Green Arrow: The Archer's Quest



Event Name: The Archer's Quest Alternate Names: No known alternate names

Synopsis
Event Locations: Star City, California First Appearance: Green Arrow (Volume 3) #16 Cast of Characters: Green Arrow (Oliver Queen); Arsenal (Roy Harper); Black Canary (Dinah Laurel Lance); Catman; Shade (Richard Swift); Solomon Grundy

Synopsis: "Archer's Quest" was a six-issue story-arc published from 2002-03 in issues #16-21 of Green Arrow (Volume 3). All six issues were subsequently reprinted in both hardcover and trade paperback editions. The storyline centered around Oliver Queen and his journey to locate various memorabelia that he had acquired over the years. Along the way, the reader discovers a stark revelation concerning Green Arrow and his son, Connor Hawke. The story was written by Brad Meltzer and featured artwork by Phil Hester and Ande Parks.

History
Green Arrow and Superman are visiting GA's gravestone. Ollie asks Clark who had attended his funeral. Clark shows him a series of photographs detailing people in attendance, but there is one face that he doesn't recognize.

Later, he uses one of Dinah's communicator earrings to contact Oracle. He sends her a scan of the photograph and asks her to ID the mysterious figure. Oracle comes back and tells him that man in the photo is Thomas Blake, the Catman. Now Ollie wants to know why a third-rate Batman villain was seen attending his funeral.

He calls up his old sidekick Arsenal and the two track Catman down. They find that he is now in the witness relocation program for turning evidence against the villain Monsieur Mallah. Ollie and Roy sink two arrows through Catman's bathrobe and interrogate him as to why he was seen at Ollie's funeral. Just then, the villain known as the Shade arrives.

The Shade appears before Green Arrow and Arsenal in the house of Catman. It is revealed that Ollie made a deal with the Shade shortly before he died. The deal was: Should Ollie ever be killed, the Shade would take responsibility for tracking down all of his personal affects and have them destroyed, that way future enemies couldn't use them against his loved ones. Roy is upset that Ollie chose someone like the Shade for such a job over him. Ollie explains that he chose the Shade because he is immortal and will live longer than anyone else. But there were a few mementos that the Shade was unable to procure, so now Ollie feels that must track the remainder of it down.

Arsenal and he make their first stop at the Arrowcave, beneath the ruins of not-quite-so-stately Queen manor. The two walk down memory lane as they survey the leftovers in the cave such as the Arrowcar. But the cave isn't totally unoccupied. They find that someone has been squatting in it for some time now – and that someone is Solomon Grundy!

Green Arrow and Arsenal waste no time in attacking Solomon Grundy. Immediately they begins sinking arrows into him, knowing that they will have little effect on him. Grundy swipes Arsenal down knocking him out cold.

Green Arrow dances around, slinging arrows trying to stay out of Grundy's reach. Grundy picks up the old dusty Arrowcar and throws it at Ollie who barely manages to dive out of the way. Grundy gets off a lucky punch, but fortunately, Ollie rolls with it so that it does minimum damage. On the downside however, GA's bow is snapped in half. Ollie scrambles up two arrows and drives them into Grundy's feet. He then takes the broken bow string and wraps it around his throat. He strangles Grundy to the point that he starts bleeding sap and passes out.

Arsenal revives soon after, and after everything is said and done, Ollie retrieves what he came to find: an old plaque acknowledging his membership in the Justice League Of America.

Green Arrow breaks into a Kord Industries warehouse to use an old Justice League transporter tube to take him to the watchtower. Upon arriving, he tells Kyle that he has some things to discuss with Martian Manhunter, but in truth, he has only come to collect the remainder of his old trick arrows. One of the arrows is a diamond-tipped arrow, which he intends on giving to Dinah as an engagement ring.

He later goes to the Flash Museum to recover a memento that Barry Allen had given to him years ago. But Wally arrives and bars GA's entrance into the museum. Ollie refuses to tell him why is there. While Wally is distracted with Ollie, Arsenal sneaks into the back of the museum and takes the item in question – a costume ring with a personalized inscription on it.

Ollie and Roy are driving back from their various undertakings in a convertible. They stop at a restaurant to grab something to eat and encounter (of all people) Catman again. The two prevent Catman from roughing up a girlfriend of his when from out of nowhere, Warp appears, snags Catman and takes him back to Monsieur Mallah where he will be presumably killed.

Their next stop is an abandoned Ferris aircraft hanger near Coast City. They find the rusted old truck that Hal and Ollie used to travel around in during their Hard Traveling Heroes stint. Inside the truck is a Green Lantern ring. Ollie pockets the ring and neglects to say anything to Roy about it.

Ollie rents the entire restaurant at the Seattle Space Needle. He brings Black Canary there for a surprise dinner date. Seattle is where they both used to live prior to their breakup. Rather than having dinner served to them however, Ollie brings along two thermoses of homemade chili. He is prepared to propose to Dinah but loses his nerve at the last moment.

After the date, he stops in to visit Roy and then Connor who is still recovering from a recent bullet wound. He sees that Connor is perusing a scrapbook of various adventures that Roy had built over the years.

Later, he goes down into the basement and cracks open the frame of the plaque he recovered from the Arrowcave. Inside is a photograph of Ollie holding Connor as an infant. He places it as well as the other personal affects he had collected into a time capsule inside of a secret vault. He addresses the box to Roy with instructions to open in the event of his death.

Trivia

 * None

Recommended Readings

 * Green Arrow (Volume 3) #16
 * Green Arrow (Volume 3) #17
 * Green Arrow (Volume 3) #18
 * Green Arrow (Volume 3) #19
 * Green Arrow (Volume 3) #20
 * Green Arrow (Volume 3) #21
 * Green Arrow: Archer's Quest

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 * Green Arrow (Oliver Queen) appearances list
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