I was just harshing on Green Arrow's itching powder issue yesterday, but I'm pretty sure in this case 'itching powder' is at the very least a misnomer, and probably an euphemism, like 'friendly fire' or 'nuclear deterrent.' 'Instant sunburn'? What would cause this? Why haven't human rights groups stopped him from using it on suspects without due process?
Actually, in Green Arrow's back-up feature in Detective Comics, seventeen different civil rights organizations, including PETA, the ACLU, and Hydra, petitioned GA to stop using the so-called itching powder arrow. Several lawsuits were brought against him, claiming the arrow used everything from 'deweaponized anthrax' to the 'blood of the innocents.' A notorious left-winger now faced with hundreds of protesters that he used to march with, Arrow freaked out, did a 180, and became a hard-line conservative.
By loudly trumpeting his emergence into the light of right-thinking, and still playing up his vigilante tough-on-crime image; Oliver Queen only obstacle for the Republican nomination for Mayor of Star City was downplaying his past in a Buddhist monastery to the religious right. He was easily able to win the election, but faced an uphill battle his first term when Queen was 'outed' as having an illegitimate son, a young 'ward' who had become addicted to heroin, and a questionable relationship with a young prostitute.
And that's both why you don't see the itching powder arrow anymore, and how Green Arrow became mayor of Star City...
Yeah, OK, that probably didn't happen. If you have a better explanation, let me know, I haven't been reading Green Arrow regularly since issue 40-something.
Today's panel was from Justice League of America #75 (1969), "In Each Man there is a Demon!" Not guest-starring the Demon, sadly; but written by Denny O'Neil, art by Dick Dillin and Joe Giella. So...itchy...
1 comment:
Green Arrow became Mayor because he told all the other candidates that if they won, they'd have to be written by Judd Winick.
1.7 seconds later, he was running unopposed. Jade tried to throw her hat into the ring, as even being poorly written is better than being dead, but even New Earth won't allow dead people to hold public office.
Just people that came back from the dead.
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