Green Arrow Had to Face His Own Inner Self Before He Could Travel Hard

CBR

By Brian Cronin

Published Sep 21, 2019

In their feature showing where characters are cleared out for new series, CSBG shows how Green Arrow was set up for his Hard Traveling Heroes era.

This is "In The Spotlight So Clear," a feature where we spotlight times in comics where characters need to be cleared out of the way to make room for a new status quo. Like, for instance, you want to introduce a new Captain Superhero, you might want to first get rid of the previous Captain Superhero. Stuff like that.

Today, we look at how Denny O'Neil prepared Green Arrow for the iconic "Hard Travelin' Heroes" era!

Awhile back, I wrote about June 1969's Brave and the Bold #85 (by Bob Haney and Neal Adams) that introduced an awesome new costume for Green Arrow...

In that same issue, Oliver Queen tried to figure out whether he was actually doing more good in the world as a financier than he was as a superhero...

At the end of the issue, a friend of his (who learned and then forgot Oliver's secret identity in the issue) convinced him to remain as a superhero...

Denny O'Neil was inspired by the new costume and so in Justice League of America #75 (art by Dick Dillin and Joe Giella), he decided to set up his then upcoming Green Lantern/Green Arrow team-up series (now affectionately known as the "Hard Travelin' Heroes" era) by having Green Arrow lose his fortune...

Oliver was so upset about this that he decided whether to be a superhero or not. He went to a psychologist who had a freaky new machine that had Oliver's inner self come to life...

This machine also affected Green Arrow's teammates, including their brand-new member (who joined that same issue), Black Canary.

When Green Arrow tries to take his inner self down, though, his inner self talks him down...

HARSH, right?

But then, of course, the people who just got ROBBED asked him to, you know, NOT LET THE GUY ROB THEM...

And so Green Arrow confronts his inner self and wins...

The attack also coincided with all of the other Leaguer's inner selves disappearing...

And Green Arrow was reinvigorated and reborn as a new man, embracing his new, penniless self (and, of course, further establishing a connection between him and Black Canary)

Good stuff that set up even MORE good stuff in the future.

Okay, so that's it for this installment of In the Spotlight So Clear! Feel free to suggest other examples to me at brianc@cbr.com!