This is "Look Back," a brand-new feature that I plan to do for at least all of 2019 and possibly beyond that (and possibly forget about in a week, who knows?). The concept is that every week (I'll probably be skipping the four fifth weeks in the year, but maybe not) of a month, I will spotlight a single issue of a comic book that came out in the past and talk about that issue in terms of a larger scale (like the series overall, etc.). Each week will be a look at a comic book from a different year that came out the same month X amount of years ago. The first week of the month looks at a book that came out this month ten years ago. The second week looks at a book that came out this month 25 years ago. The third week looks at a book that came out this month 50 years ago. The fourth week looks at a book that came out this month 75 years ago.

Today, we look at the debut of Neal Adams' classic Green Arrow re-design in June 1969's Brave and the Bold #85 (by Bob Haney and Adams).

Green Arrow had one of the more unusual appearance history in the DC Universe. You see, after debuting in 1941's More Fun Comics #73...

Green Arrow somehow managed to maintain a regular feature for over TWO DECADES! Almost the entire DC Universe lost their own features during that period, but outside of the "Trinity" of Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman, only a rare handful of superheros could lay claim to having debuted in the 1940s and still had a feature in the 1960s. Aquaman and Green Arrow were two of the very few examples.

Green Arrow's luck finally ran out on him in 1964, as he lost his last feature in World's Finest Comics #145...

Luckily for Green Arrow, he wasn't going to comic book limbo, as he had joined the Justice League of America a few years earlier (the first new addition to the team - it was actually quite odd he wasn't chosen as a team member from the start)...

However, while he still appeared regularly as a Justice Leaguer, there wasn't a whole lot to do with the character, making him perfect for a revamp. Neal Adams then gave him a new costume in Brave and the Bold #85.

HOW AWESOME IS THAT COVER?

The story is an unusual one, as most Haney tales are.

A Senator is shot and Bruce Wayne is appointed as his interim replacement, right in time for an important crime bill to come up for a vote...

Meanwhile, despite designing a new costume and growing out his goatee, Oliver Queen is beginning to believe he can do more good as a real estate developer (protecting the world from the unscrupulous other real estate developers) than he could as a superhero...

Bruce, meanwhile, is balancing the good he can do as a Senator with the downside of Gotham City being without Batman. Hilariously, both Bruce and Oliver decide to confide in the son of the shot Senator to get his advice...

In the end, the heroes help save the day and stop a crooked developer (while also getting the crime bill passed)...

Oliver realizes that his work as Green Arrow was just as valuable as anything else and he decides to remain Green Arrow. Bruce, of course, resigns once the crime bill was passed....

I love the "I will hypnotize myself to forget their identities." Dude, they didn't even ask you to do that!!

Denny O'Neil was inspired by the new redesign by Adams to revamp Green Arrow even further, leading to the Hard Traveling Heroes era...

If you have any suggestions for June (or any other later months) 2009, 1994, 1969 and 1944 comic books for me to spotlight, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com! Here is the guide, though, for the cover dates of books so that you can make suggestions for books that actually came out in the correct month. Generally speaking, the traditional amount of time between the cover date and the release date of a comic book throughout most of comic history has been two months (it was three months at times, but not during the times we're discussing here). So the comic books will have a cover date that is two months ahead of the actual release date (so August for a book that came out in June). Obviously, it is easier to tell when a book from 10 years ago was released, since there was internet coverage of books back then.