Oh Oliver!

No, this is not about the musical Oliver. Which also had an exclamation point at the end, if my memory serves me. This is about the one and only Oliver Queen, aka the Green Arrow.

I haven't really talked that much about Ollie here, usually, I'm slobbering over Hal. But for the past couple of evenings, I've been reading the two Green Lantern/Green Arrow compilations so lovingly gathered by DC, with Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams. The art is mindbogglingly gorgeous of course. The writing was considered to be quite the thing at the time, with all of Denny O'Neil's over-the-top dialogue and the touching upon topics that were considered taboo at the time, such as drug use, and so on.

But...really, Ollie is pretty much a douchebag. And I LIKE Ollie! Most of the time.

Seriously, why Hal didn't just haul off and punch him right in the nose, I'll never know. Of course, there was a fair amount of fisticuffs between the two of them, but in practically every case, it is initiated by Oliver, not Hal.

My God, he's so...so full of himself! Ollie, not Hal. Although Hal does have a very healthy ego, at least he's not running around spouting off a bunch of half-baked lingo and gibberish. And poor Black Canary...stuck with the two of them!

Guy at his very WORST, when he was a brain-dead lout wasn't as bad as Ollie, when he had all of his brains, but apparently couldn't control himself. I consider myself reasonably liberal and moderate in my political leanings, but Geez Louise! Fatcats, Nazis,the downtrodden poor, hippies and evil cops...it's a bit much. But it's pretty hilarious, if you are in the proper frame of mind.

Ollie seems to have calmed down a bit as he matured. I will say, that Barry never did HALF of the stuff to Hal, that Ollie did. I can probably say with confidence, that Barry never once has called Hal a Nazi. Ollie used to do it with every other breath, or so it seemed.