The secret mythology of Green Arrow’s new pet wolf is revealed—plus Oliver’s women troubles escalate as Tarantula bullies her way into his life, demanding his help in the battle against the skeletons.

I’m jumping right into the middle of an ongoing arc with Green Arrow –such is the case with comic books– so forgive me if I’m not up to speed on everything going on. One in my position can only afford so many comics a week –some weeks none at all– and I do like to keep things mixed up here for readers. Still, Green Arrow #44 does a fine enough job letting the story flow forward, while giving just enough to let new readers pick up on what’s going on. I chalk this up to solid scripting as even though an arc may be ongoing, there will always be a few people new to the series. It’s an old saying in the world of comic books, but every single comic book out there is somebody’s first comic book.

I am a huge Green Arrow fan going back to the Longbow Hunters and have followed the Arrow world as much as I could, although the New 52 reboot of the character was a bit hit or miss for me. With that being said, issue 44 of Green Arrow barely features our favorite emerald archer, instead putting the focus on his new pet wolf/dog. This may be a turn off to new readers, or those that don’t like their comics focusing on characters other than their namesakes, but this backstory we get for Mr. wolfy dog dog is pretty engaging.  Still, for a book called Green Arrow, I’m sure most people want Green Arrow.

This incredibly deep and disturbing back-story is all happening as Oliver is dealing with his own issues, unaware of the danger that his is in, or that surrounds him. We actually get a nice window into the personal world of Oliver as a relationship fizzles out because, as Oliver puts it, “Sooner or later, they all want the same thing…” The thing he is speaking of is his memories, his past, and all the things he can’t open up about. It’s all handled  very nicely and actually give some much-needed character depth to Oliver, however brief it is.

Where the story gets a little weird is in bark bark McDoggie’s back-story. We see the gruesome past that lead to his birth (immaculate conception?), which is really barbaric and animistic in nature, but the story itself gets a little off the rails about midway through the flashback. It flat-out lost me the second it went into the crazy mystical world when a bone axe and magic wolf blood went crazy for… Reasons. Looking back on it again –after multiple times already– as I write this I still find it hard to piece it all together. Something about some wolf blood being eternal and constantly being reborn, and a bone axe from some demon being tied to a wolf or something. There’s a really interesting story under there, but it just moves at such a breakneck pace that it lost me.

Still, the book was still a lot of fun, if a bit needlessly confusing there for a page or two. The introduction of Tarantula into the mix also felt a little out-of-place for a Green Arrow book. Look, I know spider (literally insert anything here) is really big right now, but I’m kind of over Spider-Man, Woman, Baby, Gwen, Pig, Turtle and whatever every other company is throwing out there to piggyback off that popularity. Still, at least Tarantula is all shades of brown, you know, like a spider, so she has that going for her. And for all the fun I’m poking at her and DC I really am interested to see how she fits into this book.

If you have been following this series then this book will be very important and comes highly recommend for what it does in terms of story development. If on the other hand you want to jump into Green Arrow, I’d suggest you wait till next week, or go back and pick up this arc from the beginning if you can because there is not an arrow to be seen here.

The writing is pretty solid ignoring that weird magic twist, and the artwork –aside from some questionable angles– is well detailed with panels flowing well, and for that Green Arrow #44 is a solid read -Not a great one, but a good read nonetheless.