try to. But for how politically charged this book is, it probably doesn't more political than when Oliver heads to Metropolis in the middle of the "Hard Traveling Hero" arc where, thanks to a computer virus, Lexcorp employees were having all their dirty laundry aired to the whole city.
While Green Arrow and Superman dealt with saving the employees who were so ridden with guilt that taking their lives was the only option, Lex Luthor set about reversing the virus to transmit messages of happiness. It's incredibly hokey, but effective, thanks to both Percy's writing and artist Juan Ferreyra's artwork.
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At its core, Green Arrow is about a privileged white man becoming woke. What makes that journey work is that Percy unashamedly dredges up the unsavory parts of both Oliver's personal history and the Queen family history. "Hard Traveling Hero" has Oliver spend an issue apiece with various members of the Justice League, and none of them are afraid to mention what kind of person that Oliver used to be. In fact, in meeting Wonder Woman, Oliver apologizes for hitting on her in the past after she wraps him up in the Lasso of Truth. Part of learning to grow into a good person is having to atone for old mistakes, and Ollie's done plenty of atoning across the last 38 issues. In his journey to become a better man, Ollie's constantly been forced to confront the rich playboy lifestyle that dominated his life before he was stuck on an island.
The confrontation between who Ollie was and how far he's come meet face to face in Green Arrow #38, Percy's final issue. Officially on trial for the (staged) murder of Wendy Poole way back in Issue #2, Oliver decides that the only way for Star City to see how he's changed is to represent himself in his own trial. Naturally, it's a gambit that pays off; Oliver is declared innocent and is once again a free man. And in his innocence, Percy closes out his final moments with this character to let him truly be the SJW that he's been setting Ollie up to be for two years now.
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With the money of Queen Industries now his, Ollie decides to form the Queen Foundation and make more tangible efforts to clean up Star City than by firing arrows into the shoulders of criminals. He forms a special relations grant for the city's police department so the officers will protect rather than enforce; recreates a Trans-Pacific Railway as a symbol of globalism; and forms a sanctuary for the homeless that provides affordable housing in the middle of the forest without harming the environment.
All of that is, depending on what corners of the internet one lurks, things that only SJWs would think to do. But as Percy has Oliver say in the penultimate page of his run, "Go ahead and call me a sanctimonious prick... I prefer the job description of Social Justice Warrior." After spending a total of 52 issues with the Emerald Archer, Percy has helped him earn that title in full, a more than a fitting way to end a consistently great run.
