This was a lot of fun to read. And while one definitely shouldn't consider these show canon, they are nice collection of bonus adventures.

 

The dialogue felt organic to the characters, and fully captured the show's wit and charm.

 

The artwork, for me, was kind of hit or miss. In some of the stories, the artwork was so...out of proportion, I guess, that none of the characters looked exactly right.

 

All-in-all, I'd definitely recommend this to fans of the show.

Ahhhh...this is fun.

That'd be The Flash: Season Zero, btw. The cover image doesn't exactly show that.

Last year I was searching for something new to watch and decided to search the internets for recommendations. I started hearing buzz about Arrow and decided to give it a try. I loved the pilot episode and decided to stick with it as the show searched a firmer footing. I have my favourite characters like Felicity Smoak who keep me interested even when the main plot flounders with the clichéd romantic plot.

 

Arrow Vol. 1 offers a collections of scenes from the editing room floor in a graphic novel form, which explains its episodic nature. There’s the quick recap almost beat for beat from the pilot, but after that show creators show glimpses of things that were only alluded in the show like Helena’s trip abroad and how China White got that white hair of hers.

 

I’ve never read the classic comics about Green Arrow or any other comic superhero. I might have glanced at an occasional graphic novel, but I was always more interested in the written word only—I’m trying to learn better now.

 

This is why Arrow Vol. 1 works for me. I’m reading it just to learn more about the world the show writers have created and its characters. Reading this I got to see what had happened to Diggle before he was discharged and on what kind of tightrope Moira was balancing on. I especially appreciated the absence of detailed island scenes. Those flashbacks are my least favourite part of the show.

 

Mostly I liked the graphics. The characters resembled—even if only distantly—the actors of the show and even the fight scenes had the familiar choreographic feel to them. The panels were clear and detailed if somewhat grainy on my ARC copy. One thing I didn’t like was the neverending quest for Diggle’s skin tone. David Ramsey who plays Oliver’s bodyguard John Diggle on the show is black, but I couldn’t have known that from looking at most of the panels. At first he was depicted like a barely tanned white person—in Afghanistan—then he was noticeably black on the plane and Russian scenes, but soon went back to lighter shade of brown. The changes in colour couldn’t even be explained by differences in ambient lighting and colouring. It was simply sloppy work.

 

I received an Advanced Readers Copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley.

Arrow is a CW's action-adventure tv series based on the Marvel character Green Arrow but rehashed much like Batman Begins. Marc Guggenheim wrote this companion graphic novel to complement the first 23 episodes of the tv series. If you haven't watch the full tv series, some of the content in this book can be spoilerish and out-of-place as it is intended to be a side story of sort that was omitted out of the television run.If you followed the tv series, it also was filled with a lot of backstory but most of it was focus on Oliver's 5-years time in the Purgatory island. The novel acts as an additional bridge to the events from the show and it add more to the existing character development especially from the side characters (Laurel, her father, Ollie's family, etc). The TV focus more on what Oliver does more than it does around the characters around him. This graphic novel show how Oliver and the people close to him was affected by the events that made him 'The Vigilante' which from the season two promo, he won't be using that name either.There were a lot of vital character's story that wasn't included inside this novel and most noted Malcolm Merlyn and his backstory and a lot of the main recurring cast like Felicity, Laurel herself, a lot of the villains. So I think they're saving it for the second season. By far, I enjoy the graphic novel immensely. If you're the original Green Arrow fan who don't want to watch the tv or you only heard about the show and went through this novel, you won't get much of it as its intended to be a companion and not a graphic novelization. There's not much a tv spoiler inside this graphic novel as most of the story revolve around The Dark Archer and the Undertaking so there's not much inside this comic would spoil that for you.The ARC is provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.