Green Arrow has been a steady series for DC since the New 52 launched in 2011 — as of last year, issues of the series were averaging between 30 and 20,000 copies a month. But the promise of DC Rebirth‘s changes for Oliver Queen have apparently been met with surprising, rousing success.
Green Arrow: Rebirth #1, by Benjamin Percy, Juan Ferreyra and Otto Schmidt, was part of the first wave of DC’s Rebirth released last week, giving us our first look at what DC Comics wants to do with its books in the wake of the big reveals of DC Rebirth #1. Percy is not new to Oliver Queen, having written Green Arrow since its 41st issue last year, but Rebirth is heralding several popular moves with the emerald archer that may be responsible for its fantastic reception.
Not only is Ollie moving back to the social-issue driven warrior that defined popular takes on the hero in the ’60s and ’70s, rather than the techno-elite business leader/crimefighter he’s been in the New 52, he’s also working with the Black Canary again — something that DC seems to be heavily hinting at as a rekindling of their romantic relationship, a huge part of the characters’ lives from before DC’s 2011 reboot, and something that has not existed since then (in fact, the characters barely know each other).
Oh, and Ollie has his goatee back.
This all, seemingly, has been met with a blockbuster sales, according to Percy, who today took to Twitter to confirm that not only was Green Arrow: Rebirth #1 getting a second printing to cope with demand, but had sold north of 90,000 copies in the process:
@Masked_Demon As I understand it, we’re upward of 90,000 copies right now. Thank you, readers.
— Benjamin Percy (@Benjamin_Percy) June 1, 2016
Like we said up top, that’s around triple what your average issue of Green Arrow is selling lately. For comparison, the first issue of the New 52 reboot sold around 55,000 copies when it released in September 2011. We sadly don’t have much information about the success of DC’s Rebirth titles just yet to compare Green Arrow to, but given the relatively good response the initiative has received from fans and critics so far, it may not be the only DC comics series to get a big bump this month.
Comments
17 responses to “Green Arrow Might Be The Biggest Surprise Of DC’s Rebirth”
Is it possible to get some sort of look inside DC’s situation with their sudden success with Rebirth? I don’t say this with *ANY* negativity, as us DC fans who felt, to be honest, let down and abandoned by DC with their total lack of care for quality or consistency and then in one fell swoop seem to have rectified *everything*. Was this the plan all along in some daring gambit? Was it a fluke? Did Dr Manhattan affect OUR reality??? What’s going on when they’re suddenly matching Marvels quality output!!! DOGS AND CATS! LIVING TOGETHER! MASS HYSTERIA!!!!
I think its largely an issue with the fact that they had a lot of writers on projects that maybe they enjoy, but weren’t very apt at. Some of them were admittedly shit, but I think that they had a lot of strong writers being put on projects that weren’t their strong suit (can pretty much guarantee Didio is the cause of it and his stances towards positive character growth).
DC for a long time has just driven characters into the ground in a mad attempt to just make the story lines as bleak (and as a consequence overly cliché) as possible and that is all Didio’s fault.
Agreed, and great observations. It’s akin to what happens in life when you pursue any career, if it isn’t your passion it just won’t work as best it can. If a writer isn’t passionate about Batman, it shows. If they aren’t passionate about Superman, TRULY passionate, it *shows*. Case in point: Zack Snyder vs Max Landis. One a movie, one a comic true, but look at how Landis nails every aspect of Kal El in his re-envisioning but Snyder couldn’t get a single damn thing right?
And yet, your love for the character needs to be tempered with objective realism… otherwise you end up with Nick Cages Superman.
For my money I actually like the Snyder Superman… though BvS had big, big, huge, problems.If they’d gone over that script with a razor it would’ve been a better film.
And a better colour palette lol. I actually did like MoS a lot! I just didn’t like BvS. Something went drastically wrong from film to film…
There was just too much stuff.
They could’ve excised Lex almost completely and it would’ve been a better film.
There was no need for Doomsday either.
Just have Batman perceive Supes as a threat post MoS (the intro was great).
Wayne gets his hands on Kryptonite, gets a message to Superman saying “Be at this deserted island” Have the pair of them go at it.
Batman can yell at him about how someone in their line of work has an obligation to ensure there are no civilian casualties…
Wonder Woman shows up and beats them both back into their corners, explaining that the Oracle at Delphi (or something) has given her a vision of the future and they need to work together to defeat it.
Then have a few scenes where Diana mentions to Bruce that Lex has a photo that can reveal her identity… and we get to see them robbing Lex’s files to find out about Flash, Aquaman, Cyborg (who bloody knows why), & Martian Manhunter.
I mean, obviously it’ll need massaging a little, but it’s still more coherent than what we got.
You could still include the senate hearing, have Superman show up and state that he will take whatever measures necessary to protect humanity… that he can be seen as a symbol, standing for truth, justice, and the betterment of mankind.
I can’t wait until the dvd’s are out so people on the internet can start making their own cuts of it.
They tried to cram too much into BvS.
The Flash bit with Batman was unnecessary, as was that whole future nightmare scene with Batman. Not to mention they broke the cardinal rule of Batman never using guns!
Plus the other cameos such as Aquaman could’ve been after credits teasers.
The whole Batman/Superman rivalry was wrapped up far too quickly. “Oh, our mothers had the same name? You’re okay in my book!”
Also, I don’t know who Jesse Eisenberg was playing because it sure wasn’t Lex Luthor as advertised!
They came out afterwards and admitted that the movie we saw was not scripted as it was edited. That most movies of course end up re-edited slightly but that the order of film almost resembles the script in no clear way. Example: Luthor appears in the film around the 1/2 way point in the original script but now he’s in there from the getgo.
They also left out scenes of crucial exposition: Steppenwolf TELLING Luthor about Darkseid and the Newgods etc. Clark Kent actually *investigating* the Batman!
This was a poorly executed jumble of a mess of a movie from top to bottom with only a few great scenes (warehouse fight, some of the fight with batman and Superman) I felt. So yeah I agree totally.
Still a poor man’s Marvel. 😉
I don’t bias myself like that. Good DC and good Marvel offer completely different experiences. The problem has been though we haven’t seen good DC in a long, long, long time. Hopefully this is the start of DC returning to some really good stuff.
Awh. Was just stirring for no good reason and you totally didn’t rise to it. 🙁
*pats on head*
I’m not the angry guy on the internet I once was lol. Becoming a teacher tamed me a while back lol.
Seriously, people in real life commented recently after catching up with me for the first time in a while “You’ve chilled out so much!” O_O
Not sure whether to be happy or sad I spent so long being so uptight. lol.
Wasn’t there a bit of a redistribution of creative and management talent at DC?, or was that just confined to the film department?
I think it was essentially from the top down. I think someones seen that the fish rots from the head down and done something about it in a logical sense which is good to see. I won’t proclaim miracles, but it’s a good sign initially. Especially the fact they’re casting Superman in Supergirl season 2 and we’re finding out VERY soon who’s playing him!
I think that the 52 tried to be a creative shake-up but it was utterly misguided. Pre-52 had fallen in a rut, so they decided to flip things around in a series of rather artificial and soulless “what ifs”. “What if Superman not only lost his powers but also his cheerful, noble demeanour?” “What if Bruce Wayne lost his memory and rebuilt a happy life?” What if Gordon becomes Batman”? “What if most character relationships pre-52 were erased or changed?” etc.
Rebirth seems to have taken a good deep look at it and realised that the shakeup it needed to get out of the rut was not to mess everything around but to go back and find what originally made characters and arcs great and fun, and recapture it.
Has all the 52 canon has been reset with Rebirth and the events of the New 52 forgotten, or does something still continue on? What about Detective Comics and Action Comics?
The five core will role on as usual (detective, action, superman, batman and wander woman), that being said pleb Supes got nuked and now we got pre crisis Superman rolling in.