Green Arrow/Black Canary: Enemies List

I confess to never being much of a Green Arrow fan. Frankly he's always impressed me as a bit of a pain-in-the-ass blowhard. Thus, my expectations for the "Enemies List" story arc were not very high. Andrew Kreisberg pleasantly surprised me with this story however, delivering a tale that is a very modern look at the relationships between superheroes. In fact, the main protagonist of the film takes a backseat to Arrow and Canary trying to figure out where their path together is taking them.Someone is killing off Green Arrow's enemies and leaving the bodies behind as trophies, or perhaps even tributes. Death Dealer, Vengeance, and Brick are already dead and when the sadistic Merlyn escapes prison, Arrow is none too subtle in demanding information from Vertigo, bordering on torturing the villain. This does not go over well with Canary who is growing more and more concerned with Ollie's methods which are straddling a fine line for a hero.As it turns out, Ollie has his own psychotic secret admirer...Cupid is out to prove her love for him even if she has to kill everyone in her path, including Black Canary. One of the best scenes in the book is Ollie and Dinah go to see a marriage counselor...in their costumes, which only serves to drive the therapist to exasperation. Meanwhile, Kreisberg also explores Canary's origins in flashback sequences where we see how her "Canary Cry" gravely injured a friend when it first manifested.The only real knock I have on "Enemies List" is that it is continued beyond the end of the book. To me, this is a cardinal sin for a Trade paperback collection. You need wrap the story up on somewhat of a conclusive note, even if there are still plotlines dangling out there.

New Green Arrow scribe, Andrew Kreisberg delivers a decent story in his first volume. Unfortunately, he moves too quickly to marital discord for my liking. It seems too easy. The introduction of Cupid was fantastic. I loved her and want to see more and because of how this was collected, I definitely will. Mike Norton did an excellent job on art. Overall, there is a lot to like here but some rough patches as well.

Kriesberg apparently came into wanting to erase much of the building of Green Arrows Rogues gallery so some random psycho with a few months training takes out several seasoned ,albeit B-list, villains?!?!?! The manner in which Brick was taken out was most offensive as he is killed with a wrecking ball...he can take a rocket which levels a multi story building, but yet a little blunt trauma kills him outright? My only solace is in knowing he(Kriesberg) is laready being replaced, and I hope JT Krul does a much better job.

I've been a huge Ollie Queen fan from the Grell era to the Winnick era. This volume is just bad. I've never seen a writer disregard continuity in this character so poorly. The first thing Kreisberg does is write off two the two strong supporting characters, Speedy and Connor Hawke. The interactions between Ollie and Connor were great for a father-son perspective on things. I understand Kreisberg wanting to put his own spin on the series, but to write off both of those characters in his first issue is a lame. Also, he kills off all of G.A.'s main enemies in this volume to replace them with other villains of his creation. These villains are boring and pathetic. Also, the reasoning behind killing off Merlyn made no sense. He was Ollie's opposite and equal in terms of ability. This made for great good vs. bad story telling, but now that's not here, instead we get a love obsessed psycho woman who wants to break up Ollie and Dinah and will anybody to do so. LAME!!!!!