The Green Arrow is a very old and storied superhero, but a lot of people think of him as just a Batman knock-off. Which is fair on some level, because at his initial introduction that’s all that he was. He shares the common origin of a lot of older heroes, that being a rich man who trained himself to stop crime after a tragic event in his life. However, the Emerald Archer has come a very long way since his introduction as a Batman alike, and found his very own niche. Amongst the cavalcade of DC’s billionaires and even trillionaires, Green Arrow may be the only truly ethical one.
Like said above, Green Arrow started his superhero career as a rich person who used his wealth to fund his fight against street and supervillain crime. However, his entire perspective on his money and the position of the rich changed when comics entered the Silver Age and Oliver lost his massive fortune. Upon seeing what it was like to be on the receiving end of the whims of the rich, Green Arrow dedicated himself to fighting against the unjust and unbalanced distribution of wealth. He declared himself a defender of the little guy, and worked to correct not just crime, but the system that allowed crime to prosper in the first place.
Ever since the original Green Lantern/Green Arrow series that saw this change to Oliver’s character, the need to fight social injustice stuck. It planted the seeds for Oliver to change completely from another hero fighting to keep people safe, to a man who was trying to change the world as much as save it. And he fought for that change in ways that resonated with people in our world, not just his own. Green Arrow fought to have Black Lightning admitted as the first black superhero in the Justice League. He called out Green Lantern for arresting a man who got into a fight with his corrupt landlord, who planned to demolish their under-repaired building and evict everyone to make a parking lot. And more than anything, he would call out how consolidation of wealth only made the rich more powerful, and how corrupt that made people.
Over the years his fight against social injustice has only grown more important to him. Green Arrow has come to represent the idea of standing up against corrupt systems to activist groups in the same way that important authors like Ursula K. Le Guin has. It’s no trouble to see why when you look at what he’s done.
Take a look at the current All In run of his comic, Green Arrow. Starting in issue #18, Oliver tackles a mysterious string of murders of people connected to Horton Chemical, a company Oliver himself once had ties to. But even while he investigates the murders, the most important aspect shown is the dangers of chemical companies to the environment. The opening image for the arc is a kid poking at a black goop, unaware barrels of most likely very toxic chemicals were buried under his school’s playground. And as for Oliver’s connection with the company, he specifically calls out its leaders for their dangerous and horrific practices that will get people killed. This is exactly the standard for Green Arrow, where he always stands up for problems that reflect social issues in our own world.
Of course, all this is not to say that Green Arrow is a perfect man, far from it. In fact, he is very importantly an imperfect man. The most famous of all his failings has to be when he discovered that his sidekick Speedy was addicted to heroin in Green Lantern/Green Arrow #85. While Oliver presented himself as a sanctimonious man who wanted to help the disenfranchised more than anything, upon discovering Speedy’s addiction he wanted nothing more to do with the boy he helped raise and cut all ties. However, it is his imperfections that make Green Arrow so important in his fight against injustice. In fact, the rest of All In arc mentioned above specifically deals with Green Arrow’s own compliance in the tragedy that Horton Chemical commits, and how he must stand up and make up for it, even if no one else will.
Green Arrow is a flawed man who fights against a corrupt, flawed system. He is not perfect, nor does he try to be or pretend to be. He faces trials and tribulations that echo our own world, and he does so to try and find a better way forward for everyone. He makes mistakes and he doesn’t always know the best way forward, but he always focuses on issues that impact everyday people and alleviates them the best he can. He may be a billionaire, and his money may have originally been gotten illfully, but he uses every last cent to support change so no one else can have that much influence and money when there are people struggling to get any. Batman has always been the man who wielded his wealth like a weapon, and uses it to fight his way to a better future. Green Arrow sees his wealth as a responsibility, as something to give to others and ensure their lives are better. It’s an important distinction, one that makes Oliver stand just a little taller as the better billionaire.
The DC Universe has no shortage of billionaires in its ranks, but Green Arrow stands as maybe the only ethical one out of all of them. Read More